Quote of the Day: U.S. Israeli Crisis Due to Bibi Netanyahu Not Obama Administration
Our political/international Quote of the Day comes from RealClearPolitics’ Kevin Sullivan who (like some other Americans) seems weary of the 24/7 polemical political wars which have spilled over into commentary over the recent frost in U.S. Israel relations sparked by the annoucement that Israel would build more settlments — an announcement made right when Vice President Joe Biden was visiting there to try and jumpstart the Middle East process:
I challenge the increasingly marginal number of pundits, pols and bloggers who are blaming this incident on the Obama administration to explain to me exactly where and how Obama has changed U.S. policy on Israel in any material or substantive fashion. Joe Biden went over to Israel to make nice and say in no uncertain terms that “there is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security” against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The point of the trip was to provide conciliatory rhetoric to the already ample and obvious aid and support that the United States has allocated to Israel for FY2010.
But instead, Biden got sandbagged. Bibi either knew what was coming and anticipated the diplomatic kerfuffle for domestic political gain, or he didn’t and demonstrated for all the world to see that he leads an unsteady government incapable of managing even its most precious and important alliance. Either way, the blame falls solely on Netanyahu. And as Tom Friedman, Walter Russell Mead and the Jerusalem Post editorial board all noted, this move made the Israeli government look completely incoherent and incompetent. That this is something coalition saboteurs have engineered in the past should be irrelevant. As Martin Indyk pointed out, never before has it been done to such a high ranking American official, and never, I would assume, to an American public official with a legislative record so staunchly pro-Israel as Biden’s.This was in fact a direct shot at Israel’s staunchest ally, during a visit from one of its most ardent supporters.
There more so go to the link and read it in full.
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UPDATE: Bradley Burston, writing in the the Israeli newspaper Haarezt, lends credence to Sullivan’s take on this by calling the settlements’ development Israel’s “Titanic moment”:
Hamas calls this its Day of Rage. Why, then, the smiles on the faces of Mahmoud Zahar and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Perhaps it’s because after more than 22 years of costly trial and error, Hamas has finally come upon the secret of how to bring down the Jewish state:
Let the ship sink itself.
This month, down here in the engine room of the Titanic, a single coherent order continues to sound from the officers shrouded in fog on the bridge: “More power!”
To the delight of Mahmoud Zahar and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israel’s homemade weapons of mass destruction – pro-settlement bureaucrats with conflicts of financial and ideological interest – have done in one meeting what Israel’s foes have sought for generations: driving a stake through the heart of Israel’s relationship with the White House.
We should have known. But in the swamp of anomaly and impossibility that is Jerusalem, you can easily lose sight of, and belief in, the basics:One of the curses of endless war, is the tendency to become one’s own worst enemy – in every sense.
Forget, for the moment, the parallels with Iran. Forget, also, that Ahmadinejad would like nothing more in life than to focus Muslim anger and Western displeasure on Israel’s policies in Jerusalem.
Consider, instead, that with Hamas literally at the gates, Israel is not only doing the Islamic Resistance Movement’s bidding – Washington is beginning to relate to the Netanyahu government as if it were Hamas.
Israelis woke on Tuesday to an Army Radio report that George Mitchell had abruptly cancelled his scheduled visit to Israel, and that the U.S. Mideast envoy would not resume his discussions with Jerusalem until Israeli leaders agreed to three conditions set by Washington – an uncomfortably familiar echo of the U.S. position on contacts with Hamas.
One focus of debate in Israel was the question of how an insulted and insensed Obama administration preferred to see the imbroglio turn out. Specifically, is the president after Benjamin Netanyahu’s head?
There is a lot more so go to the link to see his analysis on this.
15 Responses to “Quote of the Day: U.S. Israeli Crisis Due to Bibi Netanyahu Not Obama Administration”
Cut them off. The $114 BILLION we have given Israel is more than enough for an “ally” who stabs us (and themselves) in the back. Biggest recipient by far of US foreign aid and military aid. With all the GOP whining about “entitlements,” let's look at that other “welfare state” that feels “entitled” to our largess. It's hardly a third world nation.
http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/245-…
Israel brags about being a secular nation. So treat it like one. If it goes around stepping on the toes of other neighbors in a secular fashion, even as Dec. 2008 attacking on the Shabbat, it cannot also simultaneously claim “devine right” to be in the region as if suddenly they are devout. You cannot break the Shabbat and be devout at the same time.
They need to grow up and compromise or kiss US goodbye.
The Israeli governing coalition seems to be more fragile than past ones with the far right having a large, disproportionate influence. Also, Israel seems to suffer from the same problem that the United States does, polarization; erosion of the middle.
As long as the Israeli voters remain evenly split neither the right or left will be able to move on peace. It is the Israeli public that needs convincing.
Israel's real problem may not be with the Obama administration but with the Pentagon.
