At least that's how the Politico's Laura Rozen tells it. And being that she's a well connected Journolist member with good sources at the Obama White House, she's likely right.
According to Rozen's sources, the Obama Administration is 'frustrated and upset' at Netanyahu’s dismissal of the incentive package drawn up by Dennis Ross to get the Israelis to extend the building freeze in Judea and Samaria another sixty days. You'll remember that I discussed a number of reasons previously why Netanyahu was smart not to take Obama's offer.
“They’re really upset,” one Washington Middle East hand in close contact with administration officials said. “At the end of the day, they made this incredibly good faith effort to keep Bibi at the table.”
Rozen's sources characterized the mood of Obama's team as “’We put our asses on the line, We worked with your defense minister and gave you this amazing deal, all the cover you needed to extend the freeze. And you not only rejected it, but put forward a counterproposal [demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state] pandering to the right and a stalling tactic.’”
Imagine that! Instead of Obama's essentially worthless offers, Netanyahu actually asked the Palestinians to align with US policy and recognize Israel as a Jewish State instead.The nerve of those Jews!
Rozen and/or her source discussed new pressure being planned for Israel after the midterms in the form of what she terms 'American ideas for the basis of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement'.
The fact that this is codespeak for an attempt to impose a settlement on Israel is revealed by Rozen's recounting of a meeting last week in which high level U.S. State Department and NSC officials were asked what’s to stop Netanyahu saying no to such a plan. The answer the officials gave was 'there are ways to put things forward that he can’t say no to'.
I have a feeling that what the Obama Administration is going to want out of Netanyahu is something he's going to have to say no to - even if it means a total break with the US, which was likely what Obama wanted all along anyway.
Look for Obama's shills in the media to be pushing the narrative of 'spoiled, intransigent Israel' and calling for Netanyahu to explode his center right coalition and bring in the Left in the form of Tzipi Livni and Kadima. In fact, that's already started.
Destroying his governing coalition and bringing in the Left to please a US administration is exactly what happened to Netanyahu the last time he was Israel's prime minister, with the result that he lost his political support,Israel got screwed out of strategic concessions for absolutely nothing in return and Netanyahu was voted out of power. I hope he remembers that lesson.
Especially since Obama is far less trustworthy when it comes to Israel than Clinton was...and that's saying a good deal.
The Israeli/Palestinian problem is just that. It is an Israeli/Palestinian problem. It is not an American problem. America has MASSIVE problems right now. Just for starters, 1.)the economy is in shambles, 2.)the manufacturing base has been hollowed out and is virtually worthless, 3.)the military is worn down from ongoing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere to the point that basic national defense is problematic, 4.)the United States is heavily dependent upon others to meet its energy needs and many of these others are outright hostile to American interests, 5.)the nation's infratructure is crumbling, and 6.)with a massive national debt and a deeply struggling economy its going to be exceedingly difficult to get the needed funds to address any of these issues.
ReplyDeleteGiven these problems, it is mind boggling to me as to why the US government would be wasting time and energy on a problem that is literally a world away. Even if the US could somehow resolve this issue it does absolutely NOTHING to fix any of the problems I laid out above. Furthermore, the US has no way to actually control what either of these parties actually does.
To sum up, time, energy, and resources are being used to try and solve a problem that does nothing to solve America's problems. Not only this, but America has only minimal influence over either of the participants in the conflict. Spending precious resources on this makes no sense at all. No wonder this government is not trusted at home and is almost universally despised abroad. If you can't even get your priorities right here, why would anyone trust you for any thing?
A better approach would to leave this problem entirely to the Israelis and Palestinians to solve. Once the Palestinians learn that they cannot expect America to help them restrain Israel and Israeli leaders can't use America as an excuse for restraining the Israeli military in order to supply political cover for themselves, I think the parties involved will reach a mutually satisfactory settlement to the conflict. If not, then the IDF will handle the problem. Since the Palestinians are currently an enemy of America as well, an enemy of America will be limited and we will not have had to do any thing. furthermore, since America lacks sufficient military capabilities to be capable of conventional military intervention in this problem better to let Israel handle this.
Should Israel somehow fail to fully handle this via the IDF at least American forces will have been redeployed to defensible positions along our borders. At least this way, our brave warriors will at least have a fighting chance to defend our nation.
Finally, can Congress act in some way to restrain Mr. Obama and his team from the destructive actions that seem to be being considered by him? At the very least get him and his team focused on the problems that plague the nation.
Robot says : A caretaker Dem House + the caretaker prez Zero = Danger, Will Robinson !
ReplyDeleteCharles Krauthammer's 16 July 2010 commentary addresses this. ( & JP's comentaries, passim )
ReplyDeletealign with US policy
ReplyDeletei wonder if the reporters used antiseptic when they extracted that answer?
couldn't hussein just issue a moratorium on deep water drilling in the mediterranean?
Given that the Democrats will lose the House and maybe the Senate too, how far can Obama go without completely undermining his support among both American Jews and the American public?
ReplyDeleteHello Anonymous 6:09,
ReplyDeleteThere's a great deal he can do via executive orders.
It's also worth remembering that Obama made a significant change in US procedure when he came into office - our UN Ambassador, Dr. Susan Rice no longer part of the State Department and under the Secretary of State, but a separate cabinet post who reports directly to the president. He could instruct her to allow any sanctions or crazy resolutions to pass in the UN without using our veto.
What he actually does depends a great deal on whether he considers himself a viable candidate for re-election in 2012. I rate the odds on him running as no better than 50-50.
If he's knows he's going to be a one-termer and doesn't care any more, he pretty much has carte blanche for anything short of going to war with Israel - a cut off of relations, a trade boycott, arming the 'Palestinians', freezing Israeli assets in the US..the president sets foreign policy.
Remember, malignant narcissists run on anger.
I actually foresaw this awhile ago.
On the plus side, there's also a decent chance some of this could be blocked in Congress and that Obama, who's not a foreign policy guy will be so busy jousting over his domestic agenda that he may simply wash his hands of the whole thing in the ME.
anon@6:09
ReplyDeletein the spirit of baseball playoffs i'll take a swing at that......
if you soil yourself and read some of the comments on, say, politico, or other liberal bent rags, you may find that part of the disillusionment with hussein is they see him as a centrist.
some of the criticisms are he is employing bush policies.
gitmo is still open.
some were actually opposed to the bailout, as they saw it as an extension of tarp.
however, the majority of the support hussein has lost is because he has not done enough, thus far, on his leftist agenda.
so when you ask, "how far can hussein go" i am assuming you mean how much farther left can he go?
i can't answer that particular point because he has apparently undermined his support with the farthest of leftists.
the ones currently giving him support are just doing it because he had a "d" after his name.
i really was attempting to address your comment. hope i didn't talk in a circle to 'ya.