BY: Alana Goodman and Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON
The U.S.-Israel alliance “is crumbling” due to waning support for Israel among Democrats and “total disrespect” for the Obama administration among segments of the Israeli government, according to President Barack Obama’s former Middle East envoy Martin Indyk, who alternately bashed Israel and the White House during a frank off-the-record talk at a Washington, D.C., synagogue during the Yom Kippur holiday.
Indyk, who left his role as U.S. special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in July, lashed out at the Jewish state for showing “disrespect” to the Obama administration and warned that the historically strong U.S.-Israel “relationship is in trouble,” according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Indyk—who was revealed by the Free Beacon earlier this year to have spent time bashing Israel over drinks at a bar—has been identified by officials in both Israel and Washington as the primary source for numerous recent stories in the media blaming Israel for the failure of peace talks with the Palestinians.
His comments over the Yom Kippur holiday in front of a Jewish audience at the Adas Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C., reflect the chilly relationship between the former White House emissary and the Israeli Prime Minister.
However, Indyk’s frustrations do not end there. The longtime Middle East hand also criticized the Obama administration for fueling perceptions that the United States is withdrawing from the region, a view that he said is the result of both the Bush administration’s intervention in Iraq and Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Indyk said he “discovered” after years of bargaining with the Israelis and Palestinians that the U.S. no longer had the credibility it once did under past presidents.
“What I think we discovered … trying to make peace this time around, was that we would crack the whip, but no one was responding to our whip cracks,” Indyk said with dismay. “That’s a change.”
This erosion in credibility is a “change which has occurred very recently,” Indyk said, adding that “our dominance has begun to wane.”
This problem has only been heightened by the Obama administration’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, Indyk said.
“Now, as we withdraw from the region, which is the perception in the region of our withdrawal from Iraq, our withdrawal from Afghanistan, it has had I think a very dramatic impact on our ability to influence the players there, including Israel, but also the Palestinians,” he said. “And I do think when I compare our situation today as diplomats to the situation with the diplomats back in the 1970s, the leverage they had was far greater it seems to me in the Middle East than we experience when we try to exercise [it] today.”
Indyk went on to warn that U.S.-Israeli relations are at an all time low.
“The U.S.-Israel relationship is critical, is essential to Israel’s survival,” Indyk told the audience. “And the relationship is in trouble.”
U.S. support for the Jewish state is “the bedrock that Israel has always relied on … and I worry that bedrock is crumbling,” Indyk said, laying partial blame at the feet of Democrats.
“We have a situation,” he said. “Support amongst Republicans for Israel is really high. … But the truth is that most Jews are Democrats, and amongst Democrats support for Israel is only something like 43 percent.”
“That’s a huge gap, which is indicative of the fact that it has become a partisan issue,” Indyk added.
However, the longtime negotiator reserved his harshest criticism for the Israelis.
“On the Israeli side I see something which I’m really, really disturbed by, which is the total disrespect on the part of some on the right in Israel for the relationship with the United States,” Indyk said.
“And that manifests itself with right wing politicians standing up excoriating our leaders, who are trying to do their best for Israel,” Indyk said.
“Look to the [Israeli] Defense Minister, whose budget is supplemented to the tune of $3 billion dollars a year by the American taxpayer, standing up and calling the Secretary of State an obsessive messianic,” Indyk said. “That kind of attitude on Israel’s part is not ingratitude; it’s disrespect. It’s something that I find very, very disturbing.”
There is “some hubris” on the Israel side, an attitude that “we don’t need the United States anymore,” Indyk said.
After leaving the Obama administration in July, Indyk returned to the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. He had previously served as head of the think tank’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and rejoined as vice president and director of foreign policy.
Indyk came under fire last month after the New York Times reported that the Brookings Institute had accepted $14.8 million from the state of Qatar, a key funder of Hamas, at some point in the past year.
When pressed by an audience member about the financial relationship between Brookings and Qatar, Indyk grew defensive and called accusations against him “scandalous.”
