Hillary Clinton accused Israel of lack of generosity and empathy in their dealings with the "oppressed" Palestinians.
Hillary made the comments at the 2012 Saban Forum on U.S.-Israel Relations.
Via C-SPAN:
From the State Department website:
And I will also say this. When Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to a 10-month settlement freeze I flew to Jerusalem. We???d been working on this. George Mitchell had been taking the lead on it. And when Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to a 10-month settlement freeze, it wasn???t perfect. It didn???t cover East Jerusalem, but it covered much of the contested area in the West Bank.
And I stood on a stage with him at 11 o???clock ??? Israelis always meet late at night, I don???t understand it ??? (laughter) ??? but 11 o???clock at night, midnight, and I said it was unprecedented for any Israeli prime minister to have done that. I got so criticized. I got criticized from the right, the left, the center, Israeli, Jewish, Arab, Christian, you name it. Everybody criticized me. But the fact was it was a 10-month settlement freeze. And he was good to his word. And we couldn???t get the Palestinians into the conversation until the tenth month.
So, look, I???m not making excuses for the missed opportunities of the Israelis, or the lack of generosity, the lack of empathy that I think goes hand-in-hand with the suspicion. So, yes, there is more that the Israelis need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of an oppressed people in their minds, and they want to figure out, within the bounds of security and a Jewish democratic state, what can be accomplished.
And I think that, unfortunately, there are more and more Israelis and Palestinians who just reject that idea out of hand: Why bother? Why try? We???ll never be able to reach an agreement with the other. But in the last 20 years, I???ve seen Israeli leaders make an honest, good-faith effort and not be reciprocated in the way that was needed.
