No Change at the State Department - Obama keeps playing the same wrong-headed game

The State Department policy to the Middle East seems to have but one default approach - When In Doubt, Put Pressure On Israel.

Israel scrambles to avoid showdown with Obama

Israel scrambled Tuesday to sidestep President Barack Obama's demand for a West Bank settlement freeze with a diluted counteroffer to Washington.

. . .

However, Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have spoken in recent days about halting all settlement activity without exception, suggesting Netanyahu may have little room to bargain.

Obama is continuing the US State Department line that it is the settlements, or even building expansions on existing settlement that is the "obstacle to peace" in the region. Not Arab terror, not the continued rejection of Hamas of Israel's right to even exist, just a bunch of people living in apartment buildings are the obstacles to peace in this view, totally overlooking all the violations of the "Roadmap" committed by the Arabs.

The idea that Israel should be held to every dotted i and crossed t in the Roadmap while the other side is given a pass on its multiple continuing violations is ridiculous, but that is how the "peace process" as continued by Obama is shaping up, and its not a positive "change" by any measure.