Laura Rozen predicts that Prime Minister Netanyahu will not have an easy week in Washington next week.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is due to speak at the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington on Monday. He's then due to meet with Jewish Congress members, including Berman, on Tuesday, when he’s likely to get an earful of tough talk behind closed doors from members who share Berman’s sympathy with the Obama administration that months of American diplomatic heavy-lifting to try to get peace talks relaunched were knocked down so casually by the Israeli government's East Jerusalem housing announcement. And he's likely to find little patience from many of them for his excuses, and more stern urging that he does what he has to do to make sure it doesn't happen again.
And on top of that, the 'quartet' is meeting in Moscow on Thursday and will undoubtedly condemn us again.
But I have to wonder why Netanyahu doesn't seem to have any meetings scheduled with members of Congress other than 'Jewish members.' During his first term, Netanyahu was a master at playing Congress off against Bill Clinton. The only Jewish member of Congress who is Republican is Eric Cantor, who's a great guy and very sympathetic to Israel, but Cantor is still only one Congressman. Given that Israel's support among Republicans is higher than among Democrats, shouldn't Netanyahu be meeting with sympathetic Republicans?
President Obama's shabby treatment of Israel is just one of several instances over the past fourteen months that the Obama administration has treated an ally poorly. On the other hand, rivals and enemies are treated with tender loving care and infinite patience by the Obami. Robert Kagan says that Israel is not the only ally to be treated shabbily - just the most vulnerable one.
Who has attracted attention in the Obama administration? The answer, so far, seems to be not America's allies but its competitors, and in some cases its adversaries. If there were a way to measure administration exertion in foreign policy, the meter would show the greatest concentration of energy, beyond the war in Afghanistan, has been devoted to four endeavors: the failed first-year attempt to improve relations with Iran; the ongoing attempt to improve relations with Russia; the stalled effort to improve cooperation with China; and the effort -- fruitless so far -- to prove to the Arab states that the United States is willing to pressure Israel to further the peace process. Add to these the efforts to improve relations with Syria, engage Burma and everything with Af-Pak, and not much has been left for the concerns of our allies.
This is bad enough, but compounding the problem has been the administration's evident impatience with allies who don't do as they are told. Europeans get spanked for a pallid commitment to NATO defense spending even as they contribute 30,000 troops to a distant war that European publics mostly don't believe in. Japan gets spanked when its new government insists on rethinking some recent agreements. In both cases, the administration has a point, but it's always easier to hammer allies when they misbehave than to hammer tough competitors such as Russia or China.
The president has shown seemingly limitless patience with the Russians as they stall an arms-control deal that could have been done in December. He accepted a year of Iranian insults and refusal to negotiate before hesitantly moving toward sanctions. The administration continues to woo Syria and Burma without much sign of reciprocation in Damascus or Rangoon. Yet Obama angrily orders a near-rupture of relations with Israel for a minor infraction like the recent settlement dispute -- and after the Israeli prime minister publicly apologized.
...
This administration pays lip-service to "multilateralism," but it is a multilateralism of accommodating autocratic rivals, not of solidifying relations with longtime democratic allies. Rather than strengthening the democratic foundation of the new "international architecture" -- the G-20 world -- the administration's posture is increasingly one of neutrality, at best, between allies and adversaries, and between democrats and autocrats. Israel is not the only unhappy ally, therefore; it's just the most vulnerable.
The ironies are plentiful. Obama was to “restore our place in the world,” but our allies are learning not to trust us. As Kagan notes, Obama is a “multilateralism” fan but lays none of the groundwork to forge meaningful alliances among democratic powers. Obama was the one with the “superior temperament” but reacts in highly personalized terms and angrily — feigned or not, is a matter of speculation — when it suits his purposes. The Obami are enamored of “international law” but choose not to abide by our commitments to allies (Eastern Europe on missile defense, Israel on settlements) nor to enforce in any meaningful way those international agreements and resolutions that rogue states ignore. Hypocrisy? Perhaps.
At the heart of this a fundamental lack of seriousness and attention — in time, thought, and resources — to evaluate the world as it is and plot out a strategic course to get us from Point A to Point B. So we have a series of failed gambits, left strewn by the side of the road — engagement with Iran, reset with Russia, bullying with Israel. In none have we perceived correctly the motives of those involvement or devised realistic policies designed to further our interests. It is one herky-jerky stunt after another, leaving allies confused and foes emboldened.
The Obami were desperate, we are told, to preserve the proximity talks, given their meager record on foreign policy. But in their desperation, they have amply demonstrated why that record is so meager and why we are quickly losing credibility with friends and enemies alike.
I actually believe there is a strategy here. The strategy is to degrade America's alliances and military capabilities so that its population becomes citizens of the World and loses its nationalistic pride and what the Obami regard as its narcissistic belief in American exceptionalism. It's socialism on an international scale.
