4/6/09

Banana Republic, take 2


It seems Gilad Erdan, Israel's Environmental Protection Minister, has been reading the RRRR blog. I met this Jew when he came to Teaneck for Shabbos last winter - he certainly seemed to have his heart in the right place.

"Israel does not take orders from [US President Barack] Obama," Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) said on Monday, responding to an earlier statement by the US president in which he reaffirmed his administration's commitment to all previous understandings between Israel and the Palestinians, including the process launched at Annapolis in 2007.

Erdan, who is also in charge of coordinating between the Knesset and the cabinet, also praised Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who only last week said that Israel was not bound by the Annapolis talks.

"Let me be clear," Obama had said, "the United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. That is a goal shared by Palestinians, Israelis, and people of good will around the world. That is a goal that the parties agreed to in the road map and at Annapolis. And that is a goal that I will actively pursue as president."

"In voting for [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu the citizens of Israel have decided that they will not become the US's fifty first state," said Erdan, who was representing the coalition in a Knesset deliberation of Lieberman's controversial statements. He added, however, that "Obama is a friend of Israel and the United States is an important ally and everything between us will be the result of communication."

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