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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html
Rift Exposes Split in Views on Mideast
(New York Times) Ethan Bronner - The current discord in American-Israeli relations, ostensibly over Jerusalem housing, is really over the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as over differing perceptions of the Palestinians' capacity for self-rule. Two main issues are keeping tensions on the front burner: disagreement on the effects of what happens in Jerusalem on the rest of the Middle East, and the strength of the Palestinian leadership. The Obama administration considers establishing a Palestinian state central to other regional goals; it also believes that the Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, are ready to run a country. The Netanyahu government disagrees on both counts. It thinks the issue of Palestinian statehood has little effect on broader American concerns and is also dubious about the ability of the Palestinians to create an entity that can resist a radical takeover. "To think that what happens here has a major impact on the state of affairs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq is, in my view, quite far from accurate," said Sallai Meridor, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. Many Israeli leaders argue that the timetable the Obama administration posits to begin establishment of a Palestinian state - two years - is illusory because Hamas remains a threat. "One needs to see what has taken place here during the past 17 years," Moshe Yaalon, a top government minister, said in an interview last week in an Israeli newspaper. "The belief of land for peace has failed. We got land in return for terror in Judea and Samaria and land in return for rockets in Gaza. What, the Americans don't see this?"