Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl — who in the past has been a critic of Israel — writes an important piece in today’s Post, arguing that Obama, along with Hillary Clinton’s State Department, has now gone too far in the pressure and demands he is putting on Israel.

No Israeli government of left or right is going to agree to the conditions Obama is demanding, so that Israel can’t even complete the building of a children’s playground or medical center in the Jerusalem suburbs.

It is doubtful any government in the world would agree to such demands and, as Diehl indicates, (although these words are mine) Obama is demonstrating misguided and clumsy diplomacy in asking for them instead of concentrating on practical steps that might actually lead to Palestinian statehood.

Obama’s positions have been criticized as being unrealistically absolutist and harsh by Israel’s left and center left parties too.