<![CDATA[“Hi-Jacking A Blog”]]>That's my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg's description of a brilliant Middle East reporter quoting a senior administration official dismayed by Dennis Ross's sympathy for Netanyahu's coalition problems over East Jerusalem. I don't think even Jeffrey can dismiss Laura Rozen as not knowing what she's writing about. So he argues that an Obama official has "hi-jacked" her blog. Goldblog calls this Obama official's statement an accusation of "dual loyalty," of "treason," of the fruit of a "neo-Lindberghian climate". But isn't the comment conceivably, substantively true?
After all, a united Jerusalem under Israel's exclusive control for ever - Netanyahu's and Palin's and Cheney's position - has been Ross's position in the past:
"It's also a fact that the city should not be divided again. That's also a fact."
A fact. A "should" is an "is." And yet Ross simultaneously says - call it the neo-neo-con shoe-shuffle - that Jerusalem's final status should be left to negotiations. Only one of those positions can truly be his, right? ]]>