For those in Britain or with access to BBC TV...don't know whether or not you can get replays on the internet if you're outside the UK but worth a try...the BBC journalist Andrew Marr interviewed Obama on his programme "The Andrew Marr Show" on BBC1 this morning. It's well worth watching, as is the discussion that followed. (And how nice to feel uninhibited about getting involved in matters of the world.)
What came across most strongly to me was that Israel would be much better off in the ong term if they did deal peaceably with the Palestinians, but the general feeling expressed was that Netanyahu was most unlikely to give any ground at all, and that there are so many pro-Israeli politicians in the US that Obama had a real uphill battle before him in trying to persuade Netanyahu to look at things from a broader perspective.
My own view? I think that the way Israel was created was very hard indeed on the Palestinians who had their farms etc and had lived in their communities, with their extended families, for generations, always thinking they were in their own land of Palestine and then were basically told sorry, tough, we are giving your land to make the new country of Israel. Tough. Not good. And I say that with every sympathy for the Jewish people who had suffered so much and been displaced for so long.
I don't know what the answer is but I'm quite sure that the one that was found was not ideal, and that no long term solution to the Middle East problem will be found until a more equable solution is reached, one that embraces the rights of and gives dignity to all the many peoples of the area. The wealth and militaristic stance of israel don't help.
Just my view.