“Brookings is an independent research institution, none of whose funders are able to determine its research projects,” he said.
“I hope nobody really believes that I cashed a check for $14.8 million dollars, which is what’s going around in right-wing Jewish circles,” Indyk added. “We should all take a deep breath about some of these lurid, scandalous stories.”
Multiple sources confirmed to the Free Beacon that Brookings Institute leaders held a company-wide forum after the publication on September 6th of a New York Times article detailing Qatari regime donations to the think tank. The purpose of the forum, the sources said, was to allay concerns among Brookings staff over foreign government influence.
yamit82 Said:
they can be liberal and even leftist and still be strongly pro Israel and anti libel. I have some leftist views but I also have some conservative views, I am pragmatic and follow my own experience. None of your list looks like a good excuse for the GOI NEVER debunking the illegal and illegitimate claim in front of the israeli public and the diaspora, especially when it is now obvious that ignoring this has become Israels greatest problem i that winning wars does not mean winning. If you let someone get away with saying jewish settlement is illegal or illegitimate you should expect them to say or do anything. Give an inch and they take a yard. The last people who should allow that is the GOI.
Instead of spouting irrelevant BS like “its unamerican” BB should have reminded the US and EU that they guaranteed and agreed to encourage Jewish settlement in all of the mandate territory and that their statements are a breach of those guarantees and agreements, and are in fact libelous; asking them if they believe that breaking agreements with Jews is ok. BB should state that Israel will not negotiate in an atmosphere of libel and that the US and the EU must cease their libels if they want peace negotiations.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Thank You Arnold
You are a good man, even if you live in the wrong Mt Horeb. 🙂
Shana Tovah to you too. Much health and nachat.
@ bernard ross:
Some obvious incontrovertible truths.
1- Most younger Jews could care less
2- most of those who do pretty much get it.
3- Most Jews are liberals and Americans before they are Jews and that’s where their primary concerns and loyalties lie.
4-The over 50 group of Jews still retain a pro Israel position but they are also democrats, liberals and voted for Obama twice.
5- Most Jews sentimentally support Israel but there is no real American or diaspora leadership for them to follow.
6-American Jews almost at all costs will not support Israel against any president of the USA. That would open them up to being accused of dual loyalties and they are scared to death of that. They would pressure Israel to cave so they would not have to take sides against the entrenched government.
7- If most Jews don’t know the real facts it’s because they choose not to.
Now I am generalizing but I base it on long personal experience. an many many surveys and polls and my own family who by and large have no interest in Israel
None of my family has ever been to Israel except my older sister who first came because she thought I was going to die. In the end I wasn’t and didn’t but it got her to visit.
My younger sister was in England and France but never Israel.
I don’t think they are A-Typical!!!
Must in a real crisis they might come through like in 67 and 73??? who can say?
yamit82 Said:
I hope you are right. what troubles me is that Jews are kept in the dark, that Jews are ignorant of the truth, that Jews have come to beliveve these lies. I dont care so much about the others but jewish betrayal stings, it is more ignorance than betrayal. the GOI needs to reach Jews in the diaspora and tell them the truth, they need to counter the propaganda. they should be communicating with the orgs, synagogues and community centers globally being the “snopes” for the Jews.They need to debunk the big lie that jewish settlement in Israel is illegal or illegitimate. This is number 1. It permeates every problem on a daily basis.
@ yamit82:
That was a beautiful video, Yamit. Almost enough to defrost even my frozen and hardened heart. I regret that I did not spend more than 18 months of my 80 years in Eretz-Yisrael, doing something more substantial for the Jewish state that writing argumentive screeds for internet blogsites.
Shana tova.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
We Daughters love you too, xxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooo.
@ mar55:
@ honeybee:
xxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooo Me too!!!!
