Chris Marsden
WSWS.org
President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a man who “wants peace” and is “willing to take risks for peace.”
He did so following a White House meeting five weeks after the May 31 raid on the Mavi Marmara Gaza aid convoy, in which Israeli forces murdered eight Turkish activists and a dual Turkish-US national. The White House meeting was also on the eve of another round of Israeli settlement expansion on the West Bank.
On the day of the meeting, a report by the human rights group B’Tselem said that Jewish settlements with 300,000 people now control more than 42 percent of all land in the West Bank, including 21 percent of all privately owned Palestinian land.
In March, Obama had made a point of refusing to hold a press conference with Netanyahu after Israel announced the building of 1,600 more Jewish homes while Vice President Joseph Biden was visiting Jerusalem. A “partial freeze” on further building runs out in September, and Israel has made clear it intends further construction.
Netanyahu has also refused to extend an apology to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara raid, and has rejected any international inquiry. With Washington’s support, Israel is holding its own inquiry, headed by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice. The Israeli investigative committee does not even rise to the level of a state commission of inquiry.
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