Green-Lined: Deconstruction of a text

I find President Barack Obama's recent pronouncement on the question of Jewish residential communities in Judea and Samaria to be odd, awkward and and morally deficient.

On September 4, the White House Office of the Press Secretary released a statement that reads, in part:

Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel's commitment under the Roadmap. As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop.... We do appreciate Israel's stated intent to place limits on settlement activity and will continue to discuss this with the Israelis as these limitations are defined."

The use of "legitimacy" bestirs my political sensors. Is "legitimacy" worse, or better, than "illegality"?

Well, there is no other way to fathom Obama's vocabulary than to search for another use by him of that adjective.

Thanks to Google, I found this use of "legitimacy" that illustrates, perhaps, the reality of Obama's thinking. It's from May 16, 2008.

The then-candidate Obama had made some remarks regarding Hizbullah, and David Brooks of the New York Times sought to clarify the matter.

Brooks asked: "Is Obama naïve enough to think that an extremist ideological organization like Hizbullah can be mollified with a less corrupt patronage system and some electoral reform? Does he really believe that Hizbullah is a normal social welfare agency seeking more government services for its followers?"

Brooks spoke with Obama and informed his readers that Obama "reaffirmed that Hizbullah is 'not a legitimate political party' but 'a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard.'"

However, Obama had more to say:

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that 'looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.' Obama compared Hizbullah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that 'they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.' ...Obama doesn't broadcast moral disgust when talking about terror groups..."

In my rather straightforward reading, Obama introduced a very problematic construction of diplomacy. He basically said that Hizbullah and Hamas, while having "legitimate claims," cannot be accepted as "political parties."

Did he mean to say that while he accepted them as terror groups, to be dealt with one way or another, as political parties they were off the agenda?

And while we're on the subject of terror, since Obama touched on commitments of the Roadmap approach, can you recall the last time the White House condemned terror by Palestinians, which is also an "inconsistent commitment under the Roadmap"?

After a Kassam attack near Gaza, and there were many, after a shooting attack on a road in the Binyamin region, after a rock-throwing attack near Hebron, did you read anything from the White House? My searches produced nothing.

I did locate a January 23, 2009 statement in which Obama asked "for Saudi support for efforts to stop weapons smuggling into Gaza and expressed interest in continuing counter-terrorism cooperation."

However, on April 9, 2009 he renewed the waiver of the Statutory Provisions Regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization Office certifying that "it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of Section 1003 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, Public Law 100-204."

This is a certificate of immunity for a terrorist organization. Expediency overrides terror.

Is Obama exhibiting a moral relativism? Does he prefer terror, of Hizbullah or Hamas or the PLO, over Jewish residency in areas of their national patrimony?