Obama raps Israel on fresh settlements, says not helping peace

New York Times

Posted: Wed Nov 10 2010, 04:36 hrs

Jakarta:
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President Barack Obama, stepping into an Israeli-Palestinian dispute during a homecoming visit to the world’s largest Muslim majority nation, criticised Israel on Tuesday for its decision to advance the approval of some 1,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem during a sensitive time in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

“This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations, and I’m concerned that we’re not seeing each side make the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough,” Obama said during a joint news conference here with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The office of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement defending the building plans. “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is the capital of the state of Israel,” it read.

Obama arrived here Tuesday afternoon from New Delhi on a long-awaited visit that is being cut a few hours short so the President can avoid a cloud of volcanic ash from the eruptions of Mount Merapi that is headed toward Jakarta.

Indonesia, where Obama lived between the ages of 6 and 10 with his mother and step-father, is the second country Obama is visiting on a 10-day, Asian tour. Obama has twice cancelled visits at the last minute. He planned to visit a mosque and deliver a formal address on Wednesday; the speech is still on, officials said, but the mosque visit appears up in the air.

While Obama received a hometown hero’s welcome — even the Indonesian press corps clapped and cheered when Air Force One touched down — he said he was here “to focus not on the past but on the future.”

Obama is making outreach to the Muslim world a major theme of his brief visit to Indonesia. He closed his remarks at Tuesday’s news meet with the Muslim salute “salaam aleikum,” and said he intended to reshape US relations with Muslim nations so they were not “focused solely on security issues” but rather on expanded cooperation.

On Tuesday, the President spoke of how the country has changed since he first arrived in 1967. “It’s a little disorienting,” he said, noting that then, there was one tall building in downtown Jakarta — a building that has now been eclipsed by many modern skyscrapers.SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
(source:indian express)
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