Representative Howard Berman (D-Cal.) seems torn between his love for Israel, on the one hand, and the political reality of being in a leadership position in the Democratic party on the other. Berman is the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and on Tuesday he made a statement about the current crisis in relations between the US and Israel that included this little bit of moral equivalence.
The Palestinians may not like an Israeli announcement about prospective housing in Jerusalem, and the Israelis may not like the Palestinians naming a town square after a brutal terrorist, but the talks need to go forward.
Is there anyone else out there who is bothered by the comparison between honoring a mass murderer (the reference is to Dalal al-Mughrabi) to encourage more mass murderers on the one hand and building apartments for young couples on the other?
The last statement, however, is an appalling example of moral relativism. Does Berman — who should know better — really mean to equate the extension of an apartment complex in Jerusalem with the Palestinian celebration of terrorism? Apparently so. One suspects that so do the Obami. Indeed, in the administration’s view, the apartment complex build-out warrants a “condemnation,” but the Palestinian cult of death does not. In fact the Obami’s current stance and rhetoric is worse than moral relativism: the White House has adopted the Palestinian narrative and now treats incitement to violence as a less egregious matter than the building of an apartment complex within a Jewish neighborhood of Israel’s capital.
The Americans have stopped repeating their outrage. Congressional voices are calling on both sides to chill out, with the most senior yet, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman blaming the flap on the Israelis but also, notably, pushing the White House "to disentangle bilateral relations from the peace process."
And if Netanyahu doesn't wind up losing face, doesn't Obama? What was intended as a show of strength risks, without results, turning into a show of impotence.
JPost's Shmuel Rosner has more short questions and answers here. I'm going to quote a couple of them in full because I have a different take on them than he does.
1. Does Obama want Tzipi Livni to become the Prime Minister?
Short answer: Jeffrey Goldberg says he does. I think it is not as concrete as Goldberg describes it, but generally speaking I'm sure Obama would like it better if Livni we to be the PM. Problem is: She isn't, and from what I hear she might never be. Having talked to a couple of Kadima members in recent days the picture I get is this: They want coalition, want it badly, think it's coming soon, and don't care one bit what Livni thinks. In other words: Even if/when Kadima joins the government, Livni will not play the major role she'd like to play because she isn't even calling the shots in her own party. One should hope the Americans have someone explaining for them the updated realities of the treacherous waters that are Israeli politics.
Maybe in his ideal world Obama would like Livni to be Prime Minister, but even he must know that's not going to happen.
What I understood Goldberg as saying is that Obama is hoping to drive a wedge between Netanyahu and his partners on the Right and to have Livni and Kadima come in and replace them. Obama doesn't like Netanyahu, but he realizes that he's stuck with him.
3. Do most Israelis agree with Netanyahu or with Obama?
Sort answer: We don't have a poll yet, but I do not expect Obama's approval rating in Israel to rise. He got 4%-6% in the past, so the good news is that he can't go any lower.
Obama needs to think about how he's going to get a democracy to do his bidding when he has those kinds of poll numbers and no prospect of raising them.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has some advice for former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations - and current Prime Minister - Binyamin Netanyahu: Don't count on Obama.
Mr. Netanyahu's mistake has been to assume that Mr. Obama basically agrees that we must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But the White House likely believes that a nuclear Iran, though undesirable, can be contained and will therefore not support using military force to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
What's more, Mr. Obama is also unwilling to let anyone else, namely Israel, act instead. That means that if Israel bombs Iranian nuclear facilities, the president will likely withhold critical replenishments of destroyed Israeli aircraft and other weapons systems.
We are moving inexorably toward, and perhaps have now reached, an Israeli crisis with Mr. Obama. Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.
Mr. Netanyahu must realize he has not been banking good behavior credits with Mr. Obama but simply postponing an inevitable confrontation. The prime minister should recalibrate his approach, and soon. Israel's deference on Palestinian issues will not help it with Mr. Obama after a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program. It would be a mistake to think that further delays in such a strike will materially change the toxic political response Israel can expect from the White House. Israel's support will come from Congress and the American people, as opinion polls show, not from the president.
Mr. Obama is not merely heedless of America's predominant global position. He is also embarrassed enough by it not to regret diminishing it. In fact, we have achieved pre-eminence not simply to preen our American ego, but to defend our interests and those of like-minded allies. Ceding America's role in world affairs is not an act of becoming modesty but a dangerous signal of weakness to friends and adversaries alike. Israel may be the first ally to feel the pain.
Read the whole thing (for those of you who, like me, do not have a Wall Street Journal subscription, you can find the whole thing here). He's spot on.
'Next year in....' An open letter to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod
This letter was written by David Wilder, who is the leader of the Hebron Jewish community (Hat Tip: Dani K).
´Next year in….´ An open letter to Rahm Emanuel & David Axelrod
David Wilder March 15, 2010 Nisan 1, 5770, 3/15/2010 Dear Rahm and David,
I’m writing this as I sit and watch, via live internet, the ceremony marking the rededication of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem, in the area you would classify “east Jerusalem”, disputed territory, or perhaps, ‘occupied territory’ over the ‘green line’ adjacent to 'Temple Mount.'
