President Obama and his aides have cast the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not just the relationship with Israel, as a core U.S. national security interest. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the military’s Central Command, put it starkly in recent testimony on Capitol Hill: “The conflict foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel.” His comments raised eyebrows in official Washington — and overseas — because they suggested that U.S. military officials were embracing the idea that failure to resolve the conflict had begun to imperil American lives.

Never mind, as you noted elsewhere, that Petraeus says that his words were taken out of context. It really doesn’t matter. Perry did the administration’s dirty work. No, Israel doesn’t endanger American soldiers, but it does work against American interests. The exaggerated claim may be inoperative, but the lesser (but false) claim now stands as a “reasonable” alternative and is reported as fact by a leading newspaper.

So the administration (no great surprise to me) has accepted (and promotes) the “false promise” that candidate Obama eschewed.

-ls