"The following joke is making the rounds in the Prime Minister's Bureau these days: What do Americans do when something breaks down in their home - when the sink is blocked up, the toilet overflows, a fuse burns out? Simple: They ask Barack Obama to give a speech and the problem is solved.
... From Israel's perspective, Obama looks like a weak leader afraid of engaging the ruffians from North Korea and Iran, and trying to cover up his weakness with highfalutin speeches and unfair pressure on Israel. From across the Atlantic, by contrast, Netanyahu looks like a peace rejectionist who is trying to cover up his extremism with nonbinding declarations and by meddling in American politics.
Netanyahu is convinced that Obama deliberately wanted to engage him in a confrontation in order to placate the Arab world ...(and) the president's Jewish advisers, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, incited Obama against him and are trying to promote Jewish left-wing organizations in America. It sounds paranoid, but even paranoics have enemies. There is evidence that even during the election campaign Obama's advisers debated distancing the U.S. from Israel as a basis for establishing new relations between America and the Arabs and Muslims. .....
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This most obvious expression of the new policy was Obama's unequivocal demand that Israel freeze construction in the settlements, down to the last scaffold. It was a calculated maneuver, with the pressure directed precisely at the most sensitive spot. The settlements are an object of animus throughout the world and criticizing them exacts no political price in the American arena. No member of Congress and no Jewish leader will position himself opposite the White House ....the most convenient way to scold and corner Netanyahu .....
Two months after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting in Washington, in which the president presented the prime minister with the demand for a settlement freeze, there are increasing signs that the administration is curbing its pressure campaign against Netanyahu..... Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, discussed with Defense Minister Ehud Barak a formula for a partial freeze and the creation of a "common database" - a transparent cover for wasting time.
In his meeting with leaders of the American Jewish community on Monday, intended to signal the end of the crisis in the president's relations with Israel ....
All the reports emanating from Washington indicate that Obama will not issue a detailed peace plan any time soon. Netanyahu's fear - that Washington will demand that he withdraw from all the territories and divide Jerusalem - will not become reality in the near future. The administration distinguishes between "substance" and "process" and will now focus solely on creating the framework for negotiations and also probably on setting target dates for the parties involved. There is no reason for Netanyahu and his coalition to lose any sleep over that.
Netanyahu seemingly won this round, then, but the most optimistic assessment, shows that Obama has emerged from the arm-wrestling contest with a slight advantage. First of all, in an effort to get Obama off his back, Netanyahu had to accept the idea of "two states for two nations." Second, Obama dismissed Netanyahu's call that stopping Iran's nuclear project must precede any political move. Third, and most important, Netanyahu failed to establish relations of trust and intimacy with the president and the administration. He has no tacit agreement on policy. ...
Still, Obama seems to have gone too far in his demand for a total settlement freeze, and he will have to swallow at least some of his pride. The moment America declared Israel's security a sacrosanct value, Netanyahu knew he would not face a threat of delays in the supply of spare parts for the air force, a tactic the previous administration resorted to, along with demanding the dismissal of top defense officials, when it wanted to punish Israel for selling arms to China. Netanyahu was also proven right in his belief that the Saudis would not come up with any generous gestures and that the Palestinians' refusal to renew the negotiations would play into his hands. There is nothing like Arab rejectionism to take the heat off Israel.
Obama made a mistake in ignoring Israeli public opinion. In so doing, he allowed Netanyahu to cobble together a political consensus against a settlement freeze, and to portray him as an unfriendly president who is toadying to the Arabs.
The president seems to be having trouble distinguishing between Israelis and American Jews. His visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp immediately after his Cairo speech was meant to balance the impression that he was extending a hand to Arabs and Muslims, with a parallel move aimed at the Jews.
Indeed, that's how it was perceived by American Jewry; but in Israel it was taken as an affront. The Israeli narrative attributes the state's creation to a historical bond from biblical times, to the Zionist struggle and to the victory in the War of Independence. Obama's message in Cairo - that Israel was established as compensation for the Holocaust - was perceived in Israel as an adoption of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionist stance. Obama blew it, and Emanuel didn't explain to him why.
But it was politics that decided the day. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the principal pro-Israel lobby in Washington, proved that all those who eulogized it after Obama's election were very much mistaken. AIPAC did not try to defend settlement expansion or to openly back Netanyahu. Instead, the lobby undertook a quiet move, almost without publicity, using its tried and tested means: enlisting Congress to signal the president to lay off Israel. .......You can have differences with Israel, but you cannot slap it publicly...."
Two months after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting in Washington, in which the president presented the prime minister with the demand for a settlement freeze, there are increasing signs that the administration is curbing its pressure campaign against Netanyahu..... Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, discussed with Defense Minister Ehud Barak a formula for a partial freeze and the creation of a "common database" - a transparent cover for wasting time.
In his meeting with leaders of the American Jewish community on Monday, intended to signal the end of the crisis in the president's relations with Israel ....
All the reports emanating from Washington indicate that Obama will not issue a detailed peace plan any time soon. Netanyahu's fear - that Washington will demand that he withdraw from all the territories and divide Jerusalem - will not become reality in the near future. The administration distinguishes between "substance" and "process" and will now focus solely on creating the framework for negotiations and also probably on setting target dates for the parties involved. There is no reason for Netanyahu and his coalition to lose any sleep over that.
Netanyahu seemingly won this round, then, but the most optimistic assessment, shows that Obama has emerged from the arm-wrestling contest with a slight advantage. First of all, in an effort to get Obama off his back, Netanyahu had to accept the idea of "two states for two nations." Second, Obama dismissed Netanyahu's call that stopping Iran's nuclear project must precede any political move. Third, and most important, Netanyahu failed to establish relations of trust and intimacy with the president and the administration. He has no tacit agreement on policy. ...
Still, Obama seems to have gone too far in his demand for a total settlement freeze, and he will have to swallow at least some of his pride. The moment America declared Israel's security a sacrosanct value, Netanyahu knew he would not face a threat of delays in the supply of spare parts for the air force, a tactic the previous administration resorted to, along with demanding the dismissal of top defense officials, when it wanted to punish Israel for selling arms to China. Netanyahu was also proven right in his belief that the Saudis would not come up with any generous gestures and that the Palestinians' refusal to renew the negotiations would play into his hands. There is nothing like Arab rejectionism to take the heat off Israel.
Obama made a mistake in ignoring Israeli public opinion. In so doing, he allowed Netanyahu to cobble together a political consensus against a settlement freeze, and to portray him as an unfriendly president who is toadying to the Arabs.
The president seems to be having trouble distinguishing between Israelis and American Jews. His visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp immediately after his Cairo speech was meant to balance the impression that he was extending a hand to Arabs and Muslims, with a parallel move aimed at the Jews.
Indeed, that's how it was perceived by American Jewry; but in Israel it was taken as an affront. The Israeli narrative attributes the state's creation to a historical bond from biblical times, to the Zionist struggle and to the victory in the War of Independence. Obama's message in Cairo - that Israel was established as compensation for the Holocaust - was perceived in Israel as an adoption of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionist stance. Obama blew it, and Emanuel didn't explain to him why.
But it was politics that decided the day. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the principal pro-Israel lobby in Washington, proved that all those who eulogized it after Obama's election were very much mistaken. AIPAC did not try to defend settlement expansion or to openly back Netanyahu. Instead, the lobby undertook a quiet move, almost without publicity, using its tried and tested means: enlisting Congress to signal the president to lay off Israel. .......You can have differences with Israel, but you cannot slap it publicly...."
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