Before asking a few questions, I’d like to describe to you several men who took part in tonight’s celebration.
First, there is Reuvan ‘Ruby’ Rivlin, presently speaker of the Knesset. A seventh generation Jerusalemite, Ruby is a ‘Rivlin’ from both his mother and father’s side, descended from both Rebbi Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov and the Gra, the Gaon, Rebbi Eliyahu from Vilna.
Rivlin, a seasoned politician, had trouble controlling his voice as he spoke, his words quivering with emotion, as he repeated the words of his great-grandfather, who spoke at the rededication of the destroyed Hurva shul a hundred and fifty years ago.
Also speaking briefly was former Prisoner of Zion, former minister, and present chairman of the Jewish Agency, Natan Sharansky, who described how, in 1992, he convinced the entire Israeli government to unanimously approve reconstruction of the Hurva, destroyed by the Jordanians following their occupation of the Jerusalem in 1948.
But the man who most impressed me was David Rabinovitch, an Israeli Russian, who contributed heavily to the renovation of the Hurva. Rubenstein spoke briefly, albeit in Russian, and announced that he and his partners, whose financial fortunes built the Hurva, would participate in rebuilding the nearby Tiferet Yisrael synagogue, also destroyed by the Arabs during the War of Independence. These men, who grew up without any Jewish background, and who today barely speak Hebrew, are investing their life’s fortunes in synagogues, in Jerusalem.
And you, Rahm and David, what are you investing your lives in?
Rahm, it is said that you are the cornerstone of your boss’ policy towards Israel and the Middle East. Since this administration took office, you are quoted, time and time again, as forcing a ‘two-state solution’ on Israel. “Israel now faces a moment of truth – it can either acquiesce to international demands and in return have its most serious threats dealt with, or maintain the status quo and have those threats persist.” http://goo.gl/ntPh In other words, Israel’s future, as a state, and in large part, the continued existence of the Jewish people, is dependent on Israel ‘towing the line,’ obeying US policy, and acquiescing to US-Arab terrorist demands.
And David, just a few days ago you publicly turned Israel over your knee and paddled her, saying, "What happened there was an affront,…It was an insult. ... This was not the right way to behave." http://goo.gl/fana This, of course, in reference to the announcement that Israel will continue to build in Jerusalem.
Is this the behavior of two good Jewish boys, who, it is said, love Israel?
Rahm, truthfully it’s very difficult to understand your actions. You belong to an orthodox synagogue in Chicago. You grew up in a Jewish home, with a strong affinity to Israel. Your father was born in Jerusalem and your uncle, for whom you were named, was killed by Arabs in Jerusalem. But you still support a position forbidding Jewish building in Jerusalem!?
And David, you too are no stranger to Judaism. Born on the Lower East Side in New York, you always knew you were Jewish. Yet you see fit to push your own people into security situations which jeopardize the continued existence of the Jewish State.
How is it that two men whose lives have always been saturated with Judaism do not comprehend simple truths understood by others who grew up in Soviet Russia, knowing almost nothing about their Jewish roots.? Even your names reflect your Jewish souls: David – dating back to King David – the eternal King of Israel; and Rahm – meaning ‘high,’ hinting at the Creator, and in your case, a form of the word Rachamim, meaning mercy. Upon who do you have mercy, Mr. Emanuel? Perhaps both of you should repudiate your names, changing them, as did Hellenistic Jews in Israel during the time of Greek occupation of Israel. How can you carry such “Jewish names’ yet, at the same time, assist in pushing your people to the brink?
I have one other question for both of you men. Tonight marks the first day of the new month of Nisan, the month of Geula, of redemption from Egypt. In exactly two weeks we will begin the Passover holiday, commencing with the Seder, the first Pesach meal, when we relate the story of the Jews' Exodus from Egypt.
It is said that last year, both of you were invited to the President’s Passover Seder, but skipped it, preferring to eat Matza with your families, at home. Very touching. But why?
What I really want to know is not how you begin your family Seder, rather, how you end it. Normally, Jews finish the night’s ceremony declaring “Next year in Jerusalem” or Next year in the rebuilt Jerusalem.”
Rahm Emanual and David Axelrod:
DO YOU RECITE THESE WORDS AT YOUR FAMILY TABLE;
IF SO, DO YOU MEAN WHAT YOU SAY, OR JUST REPEAT THE WORDS FOR CUSTOM’S SAKE;
AND WOULD YOU DARE RECITE THESE WORDS IN PUBLIC, WORDS MOUTHED BY JEWS FOR CENTURIES, AS THEY WERE TORTURED AND BURNED AT THE STAKE, OR SENT TO SIBERIA TO DIE, FOR DARING TO REPEAT THE FUNDAMENTAL TENET OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE?
EXACTLY HOW DO YOU SAY IT? NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM,
OR
NEXT YEAR IN [OCCUPIED?], [DISPUTED?], [CONQUERED?], [ARAB?] JERUSALEM?
