In the PULSE, here"Yesterday, when the New York Times inexplicably gave Shimon Peres' insulting message to Iran equal play with President Obama''s, I thought it might be no coincidence.
Peres, who is an uberhawk on Iran, suddenly sends "greetings" to the Iranian people urging them to rise up against their government at the same moment that Obama respectfully addressed the "Islamic Republic of Iran" with the most conciliatory US message in decades. Coincidence? Maybe.
Of course, the Iranians would not view it that way. They would see America and Israel playing "good cop, bad cop," diminishing the effect of Obama's remarkable overture.
I hear that the White House is furious.
Today's Times reports that when asked about the Israeli move, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I know we notified our allies about our message last evening," saying he did not know if the Israelis had been notified. ...Of course, they were. No other ally is as concerned about Iran as Israel so Jerusalem must have been at the top of the list of those notified. Did it respond with a hasty and insulting message iin order to kill the effect of President Obama's? If so, it was a serious breach. If the shoe was on the other foot, Jerusalem would go ballistic.
Some reporter needs to develop a tick-tock on this one. We need to know what happened. If it was an innocent coincidence, fine. If it wasn't, it bodes ill for any US attempt to mend relations with Iran (and prevent an Iranian bomb diplomatically rather than by attempting and failing through military means)."
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