In Israel, Obama is accused of 'anti-Semitism'
PRess TV
Knesset (parliament) member Yaakov Katz, head of the National Union party, said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama's repeated calls for halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is "nothing less than anti-Semitism," Israel's Arutz Sheva reported.
He also accused the White House of following the path of his predecessors in stunting the growth of the population of Jewish people in the West Bank.
Katz says calling on Tel Aviv to freeze settlement activities means denying the Jewish people the right to give birth.
"If someone says you can't add a room to a house, or build a kindergarten or a grocery or anything else, it means that 650,000 Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere cannot grow, cannot give birth," Katz told Israel's national radio.
"I would just like to add that for the Obama Administration, there is no difference between Jerusalem and the rest of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). In the Jerusalem neighborhoods, we have close to 300,000 Jews and we have another 350,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria," he added. "For the Americans, all 650,000 are the same; they are all to be boycotted, discriminated against and told to stop building and stop growing. There is no difference for them."
The Israeli parliamentarian also called on Christian and Jewish supporters of Israel to "get tough" with the Obama White House and not to accept his 'discriminating policies' against the Jewish people.
The US president, who is in Saudi Arabia on the first leg of his Middle East tour to build bridges between Washington and the Muslim world, has pressured the Netanyahu administration to completely halt settlement expansions in the occupied lands to push for the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state and end settlement activities in the West Bank, which are seen vital for the resumption of peace talks to end the long running Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