Isn’t it time you left the White House and came home to your real home, in Israel, in Jerusalem where you too can stand proudly at the Kotel and recite, as Jews have for eternity "Next year in [Jewish] Jerusalem"
I haven't been reading Roger Cohen lately - he's bad for my blood pressure. So I missed this.
The mass-market daily Maariv had a front-page post-Biden cartoon of Obama cooking Netanyahu in a pot. It was supposed to illustrate a relationship “in flames.” But the image — a black man cooking a white man over an open fire — also said something about the way Israel views its critics.
Roger Cohen seemingly forgets that this country's Jews are not all white - nor is our leadership. So the slur is false.
Jonathan Tobin says that it's become a new excuse for Obama's poor approval ratings in this country.
Israel’s liberal critics in this country are flummoxed by the fact that Obama is the least-liked American president by Israelis since Jimmy Carter. But rather than admit that this is the result of the administration’s conscious decision to distance itself from the Jewish state, writers like Cohen spin this understandable antagonism as being somehow the result of an Israeli character flaw. This is not the first time that the notion of Israeli racism has been claimed as the source of Obama’s unpopularity.
...
But had Barack Hussein Obama come into office ready to make good on his campaign pledges of support for Israel and not chosen to pick pointless fights with Israel’s government or downplay the threat from Iran, his poll numbers would be very different. George W. Bush also came into office with low Israeli popularity ratings, but he proved his friendship for the Jewish state with actions that eventually overshadowed the hostility most Jews felt for his father. Had Obama not sought to downgrade the alliance with Jerusalem, no one would be talking about the color of his skin having any impact on the way Israelis think of him. The attempt to blame the justified skepticism of Israelis about Obama’s intentions toward their country on Jewish racism is nothing but a contemptible slur.
I cannot recall any American President with popularity ratings as low as Obama's. Not even Jimmy Carter. But racism is not part of the picture.
Christians United for Israel has swung into action; an alert went out to its very large mailing list (which includes pastors who in turn contact their church members)... What kind of response did they get? “Just 90 minutes after CUFI’s action alert was distributed, more than 5,000 of our members sent e-mails to the White House asking the president to ‘end this unnecessary crisis, return to a more productive approach, and stand with our ally Israel.’ As of last count we are averaging an e-mail every second, and I see no indication that this will slow down anytime soon.”
Many liberal, largely secular American Jews have been wary of, if not downright hostile to, evangelical support for Israel. Perhaps they should reconsider and figure out who the friends of Israel really are. They’re the ones sending, not receiving the e-mails.
Nice try Jennifer. The problem is that many of those liberal, largely secular American Jews couldn't care less about Israel. We're far down on their issues list.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a likely Presidential candidate in 2012, has criticized the Obama administration's handling of Israel.
Mitt Romney’s spokesman e-mails me: “Governor Romney believes that President Obama spends way too much time placating our enemies while undermining our friends. Israel is one of our greatest allies, and has made many concessions for peace over the years, yet the Obama administration exerts pressure on Israel to stop its settlements while putting almost no pressure on the Palestinians.”
The bigger message that will be unintentionally have been delivered to the world at the end of all this is that the United States is willing to get fierce with its friend Israel over a perceived insult but that we are likely to remain ineffective in the face of self-declared Iranian enemies' efforts to destabilize the entire Middle East with nuclear weapons. This is not only a problem for the president because the outcome is so dangerous. It's also that "tough on your friends, weak with your enemies" is neither a common trait among great leaders nor is it a particularly good campaign bumper sticker.
I'd look for all the Republican Presidential candidates to keep repeating that meme between now and 2012.
I suspect that Jeffrey Goldberg is right about this.
I've been on the phone with many of the usual suspects (White House and otherwise), and I think it's fair to say that Obama is not trying to destroy America's relations with Israel; he's trying to organize Tzipi Livni's campaign for prime minister, or at least for her inclusion in a broad-based centrist government. I'm not actually suggesting that the White House is directly meddling in internal Israeli politics, but it's clear to everyone -- at the White House, at the State Department, at Goldblog -- that no progress will be made on any front if Avigdor Lieberman's far-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Eli Yishai's fundamentalist Shas Party, remain in Netanyahu's surpassingly fragile coalition.
So what is the goal? The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni's centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes. It's up to Livni, of course, to recognize that it is in Israel's best interests to join a government with Netanyahu and Barak, and I, for one, hope she puts the interests of Israel ahead of her own ambitions.
Well, she had that opportunity a year ago and her own ambitions clearly came first.
Why would Netanyahu want to do form a government with Livni at this point? It certainly wouldn't be any more stable. You'd probably have both a Likud breakoff (the Feiglin group) and a Kadima breakoff (Mofaz who would be peeved at not being Defense Minister again) within months.
And it's not Lieberman who's preventing 'progress' on the 'peace process.' It's the 'Palestinians.'