@ bernard ross:
Don’t ask me how but it will turn out for the best. It’s not how it ends we know that. It’s always the path to that end. That’s why no matter how angry or disappointed I get I know it will turn out OK. The how is what we have some control over not the ends served.
@ honeybee:
“How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKis54dAn5g
yamit82 Said:
this was why I said that unless Israel was reasserting soverignty and taking back gaza that sending in ground troops to depose hamas in order to install fatah made no sense. BB knowing that was the outcome sensibly did not take the next step to waste more lives just to make Abbas way smooth. but there is more to this as I have been saying and to which you disagree, The under the table understandings. qatar brokered the POD cease fire,Qatar had relations prior with Israel, qatar sought Israel s approval to redevelop gaza before the war, now we see qatar behind rawabi. I still maintain that not every “public quarrel” is true and that Qatar simply represents another avenue to control different sunni muslim networks than Saudi but that their goals are the same.
the one occurrence that is clear from protective edge and just prior: Israel weakened hamas on the west bank AND in gaza; perhaps that is just a coincidence, but perhaps it is not. How much of the conflicts going on are really conflicts going on or are just dramas produced for the street? I believe that Israel has already been cooperating with the GCC on a case by case basis wrt POD, Syrian jihadis, Egypt, prot. edge, fake 9 months peace talks. I also believe that the so called splits in the GCC are fabricated to distract and obfuscate the origins of the jihadi swarms in the Levant and N. Africa.
yamit82 Said:
My main suggestion for combatting the libels that are even believed by Jews is that the GOI both legally and diplomatically begin a conscious campaign to debunk the libels of illegal and illegitimate jewish settlement. it is not enough to make a wishy washy comment that jews can buy in east jerusalem because arabs can buy in west jerusalem, These isolated, disorganized and disconnected comments do more harm than good. The foreign ministry must call in every ambassador and demand that they cease their libels and that they honor their agreements with the Jews. They must explain from where they derive their libel of illegal or illegitmate settlement. A GOI who cannot even take this miniscule action is pathetic. The only legal documents are the treaties(WWI, LON mandate, jordan treaty, egyptian treaty and 242). all britains white papers are irrelevant and only publish their views, they are not legally binding documents like the LON Charter. Britains white papers only demonstrate the perspective of a trustee who violated their trust and ended up aiding the Jordanian invaders, they had no authority to determine legality past or present.. I know of no legal binding document which gives any credence whatsoever to the canards of illegal and illegitimate. In fact the opposite is true.
Furthermore, Israel should be taking legal action or encouraging NGO’s to take legal action in european and western courts to cease the libels and to facilitate the settlement. Let it be shown how the west swindled and libeled the Jews and continue to swindle and libel the Jews today. what doe it take to summon ambassadors and institute suits. The GOI could simply raise money for Shurat ha din as the gov appears incompetent. Most of israels problems arise from the canard of illegal or illegitimate settlement. Israel wins wars and loses the peace.
I find BB’s comments to be childish, irrelevant and lacking in focus both in his un american comment and his comment that jews can buy houses in Jerusalem because arabs can. His thought process is incredibly sloppy, almost as if he himself is ignorant of the facts of law and history.
@ yamit82:
dove, mar55,keelie, laurie and hb the daughters of Israel care:
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611-Bible/book.php?book=2+Samuel&chapter=1&verse=19
@ bernard ross:
MSM here do not report this stuff and leftist commentators never get a national hearing for their views. only the blogs and they preach mainly to their choirs.
It’s not enough to just report items like this the people should be made aware of the ramifications, which they aren’t.
I have no solution for this state of affairs. Willing to entertain suggestions.
HB is correct we have lost some of our best for no good reason yet who cares but the loved ones and friends of the dead heroes… I care and it pisses me off more than I can repeat here.
@ mar55:
xxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooo to you too.
@ honeybee:
@ yamit82:
Thanks G-d things are back to normal. The forum without your teasing was kind of boring. You two are a great team.
bernard ross Said:
When has a soldiers death ever been for naught but to his loved ones??
yamit82 Said:
Any one of those.
honeybee Said:
Ooops wrong word??
