U.S. State Department Opposite Israel on Palestinian Statehood

The U.S. state department seeks to differentiate from right wing comments made by Israeli leadership on the likelihood of a Palestinian state. The Obama Administration is demonstrating an opposition to the new Israeli leadership.

The United States State Department sought on Thursday to differentiate from the more hard line positions expressed by the new Israeli leadership on the question of establishing a Palestinian state. In what appears to clearly be a line-in-the-sand posture, the U.S. is determined to push the sovereignty issue - against the stated interests of the more conservative Israeli government. "We're going to be working hard to see what we can do to move the process forward. But we're under no illusions. It's not going to be easy," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood, according to The Associated Press. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's new nationalist foreign minister caused significant upheaval and tension on Wednesday when he insisted that Israel was not bound by any arrangements establishing a Palestinian state. Mr. Lieberman stated that the U.S.-supported Annapolis declaration of 2007 was without validity. "It has no validity," he said in a report in The Telegraph. "The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did parliament." The hard line Israeli position fully reflects the more nationalistic perspective endorsed and approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George Mitchell, is scheduled to visit the region in the coming future. "We're going to pursue that two-state solution, because we believe it's in the best interests of all the parties in the region," AP quoted Wood as saying.