Goldberg is probably right about what the Obami are trying to do, but Obama has misread the map here as usual.
Good news: Jumblatt to have kissing session with Assad
As I reported on Monday, Syrian Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has apologized to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for calling him some not very nice names. Through the good offices of Hezbullah politburo chief Hassan Nasrallah, Jumblatt has now received an invitation (date to be announced) to go to Damascus and kiss and make up with Assad.
"In the framework of the mediation initiated by Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah with the Syrian leadership, which came upon the request of Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt, and following the clear stances and the courageous revision he has made concerning the happenings and developments of the previous phase and following his reconfirmation of the essential political principles especially in what concerns the relation with Syria, the Resistance and Palestine, Sayyed Nasrallah informed MP Walid Jumblatt this evening that the Syrian leadership, committed to establish the best relations with all Lebanese and all political forces in Lebanon and taking into account his latest stances, has decided to exceed what has happened during the previous phase and will open a new page it hopes it would be beneficial for all parties," the statement said, according to the website.
"Sayyed Nasrallah told Jumblatt that Syrian President Bachar Assad will receive him in Damascus during the visit he would pay to the Syrian capital at a date to be announced in the few coming days," the statement concluded.
In case you are wondering, Jumblatt's turnaround is the result of Obama abandoning the anti-Hezbullah forces in Lebanon, followed by the Saudis reading the writing on the wall and making a deal with Syria to compromise Lebanon's sovereignty. More on that here.
So Obama has become a great unifier for Lebanon. Hariri and Jumblatt have joined forces with Nasrallah and Assad and Ahmadinejad under Obama's auspices.
Criticism of President Obama's handling of relations with Israel has gone bipartisan.
Pennsylvania Rep. Christopher Carney, a Democrat, and Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk are sending a letter this morning to President Obama asking the administration to climb down.
"We urge your Administration to refrain from further public criticism of Israel and to focus on more pressing issues affecting this vital relationship, such as signing and enforcing the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act when it comes to your desk," they write.
New York's intensely pro-Israel delegation has also begun to criticize the White House openly, if in measured tones.
"We should not have a disproportionate response to Israel. We need to be careful and measured in our response, and I think we all have to take a step back," Rep. Eliot Engel said on the floor of Congress yesterday.
"While the timing of the East Jerusalem housing announcement was regrettable, it must not cloud the most critical foreign policy issue facing both counties — Irans nuclear threat," said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
"The Administration, to the extent that it has disagreements with Israel on policy matters, should find way to do so in private and do what they can to defuse this situation," said Rep. Steve Israel.
Pennsylvania Rep. Christopher Carney, a Democrat, and Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk are sending a joint letter to Obama telling him to recommit to a number of principles, including “the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, [under which] official United States policy recognizes Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.”
There are also signs that the crisis may finally be winding down.
“I don’t buy that,” Clinton said of the “crisis.” She told reporters Tuesday, “We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close, unshakeable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people, …but that doesn’t mean that we are going to agree. We don’t agree with any of our international partners on everything.”
...
Clinton referred to the issue Tuesday, saying that “we have expressed our dismay and disappointment,” but she did not mention her public condemnation of the Israeli government’s announcement.
"The State of Israel appreciates and respects the warm words said by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the deep bond between the U.S. and Israel, and on the U.S.' commitment to Israel's security," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment to peace, both in words and actions," said the statement."
The statement cited as examples Netanyahu's inaugural foreign policy speech made at Bar Ilan University, the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank, and its decision to freeze temporarily construction in West Bank settlements. The latter, said the statement, was even called by Clinton an "unprecedented" move.
So is it over? Well, maybe.
Clinton last week made specific demands of Netanyahu about the housing project and about showing commitment to U.S.-mediated indirect peace talks, the State Department has said.
"We do expect to have the Israeli response shortly," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Tuesday. "I would anticipate that, you know, very soon there is likely going to be a conversation between the secretary and Prime Minister Netanyahu."
Crowley said he was "not forecasting that'll happen today," but did expect the conversation to occur sometime this week."
When asked whether the U.S. was putting impossible political pressure on Netanyahu, Crowley said: "We are pursuing peace in the Middle East. We are looking for the best way to get the parties into formal negotiations that lead to a comprehensive peace agreement. That is in our interest. It is in Israel's interest. It is in the Palestinian interest.
"And we are - we are playing the role that we've always played in this peace process. And we're going to push the parties as hard as we can, as far as we can. Ultimately, they're the ones that have to sit together and work through these challenging issues. We're just trying to find the right recipe to get them to the table."
So if it's a choice of saying no or not responding, which is Netanyahu better off doing? I'd say to wait until he meets Clinton in Washington next week and ask which she'd prefer. I suspect she'd prefer to let her demands die.
Oh, and another Democrat who is critical of Obama:
Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), Chair of the Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, also released a statement on Tuesday declaring: "Israel is and will remain the United States' most stalwart ally."
