The White House on Tuesday said Mitt Romney's vow to put off efforts to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians if he is elected president showed a lack of leadership. President Barack Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said that conceding defeat in the peace process was simply not in US interests, when asked about the Republican nominee's comments in a secretly filmed event with rich donors.
"It is simply the wrong approach to say, we can't do anything about it, so we'll just kick it down the field. That's not leadership. That's the opposite of leadership." Carney noted that Obama's immediate predecessors, Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush also had believed it was in US interests to become embroiled in the treacherous search for Middle East peace.
"A negotiated peace that provides security for Israel and a state for the Palestinians - is in the interests of the Israelis and the Palestinians and is in the interests of the United States of America," he said. "This president will continue to pursue it." Obama's quest to forge progress stalled over the issue of Jewish settlements being built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state, and on deep mistrust between the parties.
But many analysts expect the president to make another effort to reinvigorate peace talks should he win re-election in November. A leaked video revealed Tuesday that Romney was asked at a private fundraiser in May if the "Palestinian problem" can be solved and replied that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace." "You move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognise that this is going to remain an unsolved problem - and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it," he said.
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