At a joint press conference with Angela Merkel in Dresden today, Barack Obama spoke of many things, like “why the sea is boiling hot” (“In terms of climate change . . . We’re going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic disaster”) and “whether pigs have wings” (“We have spoken to the European Union about the possibilities of working with us and helping us in managing the closure of Guantanamo”) . And, as he elocuted once more (as in Cairo yesterday), upon the obstacles to peace in the Middle East and the solutions thereto, he dismissed, in a quite astonishing piece of solipsism, the years upon years, to say nothing of the precious resources, wasted on this very issue by any number of his predecessors, including the most recent:
Serious indeed, especially on what steps the Israelis must undertake to make Mr. Obama’s vision of two states living side by side in peace and harmony a reality, involving primarily, though not exclusively, an end to settlement construction:
