<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/e6e816b5-d451-482c-8751-634ef08baa8c/222F3D62-3203-4071-A057-959B22B2D687/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html" href="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html" style="font-size: 11px;">en.qantara.de</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html">When US President Barack Obama took office, a faint breeze of hope blew through the Middle East. Yet after ten months of intensive efforts, the achievements appear modest. How much political capital is Obama willing to risk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/en.qantara.de/img/02EFC7BC-461E-4C77-9816-C81549506534" alt="Barack Obama (photo: AP/DW)" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html"><DIV> Although unusually determined for the USA, the attempt to persuade Israel to freeze its settlement construction in the West Bank – illegal under international law – has failed for the time being. Washington back-pedalled after Israel's rude rebuff, and has since attempted to achieve at least a partial and temporary stop to settlement building. </DIV><BR /><DIV>Yet this is not only a blow to hopes of wresting trust-building steps from the Arab states. The politically weakened Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who now only speaks on behalf of some two million Palestinians in the West Bank, also insists on a stop to the settlements as a condition for re-opening direct negotiations with Israel.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1245/i.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/en.qantara.de/img/101BE442-E95A-428F-9F9C-FE907214AE4E" alt="Civilians walk through the debris-laden Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem following the explosion in the heart of the city's Jewish business district on Feb. 22, 1948 (photo: AP)" /></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/222F3D62-3203-4071-A057-959B22B2D687/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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