Try instead:
outstanding,
prominent,
spectacular,
striking
conspicuous
obvious to the eye or mind
dat Better??
yamit82 Said:
Sorry does not compute.
This should put paid to the canards floating about…Israel has under the table dealings…..no sane persons would facilitate their own killers.
Soldiers died so that those that fund hamas could build in YS, either that statement is true or Israel maintains relations and understandings that are not revealed to the public. In either case there is no transparency and it is more logical to assume clanddestine deals than deals above the table.
honeybee Said:
The pregnant question is which one of us is The Strawberry Roan? Either way I’ll take the bet.
yamit82 Said:
More cryptic messages, “who wants a horse anybody can ride”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yfmKMK4mo
honeybee Said:
I’m sure it is……!!!!!!!!
Curiosity and Me are synonymous.
honeybee Said:
Your influence!!! I have no choice if I want to interact with you with some Chance of Comprehension. Do admit it’s a challenge at times but loving ever second.
yamit82 Said:
Easier to demonstrate the explain.
yamit82 Said:
I am glad you have learned to listen to the lyrics.
honeybee Said:
Just curious to know how it was done with all that gear???
“And you know there ain’t no use
In us trying to wear out your new saddle.”
“And you know crickets do their singing
By just rubbing their legs around.”
yamit82 Said:
Spurs, latigo, brandin- iron, chinch, half-hitch, rope, hobbles,,,, givens, Darlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gQW2OagGw8
@ yamit82:
I have long answer for you, about my ” hot roll”, but REA just came to the door to say they are shutting off the power to repair the transformer
@ honeybee:
No spurs????
yamit82 Said:
Except when he’s wearing his Stetson and chaps.
honeybee Said:
Everywhere???????
yamit82 Said:
Tell me about it,Darlin
TX get so tired of wearing a hard hat and tool belt.
honeybee Said:
You sure have exotic tastes in men.
Or
Was it the flight suit?
yamit82 Said:
I have had a “thing” with G W Bush since I saw him in his flight suit.
honeybee Said:
Touche Mi dulce amor!
yamit82 Said:
The cute one.
Interesting in how this Qatar/GCC stooge and mouthpiece is an echo of their interests. both Israel and the GCC have been complaining about Obama. I wonder if he has a garter to put the bill in when he gives them his lapdance? He is so obviously transparent in his hysterical rants. Qatar wants in on the billions in gaza redevelopment and its likely that Israel is holding up the show.
@ honeybee:
Which one?
honeybee Said:
Thank You for that.
yamit82 Said:
For me ?????????????? Then I shall spare you.
yamit82 Said:
George !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ honeybee:
That’s formidable.
Dev’s Bush????
Ya Got me there!
Suppose I can’t compete with Tx or Rick Perry’s good looks but the Bush???
I recently shaved my beard and it’ll take time to grow one back….It comes out salt and peppery, eh! Thought you are allergic to em?
@ yamit82:
TX , that very handsome Rick Perry, and Dev’s Bush.
honeybee Said:
Who you got for a crew Sköldmö (“Brynhildr”)?????
yamit82 Said:
I am provisioning my Dragonship now and will sail down the Rio Grande to the Atlantic. Ya betya !!!!!!!!!!
Eric R. Said:
I have a better solution:
honeybee Said:
The Mossad should deal with this kapo.
Chag sukkot sameach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ8WLRNEDWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6NleeA8nPQ
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
I agree with all you say and more!!!
Israel can win wars, but can only lose with the peace process.
Why do we provide platforms for renegade capos such as Indyk? Should we not care less what that filthy traitor says or does? He never got Qatari oil money for his sabotaging our people and country, the ghastly dr.k pile says. In retrospect would do that for free and gladly.
Those scumbags thrive on our people allowing them open doors.