Clinton's Mideast Pretzel

Ben Smith
Politico
02 November 09

Hillary Clinton's voice has not been heard all that often in the Mideast peace process, but she has provoked crises with almost every word.

Administration officials hold Clinton largely responsible for entrenching an unsuccessful focus on settlements in thesprint, when she -- responding to a question -- insisted on a complete "freeze" of Israeli settlement activity, including "natural growth," turning what had been a U.S. negotiating position into a public principle, and putting Palestinian leaders in a difficult position when the U.S. reached a compromise with the Israelis on a partial freeze.

This weekend, she tacked in the opposite direction, lavishing far more praise on Israel than other administration officials while, as Laura Rozen writes, she stood "next to a beaming and self-confident Israeli Prime Minister."

She then walked it back, Rozen reports, reading from a prepared text:

Speaking at a luncheon meeting with Morocco's foreign minister in Marrakesh today, where Clinton is attending a conference of Arab foreign ministers, Clinton tried to clarify her previous remarks on the Obama administration's position on Israeli settlments.

"Israel has done a few things but needs to do much more," Clinton said, adding that the Obama administration's position is that it does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlment activity. But she also said Israel has put some limitations on itself, which if acted upon would be "unprecedented."

To keep this straight: Clinton leaned harder on Israel than the administration intended, infuriating the Israelis while putting the Palestinians far out on a limb. Then she sawed off the limb.

The early questions about her role in Middle East politics -- would she be as hawkishly pro-Israel as she was in the Senate -- haven't really been answered, and her actual views remain unclear. But in this most delicate, closely parsed of diplomatic arenas, her inexperience as a diplomat, and her tendency toward incautious statements (disguised by a campaign image of "competence") has really turned into a liability for the administration.

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