Daniel Greenfield leaves out a factor that I believe is very important. Obama has always been pro-Palestinian and no doubt intended to create a Palestinian state during his time in office. The high ranking diplomat didn’t just call him a chickenshit. He explained it by saying “The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states.” Bibi has out-maneuvered Obama for 6 years causing Obama to fail in his cherished objective. Due to Bibi’s bobbing and weaving, Obama hasn’t been able to land a punch. He hasn’t been able to make any progress whatsoever on the creation of Palestine. For that Obama will never forgive him. Ted Belman
Obama’s foreign policy was supposed to reboot America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Old allies would become people we occasionally talked to. Old enemies would become new allies. Goodbye Queen, hello Vladimir. Trade the Anglosphere for Latin America’s Marxist dictatorships. Replace allied governments in the Middle East with Islamists and call it a day for the Caliphate.
Very little of that went according to plan.
Obama is still stuck with Europe. The Middle East and Latin American leftists still hate America. The Arab Spring imploded. Japan, South Korea and India have conservative governments.
And then there’s Israel.
The original plan was to sideline Israel by focusing on the Muslim world. Instead of directly hammering Israel, the administration would transform the region around it. The American-Israeli relationship would implode not through conflict, but because the Muslim Brotherhood countries would take its place.
That didn’t work out too well. Instead of gracefully pivoting away, Obama loudly snubbed Netanyahu. A photo of him poking his finger in Netanyahu’s chest captured the atmosphere. Netanyahu delivered a speech that Congress cheered. And Obama came to see him as a domestic political opponent.
The torrent of anti-Israel leaks from the administration is a treatment usually reserved for political opponents. The snide remarks by White House spokesmen and the anonymous personal attacks on Netanyahu in the media echo domestic hate campaigns out of the White House like Operation Rushbo.
Netanyahu wasn’t just the leader of a country that the left hated. He had become an honorary Republican.
When Obama met with him, Netanyahu firmly but politely challenged him on policy. He has kept on doing so ever since, including during his most recent visit. At a time when most leaders had gotten the message about shunning Romney, Netanyahu was happy to give him a favorable reception. Netanyahu clearly wanted Romney to win and Obama clearly wished he could pull a Clinton and replace Netanyahu. But Netanyahu’s economic policies were working in exactly the same way that Obama’s weren’t.
The two men hate each other not only on a personal level, but also on a political level.
Netanyahu had successfully pushed through a modernization and privatization agenda that on this side of the ocean is associated with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. It’s likely what Romney would have done which is one more reason the two men got along so well. Obama’s visible loathing for Romney is of a piece with his hatred for Netanyahu.
He doesn’t just hate them. He hates what they stand for. That’s why Harper and Netanyahu get along so well. It’s part of why Obama and Netanyahu get along so badly.
But the bigger part of the conflict is neither personal nor political. Obama wanted to sideline Israel; instead he’s stuck dealing with it. Hillary’s lack of foreign policy ambition allowed the Jewish State to come through fairly well in Obama’s first term. For Hillary, being Secretary of State was just a stepping stone to the White House by making her rerun candidacy seem fresh. Her relationship with Israel was bad, but her first job was not to make any waves.
John Kerry ambitiously jumped into multiple foreign policy arenas. His bid for a deal between Israel and the PLO was a predictable disaster. And he took Obama along for the ride. It’s unknown if Obama blames Kerry for the mess that ensued when his proposals collapsed into war, but there’s little doubt that he now hates Netanyahu more than ever.
The war dragged Obama deep into the confusing political waters of the region. His attempt to back the Turkish and Qatari empowerment of Hamas in the negotiations ended with Egypt and the Saudis scoring a win. It was hardly Netanyahu’s fault that Obama once again chose to side with a state sponsor of terror, but it’s safer to blame Netanyahu for the humiliation than the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
And then there’s Iran. Netanyahu remains the loudest voice against an Obama agreement to let Iran go nuclear. No matter how many talking heads defend the deal, he blows away all their hot air.
Not only did Obama fail to sideline Israel, but he’s stuck dealing with Netanyahu. And no matter how much he may view Netanyahu as an Israeli Romney, he can’t quite openly treat him like Romney because there are plenty of Jewish Democrats who still haven’t realized his true feelings for Israel.
Both men are stuck together. Egypt hates Obama more than it did before he overthrew its original government. Iraq and Syria are war zones. The Saudis are actively undermining Obama’s policies. Israel is still America’s best ally in the region and that interdependency frustrates him even more.
Obama wanted to destroy the American-Israeli relationship. Instead he’s entangled in it. He blames Netanyahu for the situation even though the mess is mostly of his own making.
Despite the myths about the vast powers of the lobby, Israel has never been at the heart of American foreign policy. And under Obama, it’s been on the outskirts in every sense of the word. Israel is back to being a major concern of American foreign policy mostly because of Obama’s massive failures in every other part of the region and Kerry’s belief that he could somehow succeed where everyone else failed.
Netanyahu’s presence reminds Obama of his own failures. If everything had gone according to plan, America would be experiencing a new age of amity with the Muslim world. Instead he’s stuck bombing Iraq and reaffirming the special relationship with Israel almost as if he were on Bush’s fourth term.
It’s not the way that the international flavor of Hope and Change was supposed to taste.
Obama hates Israel. He hates Netanyahu. And their continuing presence in Washington D.C. reminds him of his inability to transform American foreign policy. Their very existence humiliates him.
He knows that directly lashing out at Israel would alienate the Jewish supporters he still needs. Despite his effort to displace pro-Israel voices with J Street, the Jewish community is still pro-Israel. And so he resorts to passive aggressive behavior like snubbing the Israeli Defense Minister or anonymous officials in the administration taunting Netanyahu as a “coward” and “chickens__t” in the media.
