When Binyamin Netanyahu visited the White House last Tuesday, he was not treated like the Prime Minister of just any banana republic. He was treated like Manuel Noriega. No interviews, no photo-ops, no dinner, and a whole pile of demands. He and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were lucky not to have been locked in a room and forced to listen to heavy metal at top volume.
As a citizen of Israel and of the US, I was insulted and embarrassed in turn. As a Jew and a Zionist who believes that the survival of the Jewish people depends on the state of Israel I was horrified. Even Barry Rubin, who has been saying for the last couple of weeks that the crisis in US-Israeli relations has been blown out of proportion, admitted today that
…now it has become reasonable to ask whether the Obama White House is running amuck on Israel, whether it is pushing friction so far out of proportion that it is starting to seem a vendetta based on hostility and ideology.
Ehud Ya’ari, one of Israel’s most respected commentators, said,
… I think that the sense among the Israeli delegation coming back from D.C. right now is that they fell into a trap. The general sense in Israel right now is that the Prime Minister was [unintelligible] humiliated by President Obama. There is quite a degree of amazement at the way he was treated. I think it’s fair to say that neither the Prime Minister nor his Defense Minister Ehud Barak were aware [beforehand] of the kind of reception that they were greeted with at the White House …
I think it is the worst moment in U.S.-Israeli relations … going back to Eisenhower-Ben Gurion in ’56.
I won’t go into why the probable demands — see Rubin’s article linked above — made by Obama are so unfair: a complete and permanent end to construction in East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and more prisoner releases and other concessions to a Palestinian Authority (PA) which has never responded to such gifts and which seizes on every US demand as another excuse to harden its position and refuse to engage in negotiations. But I do want to talk about the US strategy.
The Obama Administration’s argument that they are trying to get talks restarted won’t wash, for at least two reasons. First is the fact that pressure is only being applied to Israel, not the PA. The result is that the Palestinians are motivated to not negotiate, since that’s the best way to get concessions forced out of Israel while giving nothing in return. Second is that Netanyahu can’t give in on some of these issues (e.g., Jerusalem) even if he wanted to, because his government would not survive (and if it doesn’t, it will be replaced by one farther to the right).
I cannot imagine that Obama’s people don’t understand this. Therefore they must be trying to do something different. A clue to what it is can be gotten from the way the various demands were presented, in an atmosphere of humiliation and contempt.
Obama is not sending a message to Israel, and apparently he doesn’t care what message he’s sending to the Palestinians. No, just as his infamous Cairo speech was broadcast to Muslim ears, his humiliation of Israel — his offensive treatment of two veterans of the sayeret matkal no less — was intended as music to those same ears.
I see this as another ‘gesture’ to the Arabs and Iranians. By spitting on Israel, our President shows them that after all, he’s on their side, and would they please help him out a little with Iraq and al-Qaeda.
It’s unlikely that this policy will work. Similar initiatives — like recent overtures to Syria, or to Saudi Arabia after Cairo — have failed, as Arab states simply continue to follow their interests while they pocket the gift presented to them. Iran, of course, continues to develop its nuclear bomb as its president threatens Israel anew every day.
Additionally, I am convinced that some, maybe more than a few, in the administration have an antipathy to Israel and get a certain amount of satisfaction from meting out this treatment apart from any rational policy gains.
Obama’s message is not lost on Hamas, Fatah’s al-Aqsa brigades, and other terrorist factions, which have stepped up their attacks. It is not lost on the Palestinians and left-wing Israeli and international ‘activists’ who carry on demonstrations in Jerusalem and at the security fence. It is not lost on the Islamic Movement and other extremists among Arab citizens of Israel who want to ‘de-Judaize’ the state.
Indeed, Obama’s message may have already killed several IDF soldiers who were ambushed by Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad in Gaza Friday night.
Vic,
I see you read my comment (response #3) under your “Source of Daylight” installment.
Yes, this is all about humiliating Israel for the entertainment of the Moslem world.
Israel is being pushed into a corner. They have less and less to lose.
That is what Obama wants. He wants the Israeli leaders to tell him to go to hell, he is baiting them into this, knowing that if and when they do this, he can say that Israel – not him – “broke” the “unbreakable” relationship. And that is why, despite this outrageous treatment, Obama still has the gall to mouth these ridiculous platitudes about how there is “no crisis” in U.S.-Israeli relations, and Hillary and Biden have to come back like the robots they are and re-affirm what a “friend” the U.S. is to Israel. This is the fig leaf they use to cover their perfidy, just waiting for the other side to say, “We’re through!”, so as to end this charade. At this point, the re-alignment of the U.S. against Israel will be nearly complete.
Wonder what the Arabs will ask next…military action against Israel? That is not implausible. Now, that would certainly cement in Obama’s pro-Moslem bona-fides, wouldn’t it? And you know how the Arabs are, when they see what they can badger people into, they’ll just raise the price some more to see what else they can get. Not to mention the fact that Obama’s guru, Zbig, plus I’m sure various and sundry Jew-baiters in the Pentagon and State now see a great opportunity to “get even” for the Liberty incident.
