Earlier this week, President Obama met with a number of prominent Jewish leaders to discuss the Israel-Palestine issue and to ask “to give him time to try his tactics for a Middle East peace.” The Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, one leader who attended, described his experience on a Jerusalem Post blog, saying that Obama gave some “grounds for reassurance” that he is handling the situation properly. But Foxman soon ran through a series of grievances with Obama’s policy, including his “outreach to the Muslim world…at Israel’s expense.” Shockingly, he then veered into his biggest complaint — that the Obama administration might actually achieve peace:
Still, I continue to sense that the administration is putting too much weight on solving the conflict. We all want to see progress and I have no problem with the administration view that the US must be much more engaged to achieve progress. But I am concerned when expectations rise dramatically, as when the president says that he expects the problem to be resolved in two years.
Foxman has previously criticized Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell for being too “meticulously even-handed” and “fair” in his approach to the conflict.
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