"Obama the Humble declares there will be no more 'dictating' to other countries. We should 'forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions,' he told the G-20 summit. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth 'start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating.' An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone -- Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. As Secretary of State Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: 'a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.' What's the issue? No 'natural growth' means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them -- not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns -- even before negotiations. ... Blaming Israel and picking a fight over 'natural growth' may curry favor with the Muslim 'street.' But it will only induce the Arab states to do like [Mahmoud] Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating." --columnist Charles Krauthammer