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Friday, May 20, 2011

Confirmed: Obama's speech meant to pre-empt Netanyahu

President Obama's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Friday is likely to be quite hostile according to a New York Times account by Helene Cooper.
By all accounts, they do not trust each other. President Obama has told aides and allies that he does not believe that Mr. Netanyahu will ever be willing to make the kind of big concessions that will lead to a peace deal.

For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far — a point driven home during a furious phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, during which the prime minister reacted angrily to the president’s plan to endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders for a future Palestinian state.

Mr. Obama did not back down. But the last-minute furor highlights the discord as they head into what one Israeli official described as a “train wreck” coming their way: a United Nations General Assembly vote on Palestinian statehood in September.

Mr. Netanyahu, his close associates say, desperately wants Mr. Obama to use the diplomatic muscle of the United States to protect Israel from the vote, not only by vetoing it in the Security Council, but also by leaning hard on America’s European allies to get them to reject it as well.

Mr. Obama has indicated that he will certainly do the first. But it remains unclear how far Mr. Obama can go to persuade Britain, France and other American allies to join the United States in rejecting the move, particularly as long as Mr. Netanyahu continues to resist endorsing the pre-1967 lines.

...

Things got so bad, Mr. Foxman recalled, that Mr. Netanyahu “told me, ‘Abe, I need two hours just alone to talk to him.” Late last year, Mr. Netanyahu got his two hours at the White House with Mr. Obama, a meeting which, both American and Israeli officials say, helped clear the air. “The relationship now is very cordial,” a senior White House official said.

But the easing of tensions ended this spring when, Israeli and American officials said, Mr. Netanyahu got wind of Mr. Obama’s plans to make a major address on the Middle East, and alerted Republican leaders that he would like to address a joint meeting of Congress. That move was widely interpreted as an attempt to get out in front of Mr. Obama, by presenting an Israeli peace proposal that, while short of what the Palestinians want, would box in the president. House Speaker John A. Boehner issued the invitation, for late May.

So White House officials timed Mr. Obama’s speech on Thursday to make sure he went first.

“You get so many reports that Bibi is playing politics in your backyard that eventually you’ve got to draw the conclusion that there’s nothing there to work with with this guy,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now a fellow with the New American Foundation, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. Administration officials said that they were determined not to allow Mr. Netanyahu to get out in front of Mr. Obama.

In a statement after Mr. Obama’s speech on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu’s office pointedly said that the prime minister would raise his concerns about Mr. Obama’s language about the pre-1967 borders during Friday’s meeting.

“While there were many points in the president’s speech that we appreciate and welcome, there were other aspects, like the return to the 1967 borders, which depart from longstanding American policy, as well as Israeli policy, going back to 1967,” Michael B. Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview. “The prime minister will raise the issue with the president. As the president said, the United States and Israel are great friends, and friends have to be able to talk frankly to one another.”

But both men will have to manage any additional irritation as they prepare for the United Nations vote that is headed their way, American and Israeli officials said. Neither side wants to see an overwhelmingly lopsided United Nations vote for Palestinian statehood, with Britain, France and Germany joining the rest of the world and isolating Israel further, with only the United States and a few others voting against it.

“I think the Europeans are sliding” toward voting for Palestinian statehood “because they don’t see a peace strategy coming out,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He said that the two leaders had to figure out a way to work together to stop a United Nations vote that could harm both the United States and Israel. “If they are incapable of being able to translate a common interest into a common strategy, then it’s a very sad commentary on both countries,” Mr. Makovsky said.
Well, how do you make a strategy when one side isn't even willing to negotiate, let alone compromise.

I've read the accounts of Begin's meetings with Carter, and of Shamir's meetings with Bush I. This is much worse. And frankly, I doubt it would be better with a more Left-leaning government in power here. (For the record, Rabin's relations with Carter were worse than Begin's). This President is hostile to Israel's very existence. The only glimmer of hope is that by behaving this way now, he is ensuring that he will not be re-elected.

Where is American Jewry now?

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6 Comments:

At 12:00 PM, Blogger NormanF said...

Netanyahu knows most of his party won't support a withdrawal to the 48' lines. Good luck with selling it to the Likud.

And after what happened last Sunday, Israelis are thrilled with the idea of Arabs being able to flood Israel from Jordan. NOT!!!

Quite simply put, except among Israel's Far Left, Obama's view Israel should return to those indefensible borders and give up half of Jerusalem find no takers among most Israeli Jews.

Danny Danon had the right idea in the New York Times yesterday. What the heck is Netanyahu waiting for?

 
At 2:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This particular American Jew never voted for Obama. I saw what and who he was immediately. That the majority of the Jews in the US refused to see that shows that they like to live in a fantasy world plus Israel's survival is not as important to them as abortion. In fact i was told that on more than one occasion, that while Obama is an antisemite they were more worried about abortion and not Israel's survival. Quite frankly whether Israel truly likes it or not, they can't count on the majority of Jewish Americans.

 
At 5:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The notion that Israel would ever agree to territorial concessions (far reaching), with or without the dubious presence of UNIFIL? the Peace Corps? on its borders, to get the Palis in a happy mood to then talk about their demands on Jerusalem and refugees is a non-starter. Arguing about borders--and we could theoretically--is besides the point, given that Obama is caving on refugees and Jerusalem (at least propose parallel negotiations) and refuses to recognize that Fatah's delegitimizing of Israel is not symbolic but now the core of its two-Palestinian state BSD strategy.

 
At 5:47 PM, Blogger Stop Bleeding America said...

I am an American, non-Jewish. Having said that, during Obama's speech he used words like "WE & the United States" referring to the pre 1967 Borders... Obama DOES NOT speak for me!

Hang in there Israel
Texas

 
At 10:33 PM, Blogger tuleesh said...

"Confirmed: Obama's speech meant to pre-empt Netanyahu"

But, it blew up in the godling's/messiah's/[d]Ear Leader's countenance. For the Left and Hamas, the speech was too "milk-toast." For the sane, the speech was the ramblings of an historical illiterate. Obama has no real Peace in the ME under Obama's administration is to serve his super-inflated ego, solve his "daddy issues," and his legacy... whatever that means.

 
At 11:51 PM, Blogger Lee Firth said...

I think most people aren't aware how tiny Israel is: you can walk the entire width of the country at its narrowest point in an afternoon; using the pre-1967 borders you could do it in a couple of hours.

 

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