And a somewhat surprising defender:
Co-Chairman of the House and Senate Foreign Affairs committees, Congressman Howard Berman, defended the Obama administration's rebuke and called on Israel to ensure such moves not happen again,
"The Administration had real justification for being upset with the timing of the settlements announcement," he said in a statement. "A process was supposed to be in place to keep the United States from being blindsided by just such a development, and yet once again we were blindsided. The Israeli leadership needs to get this right and put a system in place so it won't happen again.
"We need to disentangle bilateral relations from the peace process," he added. "Let's keep in mind that peace talks are not a gift to one party or the other. They are an opportunity for both parties, Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom badly need peace.
"The Palestinians may not like an Israeli announcement about prospective housing in Jerusalem, and the Israelis may not like the Palestinians naming a town square after a brutal terrorist, but the talks need to go forward."
So how will we know whether it's over? On Tuesday in Washington, the Obama administration said that the President would not campaign for any Representative or Senator who votes against his healthcare reform package. If it's not over, you'll see support for him on Israel become a litmus test as well. And that's good news. Because Obama's poll numbers are so bad right now that no one in their right mind would want him to campaign for them. Ask Martha Coakley.
Remember that ranting and raving Joe Biden tantrum last Tuesday in which Biden allegedly said that Israeli actions in approving 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood was endangering American troops? Remember the follow-up claim that the comments were based on a briefing by a CENTCOM team dispatched by General David Petraeus that said that US standing in the Arab world was being eroded by the perception that the US cannot bring Israel into line? Well, Jeffrey Goldberg reports that the claims about what Biden said were a lie.
Since I do not have overwhelming faith in the stenographic and interpretive skills of some Israeli reporters, I called the White House to ask if Biden actually said this. It would be quite something, of course, if he did. I spoke with a senior administration official last night who accompanied Biden on his trip to Israel, and he said that Biden did not say tell the Israelis that their actions were endangering American troops. Here is what the official told me:
"The assertion I read in the newspaper suggested that the Vice President said something to the effect that Israeli actions are endangering American soldiers. He never said that, and there's no basis to assert that he did. It's nothing he said and I don't know how it was inferred.
What he did say in a meeting with the prime minister and his senior advisers and his own team was that the U.S. is doing a number of things in our national security interest, and in Israel's national security interest, and they include a strong effort to build a coalition against Iran's nuclear program; deploying 200,000 troops in conflict areas in the region; standing against efforts to delegitimize Israel in various international bodies, sometimes virtually alone; acting decisively against terrorists in very significant ways; and building probably the strongest defense cooperation relationship with Israel that we've seen, including on missile defense. And he said that the extent to which Israel aggressively pursues peace makes these efforts easier."
Jeffrey's too kind for attributing this to Israeli reporters' 'stenographic skills.' The story first appeared in Yediot Aharonot, Israel's second most Leftist newspaper. I'd love to know whether the reporter lied on purpose. It wouldn't be all that surprising. In this country, the mainstream media has a hard time separating fact from opinion.
Some of you may have been puzzled by the Obama administration demand that the 'proximity talks' deal with the 'core issues' of our conflict with the 'Palestinians.' That demand competes with an Israeli demand for 'direct talks.' I am going to try to sort this out for you and to explain why the demand to deal with the 'core issues' in the 'proximity talks' is one that Israel cannot accept.
When the diplomats talk about 'core issues' here, they are referring to final borders between Israel and a 'Palestinian' entity, 'Palestinian refugees' (but of course not to Jewish refugees from Arab countries) and Jerusalem. They might also be referring to an end of conflict statement, but usually they are not.
In direct talks, Israel and the 'Palestinians' will sit at the same table and speak to each other, possibly with Americans and others also present at the table. In 'proximity talks,' US Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell will shuttle between the parties relaying messages back and forth.
Israel is willing to discuss the 'core issues' only in direct talks, which direct talks it has been demanding since the 'Palestinians' cut them off in December 2008. Israel agreed to 'proximity talks' only as a means to agree on terms on which the parties could return to direct talks. As part of the fallout from Obama's temper tantrum last week, the United States is now demanding that Israel discuss the 'core issues' in the 'proximity talks.' That's a bad thing because it's a major step down the road to an imposed solution.
The danger of proximity talks in which all the “core issues” of the conflict would be on the table is that the U.S. would act not as mediator but in tandem with the Palestinians to pressure Israel into making dangerous and unprecedented concessions. As Haaretz reported two weeks ago,
According to a senior official in the Palestinian Authority, the Obama administration has promised Abbas that if either side fails to live up to expectations, the United States will not conceal its disappointment, nor will it hesitate to take steps to remove the obstacle. In addition, the PA was promised that the United States would not be satisfied with playing the role of messenger. According to what the official read to me, the Obama administration will present its own proposals in an effort to bridge the gaps.
Obama has shown very clearly that, as on health care, he is personally passionate, emotionally invested, and possessed of the belief that he has the power to push through sweeping changes. The proximity talks would give Obama just the opening he needs to subject Netanyahu to an escalating series of demands and punishments — confronting him with the same dilemma he faces right now, only even more severe.
