The pundits are working overtime trying to figure out why the Obama administration went into all-out attack mode over an announcement of building in Jerusalem that blindsided Bibi Netanyahu during Joe Biden’s trip to Israel.
I think they’re all off-track. I think the Obama administration is trying to repeat the Clinton administration’s efforts of the late 1990s. Rahm Emanuel was in the Clinton administration. Rahm Emanuel is in the Obama administration. Bill Clinton loathed Bibi Netanyahu. Rahm Emanuel loathes Bibi Netanyahu. One of Emanuel’s greatest achievements (according to him) was the signing of the Oslo acccords. Barack Obama wants a Palestinian state to be his administration’s crowing achievement. Rahm Emanuel is of the opinion that Israeli settlements are the main obstacle to obtaining that state. Barack Obama is of the opinion that Israeli settlements are the main obstacle to obtaining that state.
Here’s why I think the Obama administration is ratcheting up the pressure over 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of northeastern Jerusalem that will almost certainly remain Israeli in any future agreement with the Palestinians: The Obama administration is trying to topple the Netanyahu government. The Clinton administration did its level best to prevent Bibi from being elected in 1996, and worked very hard to get him thrown out as soon as possible thereafter. The Obama administration has found a stick, and they’re using it to beat the Netanyahu administration in the eyes of the world. The Chicago Machine lies and smears have gone out to the appropriate media outlets. The hyperbole is rising as the Machine cogs hit the media trail. It’s an all-out assault on Bibi and his administration.
But will it work?
I don’t think so. Because the action is starting to backfire. When both AIPAC and the ADL release statements urging the Obama administration to back off Israel, you can chalk it up to Jewish organizations defending Israel. Except those Jewish organizations are filled with Jewish Democrats who open their purse strings for candidates like Obama. And perhaps Obama should remember the Gallup survey that says support for Israel is at near-record highs.
The Israel-haters in the U.S. are vastly outnumbered by Israel’s supporters, something that makes their tiny little heads explode.
My money is on Bibi outlasting Obama. Iran is the far greater danger, and Israelis don’t take kindly to the Obama administration interfering in their internal affairs.
See today’s Jerusalem Post — the article re the ADL. The charge that israel is putting US soldiers’ lives at risk was made by Biden and VERY DISTIBURINGLY by General Petraeus according the the article, citing and article in Foreiign Affairs journal. The quote attributed to Petraeus is horrendous — the import of which I am afraid can not be overstated. He supposedly said in a memo earlier this year words to the effect that the US/Israeli relationship is important, but not as important as the lives of US soldiers. That kind of downright libelous statement coming from a top US commander in this day and age? And being fed to an administration that has little of no gut sympathy for Israel and in particular buys in the issues with the Araba nd Muslim worlds is an outgrowth of US misdeeds and failure aat outreach and understanding. Michael Oren is right to say there is a crisis in relations. Views?
I have searched the internets and have NOT found any mention of General Petraeus making that statement, EXCEPT for the article in Foreign Affairs. Self referential acknowledgments do not count.
Anyone else?
The Republican Guard in Iran terrorizes and murders protesters and the best Obama can do is a half hearted condemnation a week later and mumble the world is watching. The Norks can shoot missiles towards Alaska. Chavez can pay FARK terrorists to assassinate elected leaders in Columbia but god forbid Israel announces that they are building in Jerusalem during Biden’s visit. Now Obama is demanding that Israel release terrorists, freeze all building, and give up more land in the West bank (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156467.html). Obama’s foreign policy of comforting his enemies and hectoring is allies is worse than any characterization that the McCain campaign could dream up.
All this while Obama tries to bankrupt our economy with his payola stimulus bill and socialized medicine schemes. The worse thing is that if the economy picks up and the republicans offer a weak candidate we might have four more years of this joker.
The Israel haters usually only take each other seriously so they are wholly ignorant of any
other side to the story.
I work with a guy who gets all his news from the NY Times, Wash Post, CNN and the New Yorker.
Seriously.
His misconceptions on Israel are astounding and his ignorance is breathtaking.
He knows all about Jewish terrorists against Britain in the 30s, but then you had to see the look
on his face when I said, “See? There were Jews there before 1946”.
That had never occurred to him.
He knows about “700 Arabs expelled from Jerusalem” (I didn’t ask) but has never heard of the fact that Israel’s
peace-loving neighbors, at the founding of Israel, told all Muslims to leave the area so they could
kill all the Jews and not mistakenly kill some Muslims.
He had no idea that Israel gave back any of the land they took from their neighbors who tried to kill them all.
He had no idea whatsoever that they gave back the Sinai for instance.
Talking to him is a pain in the neck, you have to figure which misconception or ignorance he’s relying on for any statement.
JDF, the article that “quoted” Gen. Petraeus was written by a guy who used to do PR for Yasser Arafat. I’ve asked about the article in a different forum and was told by someone with a connection that it’s BS.
Maybe the administration is laying this at the feet of Gen. Petraeus so they can credibly claim that it’s a security issue. But apparently it doesn’t come from Petraeus.
Noah Pollak’s in good company.
The latest news has it that Petraeus never asked to have authority over WB/Gaza.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=68715
However the sentiments he expressed are largely in accord with what’s expressed in tha article.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0310/Petraeus_throws_support_to_Mitchell_peace_efforts.html?showall
That’s because they all buy the propaganda that the PA spent decades working on. They were taught by the Russians, you may remember. And it’s worked. The Shiites in Iraq who are getting blown up by the Sunnis are still saying that if only Israel weren’t “oppressing” the Palestinians, they would be able to trust and count on the Americans.
Riiiiight.
Well when the Shi’a of Iran could trust and count on America (back in the 70s) they went and overthrew the Shah and put in power Khomenei, who almost immediately made Iran the enemy of the USA through the embassy seizure, even as the Carter Administration tried to establish good, or even merely correct, relations with the new Iranian government. That Iranian act backfired on them, because Saddam Hussein would never have dared invade if Iran had still been an ally, or even reasonably friendly with, the USA. Khomenei’s bigoted, senile hatred of America, and the stupidity and fanaticism of the “students” who seized the embassy, played a major role in getting a million Iranians killed. So I’m not too impressed with any Shi’a complaint that they can’t trust America because were are too much inclined to help the Jews of Israel to fight off the threat of genocide facing them.
I suspect that if the Shah had not been overthrown, the cancer that killed him would have done so at about the same time he actually died. Then his heir could have proved to be a reformer, especially if pushed in that direction by American influence, and the Iranians could have been in the situation today of living in a constitutional monarchy with the freedoms they are now trying to wrest from the iron grip of their Islamofascist masters. In the 20th century, revolutions almost invariably resulted in the replacement of misrule, not by bad government as Ambrose Bierce’s definition said, but by horrible tyranny.