[Bloomberg] Nicholas Johnston - Senator Joseph Lieberman said President Barack Obama's administration is off to a "very good start" and praised his address to the Muslim world while criticizing the administration's call to freeze all Israeli settlements as "risky." Obama's speech in Cairo "opened up some minds in the Muslim world," Lieberman said, even as he disagreed with the president's assertion that the construction of Israeli settlements on the West Bank is a central obstacle to peace. "The Israelis can freeze settlements altogether today and there wouldn't be peace between Israel and the Palestinians," Lieberman said. "Why? Because half of the Palestinians live under the rule of Hamas, which is a terrorist group that wants to destroy Israel." Lieberman said Obama's speech went too far in opposing Israel's "natural growth" in housing projects. "Within the existing major population centers" in areas that would stay in Israel in any two-state solution, "it's just wrong to expect them not to expand," he said.
2009-06-15 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive