Finally, Some Smart Talk From Smart Power
Madame Secretary evidently couldn’t tell East Jerusalem from East Jesus—and very likely doesn’t care:
The incompetence of American diplomacy reached a new nadir yesterday in an incident vershadowed by the elections in the US. Hillary Clinton told Al-Jazeera in an interview that the US wants to see an Israeli capital in East Jerusalem. Apparently, the chief diplomat of the United States and the woman who ran on her experience in foreign affairs did not remember that East Jerusalem is primarily Palestinian:
Egypt and other Arab nations reacted with strong concern to remarks Clinton made in Jerusalem on Saturday. She caused a stir when she said with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at her side that his government’s offer to restrain — but not stop — settlement activity in Palestinian areas was unprecedented.
And in a new twist Tuesday, Clinton made what appeared to be an inadvertent slip of the tongue in a television interview with the al-Jazeera network, referring to the goal of “an Israeli capital in east Jerusalem.”
…
Two Clinton aides monitoring the interview alerted her to the mistake and that portion of the interview was retaped so she could correct herself.
In other words, she pressed the re-set button.
If it indeed were American policy to recognize the Israeli capital in East Jerusalem, I would be the first to praise the morality and courage of such a decision. But no, they just hit the re-wind button, and erased history.
What a bunch of rank amateurs.