What President Harry S. Truman could teach O on Israel
PRESIDENT Obama was disappointed that his June 3 meeting with Saudi King Abdullah brought no Saudi concessions to move the peace process forward.From day one, the president has pressured the Israelis to halt all settlement activity. Having been tough on them, he believed that he could ask something in return from the Arabs.Instead, sources report, the king subjected him to a lecture on Israeli perfidies. Then, a week ago, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, at a joint press conference with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t accept steps suggested by the US until Arab demands are met first.Obama isn’t the first president to be rebuffed by a Saudi king. On Feb. 14, 1945, as World War II was closing, President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud, Saudi Arabia’s founding father.When FDR raised the issue of allowing Jewish refugees into Palestine, Ibn Saud informed him that “Arabs would rather die … than yield their land to the Jews.” Afterward, he told[…]