Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, last night publicly rebuked President Barack Obama and his decision to impose new borders between Israel and the Palestinians. It has been rare for Reid to so publicly reject the President.
“No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building, or about anything else,” he declared in reference to Obama’s May 19 speech. He gave his remarks at the national meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). They rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation.
Reid suggested President Obama was wrong to give speeches about private peace negotiations. If you’re serious about peace it should be at the negotiating table, the Nevada senator said “The place where negotiating will happen must be at the negotiating table – and nowhere else,” he said “Those negotiations . will not happen – and their terms will not be set – through speeches, or in the streets, or in the media.”
Former Senator George Mitchell, President Obama’s chief representative to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, resigned just days before the president delivered his speech.
The president, in Europe for a G-8 meeting, is likely to hear more about his poorly received speech. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress today.
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