THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Arab world have been tarnished after it emerged that he reneged on an important Bush administration pledge to the Palestinian leadership.Confidential Palestinian documents leaked to Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based television network, suggest that Mr Obama retreated from a promise that territory occupied by Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 should become the basis for a future Palestinian state.
The documents, part of a second tranche of the “Palestine Papers” released by Al Jazeera on Monday evening, indicate that Mr Obama’s change of heart was the result of Israeli pressure.
That fact alone is likely to damage Mr Obama’s carefully-cultivated image as a friend of the Arab world.
According to the papers, Condoleezza Rice, President George W Bush’s secretary of state, explicitly endorsed the use of 1967 borders as a basis for future negotiations on dividing territory in the months after the Annapolis peace conference in 2007.
The gesture was a hugely significant one for the Palestinians as it acknowledged the broad outlines of the state they craved. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Ramallah | Tuesday, January 25, 2011
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Deep frustrations with Obama: Obama pressured PA negotiators to restart talks and refused to honour one of the Bush administration's key promises. >>> Gregg Carlstrom Monday, January 24, 2011
