Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Obama's Double Standard for Serbs and Palestinians

Mere days before the presidential election, Hillary Clinton has jetted off to Kosovo. She's trying to persuade a bunch of recalcitrant Christians there to give up their dreams of sovereignty and accept their fate as a minority within a Muslim nation (with all that that entails):
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is touring a Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo as she seeks to convince ethnic Serbs they have a home in Europe's youngest nation. 
Clinton will visit St. Nicholas Church Wednesday with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. They're seeking to advance talks between Serbia and its former province so both can one day join the European Union. 
One stumbling block is the fate of 60,000 Serbs in northern Kosovo. They reject Kosovo's authority and want independence or incorporation into Serbia. 
Washington and Brussels say neither is possible. They're promoting economic cooperation between the countries and telling ethnic Serbs they'll be protected in Kosovo. 
Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The church Clinton is visiting suffered during anti-Serb riots in 2004.
My question: why hasn't the Obama administration made the same pitch to Palestinians? (That's rhetorical, of course. It never would or could ask Arabs to "settle" for anything less than statehood.)

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