Wow — I knew the far Left would go nuts, but wow …
The real problem here is that we may be seeing our federal government also be wacky — anti-Israel, dopey about forcing it to make more one-sided concessions toward its genocidal neighbors in the interest of “peace,” and so on. Worse than that is actually to be vigorously depicting Israel as “evil” or morally tainted in some way (which is itself morally suspect, since people should know better than that), and that our officials will actually loud-mouthed about it, compounding the embarrassment and disgrace they are creating.
And, are they going to be naive or appeasing toward Iran at the same time, more far-left wackiness?
The rest of us shudder. (The “Green Line” is nothing official and all of Jerusalem has been Israeli for decades. Why did they launch the new settlement scheme? Either to posture before the Arabs or to test Obama. Well, ObamaCo is overreacting, to our detriment. So far, they're not changing their actions, though.)
Meanwhile, ObamaCo remains somewhat superficial (i.e., typical — “feelings” matter most) by just uttering lousy words. All along the “nuclear option” that is the action that really counts is there: reduce the aid money.
Estimate how much this little settlement venture is going to cost, and reduce the aid going by that much, say.
“Israeli governing coalition seems to be more fragile than past ones”
No contest for our Dems in Congress, currently, but it's close. And I suspect our Dems will recover soon.
“Cut them off.”
That's the real deal.
I think many of you are overreacting to this and too critical of Israel in general, but if you want something changed, these are the people (and we have to accept that a number of them are inept as well as having outlying farther-left political views, and may not go about it the best way — many of us don't like that, either, but that's the way it is) who are in a position to make a difference. How? Reduce aid to Israel.
Realize that more intelligent critics will view even what they get right cynically. Reducing aid would be tempting to a group of fiscal bunglers and vast overspenders here in the USA (and hocking us to China). They've been grabbing for money everywhere (such as with that “TARP tax” on the banks). Why not here?
“problem [...] with the Pentagon”
Which is to say, why do we have a military commitment in the Middle East?
Israel is merely #2. Oil is #1. Americans know this, often without needing an oil supply shock to know it.
Good point, Ron.
Here's your excuse, G.D., for an aid reduction or cutoff:
“The $114 BILLION we have given Israel [...]“
“let's look at that other 'welfare state'”
If nothing better is done instead (which requires intelligence and probably morality), there's always just transferring the money — to Social Security, which is running a deficit now rather than starting in 2016.
Not to mention still-poorly-conceived health care reform…
Barney Frank's 25% reduction (and money grab, for another transfer somewhere) from the military is next.
I don't expect anything better than an impulsive grab and continuation of, or increase of, spending, anyway.
I'll leave others to take over this thread by noting this as well:
“It is the Israeli public that needs convincing.”
Not only that, but consider our public, which is typically far removed from how you farther lefties view things. Never mind the many other things — foreign aid to Israel should obviously not be sacred-cow stuff.
Exactly how do we feel about foreign aid to Israel (and related to that, Israel's conduct), as well as about foreign aid in general? I suspect most aren't as anti-Israeli as you people are (either truly at heart or just following the PC lock-step path), but certainly this is something that is a candidate (overdue?) for review.
Never mind that additionally, we're financially such that every federal expenditure is extra-questionable right now, not to mention prior to preparing for the 2020s onward challenges, preparations we have always avoided, not merely deferred.
DLS Read the link from RB. Are Petraeus and Cullen loopy Left wing loonies?
The Pentagon says Israel's policies are a threat to the US and our troops. Nutinyahoo is coming to AIPAC. Will he bite the hand that feeds him?
Interesting, Rudi:
“The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) 'too old, too slow … and too late.'”
The anti-Israel stuff you mention here, we can safely discard. These are the same guys (Arabs) who, when Hussein was their enemy in the earlier Gulf War (Hussein could have taken the Saudi oil fields plus taken or destroyed the ports there, totally wrecking our ability to build up forces there prior to the war) still cheered when Hussein rocketed Israel (and Saudi Arabia!) and didn't care if he hit Arabs rather than Jews. Israel-hatred is endemic there.
“Nutinyahoo is coming to AIPAC”
Oh, I am still chuckling wondering how AIPAC feels right now about the way things are going, and about the Obama administration. (Will it encourage anti-Israel stuff to bubble up in Congress soon?)
Obviously there's a problem. (It leads me to continue to more strongly favor the “testing Obama” explanation for the Israeli settlement decision, rather than the “posturing before negotiating with the Arabs again” explanation, the longer and more troublesome this issue becomes.) I just hope our administration doesn't lapse into far-left anti-Israel out-of-touch-with-reality-and-the-mainstream idiocy they've demonstrated this past year, and insist on the pursuit of a truly harmful foreign policy.
Anyone who disagrees with DLS is a left wing loonie, Rudi. Anyone who thinks that current Israeli policy is wrong is anti-Israel. It's all pure black and white to a certain kind of ideologue.
“Anyone who disagrees with DLS is a left wing loonie, Rudi”
Not those who can think and reason, or who know what I don't. That's know, not “know” …
Meanwhile, now we have a fatal missile attack from the side too many of you support. It's unsurprising.