So, Is Someone Lying?

Reported:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says there have never been any informal agreements between Washington and Israel allowing West Bank settlement growth. Speaking Friday in Washington...Clinton forcefully denied claims by Israeli leaders they had an understanding with the Bush administration that Jewish expansion in the occupied West Bank was permitted in certain instances under the "road map" for peace..."We have the negotiating record, that is the official record, that was turned over to the Obama administration by the outgoing Bush administration," Clinton said. "There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements."

Oh, oh. Is someone lying?

We will be hearing something like:

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: we did not have any understandings with that country, Israel or any of its administrations. And I never told any State Department official to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. (*)

To remind you, at the official Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs site, fifth paragraph up from the end of Bush's letter:

Then-President George W. Bush wrote former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.”

If you check Ambassador Michael Oren's book, "Six Days of War", page 105, you'll read that although Israel claimed, under the 1950 Tripartite Agreement, that they deserved to be defended now that the Suez Canal was shut to them and the Straits of Tiran were blockaded:

"White House and State Department archives were frantically searched for the text of the pledges Dulles made to Golda, as well as other U.S. commitments to Israel' few were readily found"

Will Hillary please order another check?



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(*)

The original, in case you forgot:

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false.