We are only 14 months into this admnistration, and we’ve got 34 months to go. He is just getting started.
No, there is nothing really rational about this, at the end of the day. The Europeans – the French in particular – have proven that tilting against Israel doesn’t buy you anything in terms of protection from Moslem ire (not that this stops the anti-Semitic bastards over there, who seem to have this coded into their DNA, from continuing to crap on Israel…it does seem like they’re waking up in Holland, though). And in general, the historical record is overflowing with examples of the folly of appeasement. As you point out, these folks running the show now in D.C. cannot be ignorant of this history.
This is rabid anti-Semitism cloaked as anti-Zionism. This is all just one degree removed from the truly frothing at the mouth anti-Israel crap we see at places like Irvine, Berserkly, ad nauseum. Why do you think Obama was SOOOOO popular among college students? That he was going to finally make sure that Israel got “put in their place” was a major factor, to be sure. I’ve sparred with enough collegiate Israel badgers on the web to know just how deep antipathy for Israel runs in the academia of today.
And the Jews that work for him, the Rahm Emmanuels, the David Axelrods, these are little more than the “Jewish Police” of the Warsaw Ghetto, selling us out, cutting a deal for themselves. Before the election, they served as merely camouflage, and now, they dare not “break ranks” over this, or their careers are through. That is the game. They will be disgarded when they are no longer of use, as is always the case with such craven types, and that is what they deserve. (OK, what they really deserve is to be literally tarred and feathered and run out of the Jewish community…but I guess that is a bit much to hope for.)
War is now practically inevitable. The s*** will hit the fan sometime this summer. Israel will have to go for broke, and even if they prevail militarily, when the dust settles, they’ll have to endure two and half years as a 1970s Rhodesia-style pariah state, in the face of an utterly hostile world community, whose enmity will have the full support of Obama, who will claim that he had been “betrayed” by Israel. It would not surprise me in the least if in the course of the fireworks, U.S. and Israeli forces faced off at some point, a crisis deliberately provoked by Obama & Co. so as to permanently destroy the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Pat Buchanan will be in ecstasy!
The only light I can see at the end of this very dark and foreboding tunnel is that politically, in this country, Obama will not get away with this. I hope – and expect – that the American public generally will see through this insanity. The economic conflagration that will follow in the wake of this – a crisis clearly provoked by Obama’s policies – combined with what most Americans will perceive specifically as the outright betrayal of a front-line ally, will ensure that Obama suffers the worst defeat of a sitting president in U.S. history.
By January 2013, if trust is not completely destroyed by then, a new administration will pick up the pieces and restore the U.S.-Israeli relationship. That is about the best we can hope for at this point.
Elections have consequences. It is very difficult for me to forgive any Jew who voted for Obama; that so many did proves that collectively, I guess we ain’t so smart after all. Any Jew who votes for him in 2012 has no right to call themselves a Jew, so far as I’m concerned.
Minor correction to above: About a third of the way down, at the end of paragraph starting with “This is rabid anti-Semitism cloaked as anti-Zionism”, I meant “Israel bashers”, not “Israel badgers”.
I wonder if they even have any badgers in Israel. I don’t think they do.
Happy Passover, everybody.
Robman, you said it all! This administration has no idea how the American people feel about Israel. Nor, do they care. They have proven (with the passage of un-American legislation) they do not care what the majority of Americans want or think. Obama, Rham, Axelrod, and the rest of the racist bigots are creating extemism here at home and abroad. Obama’s “Organizing for America” gang are keeping us busy, busy, busy. Never, have I seen such anger in the American people, a sickening feeling of helplessness, a remorsefulness from those who voted for him and on and on. Never have I felt such a sense of urgency, an urgency to get this lousy president out of office, along with the other idiots. IMPEACH!
(I’ve never said that before, in my life!)
Grandma, that is my fondest daydream, that this sorry excuse for a Commander in Chief is impeached, arrested, and thrown in jail.
Yes, it would be traumatic for the American people to experience this, especially given the high expectations that accompanied his election from the onset.
But this is a hard lesson the American people need to learn: ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. America, you pay the f*** attention to whom you are voting for! This is not an episode of “American Idol”! Voting for the “cool guy” just doesn’t cut it!
Maybe this trial will finally drive a stake through the heart of the decadent, nihilistic extreme liberal/left political ethos that has been increasingly polluting our society since the end of the Vietnam war. Good riddance! I only hope that we – and Israel – are still able to recover when this nightmare is over.
The ‘back of the bus’ or ‘side door ‘ treatment given to Israel is a form of abuse and humiliation. It is too a method for undermining the confidence of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is a form of abuse. I also agree with what others have posted here in regard to the false reassurance provided by Administration spokesmen. The total unfairness and one- sidedness of the Administration is something which strong supporters of Israel should work to make clear to all.
I believe Dick Morris understands EXACTLY what is going on here.
Obama wants Netanyahu out of office and the “land-giver” Livni, back in.
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/89883-obama-vs-israeli-regime