Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of "putting light" between America and Israel. His hostility toward Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter's visit to Washington this week was breathtaking.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (left) and US President Barack Obama share a moment of laughter during their meeting in the White House in July.
Photo: Moshe Milner / GPO
It isn't every day that you can see an American president leaving the prime minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House.
It isn't every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit; and is ordered to keep the contents of his meeting with the president secret.
Ahead of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu, The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was effectively attempting to blackmail the Israeli premier by conditioning the meeting on Netanyahu's willingness to make tangible concessions to the Palestinians during his speech before the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.
Although the report was denied by the Obama administration, if it was true, such a move by the White House would be without precedent in the history of US relations with Israel. And if untrue, the very fact that the story rings true is indicative of the wretched state of US relations with Israel since Obama entered office.
Obama's hostility was evident as well during his meeting with 50 Jewish leaders at the White House this week. In an obvious bid to split American Jewry away from Israel, Obama refused to discuss Israel or Iran with the concerned American Jewish leaders. As far as Obama was concerned, all they deserved from him was a primer on the brilliance of his economic policies and the worthiness of his plan to socialize the American healthcare industry. His foreign policy is none of their business.
Obama's meeting with American Jewish leaders was supposed to be a consolation prize for American Jews after Obama canceled his first public address to American Jews since taking office. The White House claimed that he canceled the speech because his visit to the Fort Hood memorial service made it impossible for him to attend. But then the conference was a three-day affair. The organizers would probably have been happy to reschedule.
Instead, as Iran races to the nuclear finish line, America's Jewish leaders were forced to sit through White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's kitschy Borscht Belt schmooze about his bar mitzva.
The ironic thing about Obama's nastiness toward Netanyahu and his arrogant treatment of the American Jewish community is that while it has made him the first US president to have no credibility among Israelis and has caused a 14 percent drop in his support among American Jews, it has failed utterly to earn him the trust of the Muslim world.
Today the Fatah movement is in disarray. Last week its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, announced his intention to retire and has placed the blame for his decision on the Obama administration as well as on Israel. Key Palestinian spokesmen like Saeb Erekat have declared the death of the peace process and called for the renewal of the jihad against Israel.
As for the larger Muslim world, a report this week in The New York Times stated that the US's key Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been perilously weakened since Obama took office. Their diminished influence has been accompanied by the rapid rise of Iran and Syria. Both of these rogue states have been on the receiving end of continuous wooing by Obama administration officials who seem ready to do just about anything to appease them.
In the meantime, Iran's Hizbullah proxy in Lebanon has again managed to regain control over Lebanon's government, despite its defeat in June's parliamentary election. Making full use of the fact that it fields the most powerful army in the country and owing as well to the US's decision to abandon the pro-Western March 14 movement in favor of an approach that makes no distinction between America's friends and foes in Lebanon, Hizbullah strong-armed its way back to the driver's seat in the new Lebanese government.
AS FOR Hizbullah's Iranian bosses, far from convincing them to moderate their policies, the Obama administration's efforts to appease the ayatollahs have emboldened Iran's theocratic leaders to adopt ever-more radical positions against the US. As senior US officials try to make light of the fact that in the past week Iran has thrice rejected their latest offer to have the US, Russia and France enrich uranium for them, the Iranians announced that they will try three hapless American hikers for espionage. The three young Americans were abducted by Iranian security forces along the Iran-Iraq border in Kurdistan four months ago.
The fact that Obama's policies have all failed so spectacularly presents a unique opportunity for Israel to move its policies in a bold new direction. Many commentators and policy-makers have claimed that it falls on Israel to help Obama succeed where he has failed. In their view, Israel must go out of its way to establish a Palestinian state during Obama's term of office or accept the blame for any renewal of the Palestinian terror war against it. Such voices - most strongly represented this week by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman - have tried to blame the failure of Obama's attempt to reinstate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on Israel's alleged intransigence.
In response to these allegations, this week Netanyahu expressed profound and urgent interest in holding negotiations with Abbas. This move was ill-advised. Although it is true that by proclaiming his devotion to the so-called peace process, Netanyahu was able to deflect some of the White House's attacks against him, the short-term advantage it brought him this week in Washington is eclipsed by the long-term damage such an approach causes the country. In the long-run, Israel is harmed when its leaders promote the fiction that it is possible to reach an accord with the Palestinians that will bring about the formal and peaceful establishment of a Palestinian state.