And he wouldn't even have to get Congressional approval. What could go wrong?
EU foreign policy chief Baronness Catherine Ashton gave a Barack Obama-style fawning speech in Cairo on Monday that revised history, papered over differences with the Arab world and attacked - who else - Israel. Emanuele Ottolenghi has a lengthy review of it here, and you really should read the whole thing. But I wanted to point out the end of the article which gives some quotes from Ashton's treatment of Israel with commentary interspersed.
Premise of her comments on peacemaking:
Everyone has to make their contribution and take their responsibility. As the European Union we have a firm commitment to the security of Israel; and we stand up for a deal that delivers justice, freedom and dignity to the Palestinians.
The overall goal:
The parameters of a negotiated settlement are well known. A two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security.
So far, nothing too shocking. But then Ashton offers details to her vision of a negotiated settlement:
Our aim is a viable State of Palestine in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip, on the basis of the 1967 lines. If there is to be a genuine peace a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of Israel and Palestine. And we need a just solution of the refugee issue.
The EU is here reiterating its bias in favor of the Palestinian position. But there is more:
Recent Israeli decisions to build new housing units in East Jerusalem have endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks. …
Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. …
The decision to list cultural and religious sites based in the occupied Palestinian territory as Israeli is counter-productive. …
The blockade of Gaza is unacceptable. It has created enormous human suffering and greatly harms the potential to move forward.
So many details of Israeli mischief! But, again, what about the Palestinians?
The Palestinians too of course have responsibilities. First however I want to commend President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad for showing us that they can build the institutions of a future Palestinian State. But the Palestinians must get their house in order. Continued Palestinian divisions do not serve their interests. The political and physical separation between Gaza and the West Bank is dangerous. Palestinian reconciliation is more crucial than ever. The PLO must take its responsibilities in this regard, and face the challenge of renewal and reform.
Yes, that’s what is wrong with the Palestinian side of the equation. They are not fraternal enough to one another and the political and physical separation of Gaza and the West Bank is dangerous — though Ashton blamed Israel for it before!
For a brief period in the long history of EU-Israel relations, it looked like the EU had finally understood that to influence Israel it had to be friendlier to Israel — not just in words but also in deeds. That included being more understanding of Israeli concerns and more nuanced about the complexities and intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its history, and its challenges.
Lady Ashton has just made it abundantly clear that Europe has reverted to its old habits of appeasing Arab authoritarianism while chastising Israeli democracy.
In a different time, we would have dismissed it all as yet another example of European irrelevance and a guarantee that only the U.S. would really have a role in being the midwife of regional peace. But now, given the United States’s substantive and rhetorical posture vis-à-vis Israel, Lady Ashton’s speech should have Jerusalem worried. There aren’t any friends left around to shield Israel from this kind of European worldview — and so it might just stick.
With the Obama administration trying to impose conditions on Israel to the resumption of normal US - Israel relatoins, Jennifer Rubin suggests we should turn the tables and that Israel should make some demands of Obama.
Maybe three conditions need to be imposed on the Obami: no more unilateral demands of Israel, an apology for the “condemnation” language, and an end to the “summoning” and the scoldings. That should be the price of American Jews’ public and private support for Obama’s Israel policy — at the very least. It’s distressing that even that must be demanded.
While her husband fumed, Jill Biden visited Muslims, Bedouins and dead Jews
While her husband fumed at the Israeli government during their trip here last week, Jill Biden spent her time visiting Muslims and Bedouins and dead Jews in a trip that was largely orchestrated by the recently disgraced New Israel Fund.
While Vice President Joe Biden was denouncing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the government’s announcement of progress in a building plan for Jews in part of Jerusalem, his wife visited Muslim children and a Bedouin group funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF). The organization, which also funds organizations that are rabidly anti-Zionist, has recently come under fire for using foreign money whose sources are not revealed. Sixteen of the organizations that it funds gave over 90% of the anti-Israel reports to the Goldstone commission that investigated Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last year.
The Bidens landed in Israel Monday evening, and Jill Biden began her official tour Tuesday morning with a visit to teachers and children at the integrated Peace Pre-School program at the Jerusalem International YMCA.
Her only visits to exclusively-Jewish areas were to graves and the like: the gravesites of Theodore Herzl and former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin at Mt. Herzl, and the Masada fortress overlooking the Dead Sea.
You can complain about the New Israel Fund (justifiably) all you want, but Dr. Biden isn't exactly a native here, and the Israeli government should have taken the bull by its horns and shown her around.
This reminds me of the days when I was interviewing at out-of-town law firms during law school. The firms that also brought Mrs. Carl along would send a partner's wife to our hotel to take Mrs. Carl out on the town for the day. That was a lovely idea but for one problem: They had my resume but not Mrs. Carl's, so the day was always planned around my interests, which were not necessarily hers. But she got really good at grinning and bearing it. And the law firms did a much better job of it than the Israeli government did.