It takes a courageous administration to anonymously call the leader of a tiny country a coward. It’s childish behavior, but this is an administration of children overseen by a man whose response to his opponent’s accurate reading of the world situation was to taunt him about the “1980s” and “horses and bayonets.”
While Obama’s people anonymously taunt Netanyahu as a coward, it’s their boss who acts like a coward, stabbing Israel in the back, slandering its leader anonymously through the media and then trying to sell himself to Jewish donors as the Jewish State’s best friend in the White House.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.
@ David Chase:
Notice that most of your psost deals with how to deal with the swindlers, defamers and libelers but your approach is to treat them as if they were sincere or genuine. this approach is the residual effect of the 2000 years that has produced a Stockholm Syndrome whereby the Jews perpetually frame their strategies from the perspectives of their prior or current murderers and masters.
David Chase Said:
I don’t agree with Sherman because he focuses on the needs of the faux people rather than the jews. Let their arab brothers solve their needs. Their brothers have no care for humanitarianism and if they did they would not keep them in the refugee camps. Why should Jews solve the problems of those who expelled and want to kill Jews?
Here it is, plain and simple, without the jewish need to be nice to nazis or to satisfy the euro libelers of Jews:
1- Jews must be settled in all of Israel
2- the arabs must go
Everything ese is embellishment and rationalization to not feel guilty, to appear nice, etc etc etc.
Remember that 80% of the Palestine mandate territory was severed off and maintained JEW FREE. Isnt that enough for the honor killing gluttonous pigs and the euro libelous swine?
Jews need to stop being suckers, do whats good for Jews and let the others figure out their problems. As soon as the arabs are no longer in Israel the swindling libelers will solve their refugee problem just like all others were solved. Why is Sherman thinking of humanitarianism for pals when the Jews expelled from arab lands never got that consideration from the arabs OR the filthy euros.
The problem is not that Jews should be humanitarian to please the enemies but that Jews need to devise plans to deal with enemy attacks both economic and military. That is a real problem to solve and NOT providing humanity to those who lack it as a result of their own behavior. I am tired of jews being ridiculed suckers.
@ bernard ross:
I think the time is approaching where, with the collapse of the TSS and relations with the US at a low, we can now start offering alternative plans to the TSS. I recommend that both the public and as many Israeli officials as possible be familiarized with Martin Sherman’s Humanitarian Solution to the conflict so that when we start asserting and establishing our legal rights we have an answer to “what else is there”. We need to embrace the Levi Report and point out that the Levi Report is based on already existing international law (San Remo, Mandate for Palestine etc) and that implementing sovereignty as the Levi Report affirms our right to do does not mean we have to accept the Arabs into our land whether or not a One-State solution and full sovereignty is or is not a demographic “bomb”. Sherman’s plan, when completely understood, gives not only a very humanitarian solution to the Palestinian problem but is also fiscally sound one People don’t realize there could be another answer. Even friendly members of Congress and MKs don’t necessarily know any feasible alternative plan. Now that Bibi has, in my opinion, successfully ducked the TSS, we can work on establishing our legal rights and our sovereignty over all of J&S and begin a process of annexation. Had a hard liner taken over for Bibi (like someone like Feiglin) they wouldn’t have been able to deflect Obama’s agenda as well and if a left-winger got in they would have just given away the store. Bibi revealed Obama’s plans for us by calling the Palestinians bluff big-time.
Obamas reaction shows his desperation
David Chase Said:
You make a good point. The only problem is that he has held Jewish rights in silence which has contributed to the problem of delegitimizaton globally. However, not to second guess someone in the drivers seat perhaps his evaluation concluded for him that the best approach was to stall the onslaught while Israel builds her strength economically, militarily and diplomatically. I beleive that if this was his goal then he has done well at that level. Next I hope to see him or someone further the settlement of Jews in YS and repudiate the canard of illegitimate Jewish settlement anywhere in Israel. I realize that there might need to be a more cunning, covert approach than my own. Hope springs eternal
Obama has once more demonstrated that he and his band of brash, clueless, superficial, low class, high school adolescents are unable to rise above the bottom of the barrel. They have rendered themselves as pathetic low class whiners playing topsy turvy day at the local middle school.
@ the phoenix:
I think you are right about what would happen to your comments but the way you put it made it unnecessary to do that. This was one of the most gratifying articles about how Obama’s “scheme” has backfired as Bibi has outmaneuvered him. I belong to Bayit Yehudit but I voted for Netanyahu specifically because, despite there not really being anyone else, I felt he was uniquely qualified to deal with Obama. He had already established his positions and the fact that Obama didn’t/doesn’t like Bibi meant to me that Bibi was probably doing something right. It goes to his credit and despite all of Bibi’s talk of a TSS and willingness to negotiate and even go along with building freezes etc. which looks bad, after six years in office and six years of mounting US pressure he still hasn’t made a bad deal. We didn’t need, at least for now, a hard-line rightwinger to pull that off. Now Bibi’s saying to Obama (you can substitute any word you like here) Screw us. Screw you and your plans for us. I love it. Let him seethe
Obama is so unpopular even deep Blue State candidates don’t find him much of a draw.
I believe his outburst at Israel is correlated to his sinking popularity at home.
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
David Chase Said:
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I think, that were I to truly comment how I feel about the musloid impostor in chief… I would be banned… So let’s just say that I share your feelings David.
WHOLEHEARTEDLY.
Sometimes you have to come down to their level to enjoy the scenario.
Reading about how unhappy Obama is makes me happy!