Jordanian politicians and media leaders yesterday welcomed US President Barack Obama’s strong support for the two-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but cast doubt on the extent of pressure he could be ready to put on the Israeli right-wing government, given the influence of the Jewish lobby in the United States.
“We are optimistic, but we should not go too far in this optimism,” Mahmoud Mhaidat, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at the Jordanian lower house of Parliament, told Arab News.
He was commenting on the outcome of what Jordanian media labeled as “landmark meeting” between Obama and Jordan’s King Abdallah at the White House on Tuesday.
The monarch, who was the first Arab leader to meet Obama after he became US president, carried with him a pan-Arab attitude as adopted by the regular Arab summit conference in Doha at the end of March.
Six Arab foreign ministers and the Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who met in Amman last week, reportedly provided Abdallah with an authorization to speak on behalf of all Arab states during his meeting with Obama.
“I am a strong supporter of a two-state solution. I have articulated that publicly, and I will articulate that privately. And I think that there are a lot of Israelis who also believe in a two-state solution,” Obama said in a joint briefing to the press with Abdallah.
Mhaidat welcomed Obama’s pledge to back the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that lives in peace with Israel, but was not sure if the US president could put adequate pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermann to accept the two-state vision.
“We hope that Obama’s role will be an effective one as he promised during the presidential election campaign and that he proves he is different from the pattern pursued by his predecessor (George W.) Bush, who, for certain considerations was completely biased with Israel,” he said.
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