By the way, I see nothing wrong with taking her to Massada, although something tells me they did not have her climb the snake path.
I know I've played this song before, but with all that Jerusalem has been in the news this week, it bears repeating. If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten, may my tongue cleave to my cheek if I don't remember thee, if I don't recall Jerusalem at my joyous occasions.
Yaakov Shwekey and a group of IDF soldiers from a live concert in Caesaria last summer. This was apparently the finale.
Let's go to the videotape.
If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton think they're going to get Israel to give up Yerushalayim, they've got another thing coming. It's Jerusalem for which we have prayed for the last two thousand years. Two conniving passing politicians aren't going to get us to give it up.
After calling President Obama's behavior toward Israel 'startling' and 'puzzling,' the Washington Post looks at some of the potential consequences of President Obama deliberately escalating his dispute with Israel.
American chastising of Israel invariably prompts still harsher rhetoric, and elevated demands, from Palestinian and other Arab leaders. Rather than join peace talks, Palestinians will now wait to see what unilateral Israeli steps Washington forces. Mr. Netanyahu already has made a couple of concessions in the past year, including declaring a partial moratorium on settlements. But on the question of Jerusalem, he is likely to dig in his heels -- as would any other Israeli government. If the White House insists on a reversal of the settlement decision, or allows Palestinians to do so, it might land in the same corner from which it just extricated itself.
A larger question concerns Mr. Obama's quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don't always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama's poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends.
I don't think people in Washington appreciate the fact that if Netanyahu digs in his heels over Jerusalem, he will have wall-to-wall support from Jewish Israelis. No Jewish Israeli party can afford to be seen as having conceded Jerusalem.
If there's still anyone out there who is not convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, please consider this. Iran tried to buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan's AQ Khan (the father of the Islamic bomb) in 1987.
Documents obtained by Simon Henderson, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former journalist, offer crucial evidence that Iran's nuclear program is not wholly for civilian purposes as it claims - but aimed at developing an atomic bomb.
Henderson told Haaretz he has acquired material written by the scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan - popularly known as the father of Pakistan's bomb program - while under house arrest between 2005 and 2009.
...
[A]ccording to Henderson, Pakistan omitted to pass to its Western allies a sensitive report detailing visits to Pakistan in the late 80s by two Iranian officials, who Khan said offered $10 billion in exchange ready-made atomic bombs.
...
The report, obtained by Henderson, reveals that in 1987 or 1988 Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a former senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard and minister of defense from 1997 until 2005, arrived in Pakistan with an entourage of officials.
Shamkhani offered to buy the nuclear devices on the spot and came prepared to take them home with him, Khan said.
This one requires a little mood setting, so let's go to the videotape. Try to imagine Bibi Netanyahu singing this to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens says that Bibi and his cabinet sounded like this song when they fell all over each other to apologize to the Obama administration last week. And Arens says that they were way out of line.
Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the "timing." Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden's arrival there would not have been a problem. Or, had it met a few days after Biden's departure and he left here under the impression that planning activities had been suspended in Jerusalem, only to find out differently on his arrival in Washington, there would have been nothing to get excited about.
"Timing" is important when investing in the stock market, but it is of little relevance here. There is no substitute for the truth when dealing with friends and allies. And the truth in this case is that while the Israeli government has frozen construction in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, there has been no such freeze in any part of Jerusalem, and certainly no holdup of planning procedures. There was no need for all this groveling by Israeli spokesmen. On the subject of Jerusalem, the government of Israel and the administration in Washington simply disagree.
Throughout the U.S.-Israeli relationship there have been disagreements on certain issues. They are inevitable, even among the best of friends. But generally, the disagreements have not been taken public, but have been discussed in confidential exchanges between representatives of the two governments. U.S. President Barack Obama, however, has taken a new approach, which he signaled at his speech last June in Cairo, where he publicly called on Israel to stop settlement activity.
The rationale of this approach was presumably to accelerate the negotiations between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But what the Americans must be finding out to their chagrin is that this approach is actually making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Whereas in the past he negotiated with Israel while settlement activity continued, without setting prior conditions, Obama's Cairo speech left Abbas no choice but to demand the cessation of settlement activity in Judea and Samaria as a condition for entering negotiations. After all, he cannot be less Palestinian than Obama.
Netanyahu did what he did because he was afraid to incur the Obama administration's wrath. But what he has discovered over the course of the last week is that the only way not to incur the administration's wrath would be to let his coalition fall apart by taking actions that are against Israel's interests and not in line with his coalition agreement. Obama wanted to force Bibi to choose. He has apparently chosen. Now Obama will have to decide whether he wants to take this one to the wall or whether he will learn to live with Bibi's choice and absorb a lot less actions that conflict with America's interests than he has tolerated from the likes of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for twenty-eight years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 5 to 26 years and two grandsons. Our eldest daughter and eldest son are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Laura Rozen predicts that Prime Minister Netanyahu will not have an easy week in Washington next week. 
