These Are The Guilty

The Washington Post points the finger:

President Obama's close friends and key advisers have helped him shape the toughest line against the continued expansion of Israeli settlements since the administration of President Jimmy Carter...

...supporters of Israel whose tough views on the need to stop settlements mirror his current public position. Abner Mikva, an Obama mentor and former law professor, was one of them. "There has to be realistic talks about how the two states will get along together," Mikva said, describing Obama's thinking on the subject of Middle East peace before being elected to the U.S. Senate. "You can't do that if one state, as you're talking, is picking up more land."

...One of the president's close friends in Chicago, the late Rabbi Arnold Wolf, wrote last year of his disappointment that Obama had often publicly softened his private positions. "For my part, I've sometimes found Obama too cautious on Israel," said Wolf, who in 1973 co-founded an organization that advocated creating a Palestinian state [Breira and this: In the 1940s, Rabbi Wolf served as the American representative to Brit Shalom, joining other renowned Jewish leaders including Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, and Henrietta Szold in calling for "Jewish-Arab cooperation, as both necessary and possible." In 1949, he was instrumental in founding Israel's Givat Haviva Educational Institute, created to educate for peace, democracy, coexistence and social solidarity.].

...White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel worked in the Clinton White House when Netanyahu reneged on an understanding to stop the growth of settlements. As a member of Congress, Emanuel was one of only two Jewish lawmakers to co-sponsor a resolution supporting a peace plan that would have abandoned to the Palestinians one of the West Bank's largest settlements -- Ariel, with about 40,000 settlers.

...in 2008, James L. Jones -- now Obama's national security adviser -- examined the security issues involved in creating a Palestinian state. The Israeli media reported that he drafted a report, never released by the Bush administration, that was highly critical of Israel's policies in the West Bank.

Politically, there is little danger for the president in confronting Israel, especially if it leads to a peace deal. Polls suggest that settlements hold little appeal to many American Jews and have rapidly decreasing support in Congress.

"They made a political calculation that this is something they could sell on Capitol Hill," said Samuel Lewis, former U.S. ambassador to Israel. "It will divide the Israelis and put Netanyahu on the defensive."...