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Clinton reveals Mid-East dissent

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Hillary Clinton, the former United States Secretary of State and the woman widely regarded as the favourite to win the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential elections, has launched an attack in her new memoir, Hard Choices, on the Obama administration's policy in the Middle East.

Regarding the Israel-Palestine peace process, Ms Clinton writes that it was a mistake to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement building in 2009.

"In retrospect" she writes, "our early, hard line on settlements didn't work" - since it made the Palestinian side adopt more hard-line positions and dismissed what she terms Israel's "unprecedented" concession. However, she apportions equal blame to both sides for the eventual failure of talks.

Another Middle East issue over which Ms Clinton differs with President Barack Obama is that of the Egyptian revolution in 2011, when she claims to have favoured a gradual transfer of power from President Hosni Mubarak while Mr Obama was seen to be abandoning America's old ally.

She also opposed the administration's position on Syria: while she supported "arming and training moderate Syrian rebels," Mr Obama preferred non-intervention.

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