If you've been following Obama's latest FUBAR in international relations, you know that Obama chose to be "insulted" about Israel's announced plans to build 1,600 new housing units within its own sovereign territory in East Jerusalem. As Rich Trzupek writes at Breitbart's BigJournalism in "Stupid Is As Stupid Does; Obama and Co. Moves To Alienate Israel," Obama's administration is clearly demonstrating that our commitment to Israel "is now conditional on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 'good behavior'."
For a head of state to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of…
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Jewish settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisors and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman who spoke to the Prime Minister said today.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House phone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”…
Newspaper reports recounted how Mr Netanyahu looked “excessively concerned and upset” as he pulled out a flow chart to show Mr Obama how Jerusalem planning permission worked and how he could not have known of the announcement that hundreds more homes were to be built just as Mr Biden arrived in Jerusalem.
Mr Obama then suggested that Mr Netanyahu and his staff stay on at the White House to consider his proposals, so that if he changed his mind he could inform the President right away. “I’m still around,” the Yediot Ahronot daily quoted Mr Obama saying. “Let me know if there is anything new.”
So was Obama's behavior towards a guest in our White House (not his White House) just childish petulance, a mere "snub" from a thin-skinned petty man used to getting his way? Or was it something worse? As Rick Moran points out at American Thinker ("Obama in extraordinary snub to Bibi"), there is a disturbing pattern of behavior in Obama's actions in treating our allies with contempt (Great Britain, the Poles and Czechs, and now Israel) while he speaks "kindly and gently" to Iran, Venezuela, Syria, and other leftist thugs in the world. . . ."
Alternately, there are others who view Obama's behavior as far worse than just an ignorant snub or childish pique. Writing at Big Journalism, Pamela Geller says that Obama is hardly a passive, weak, or naive player in the Muslim/Jewish conflict: "He was wet-nursed on Jew-hatred. He grew up in a Muslim country and studied the Koran. He knows what is prescribed for the Jews in Islam."
Geller continues: The Jewish people, both in Israel and the diaspora, seem to be suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome. There can be no logical reason why an American Jew could intellectually excuse Obama’s twenty-year friendship and closeness with the anti-Semitic Farrakhan acolyte Jeremiah Wright. There is no way an American Jew could explain away or rationalize Obama’s connections to Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and know about those connections without knowing what was coming. These Jews (and our history is plagued with them) love ideas, not people. They are so married to their dogma, their ideology, that they cannot, will not, see what is right in front of them. They worship at the church of human secularism. That is their religion. They have no G-d. They are merely wearing a Jewish coat, but do not speak for Jews.
Geller's blog can be found here at Atlas Shrugged.
Within the context of his actions towards Israel and Netanyahu, here is Obama's Nowruz message to Iran in March of 2009.
Friday Update: "Netanyahu's Office: No Change on East Jerusalem Plans" Below are exerpts:
U.S. officials want Israel to freeze a plan to build 1,600 new settler homes in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as a future capital. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated in Washington that Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, not a settlement.
The White House has said the housing plan undermines the negotiations the U.S. has offered to mediate. Mr. Obama asked Mr. Netanyahu to take steps to build confidence for the peace talks.
Separately Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said tensions in the Middle East are hurting U.S. interests in the region.
Jordanian King Abdullah warned Israel on Thursday that it is "playing with fire" by authorizing new construction in East Jerusalem. Iran's foreign ministry responded to the building plans by labeling Israel an aggressive, terrorist state.
Update #2. Here is a 15 Nov 2006 interview between Glenn Beck and Benjamin Netanyahu. Again, within the context of Obama's actions, this is chilling stuff.
Netanyahu: "Iran is gearing up to produce 25 atomic bombs in a year, 250 bombs in a decade. Their missiles already overreach Israel--they reach into every European capital, and they're building missiles and developing missiles that will reach the Eastern seaboard of the United States, i.e. New York City, the studio we're sitting in. So this is . . . like Naziism, they start with the hatred of the Jews and they want to annihilate the Jews, but that's only the first stop. Their goal is Western civilization."
Netanyahu went on to talk about what was learned from the Holocaust: if somebody tells you he's going to exterminate you, believe him: "I believe that the president of Iran intends to exterminate Israel; I believe he intends to kill a lot of Westerners and subjugate others--by the way, Muslims who don't conform to his extremist views. And I think he's a danger to the world. Because I believe his intentions, I think he has to be stopped, stopped in time. The most important thing is to make sure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. This is what President Bush has pledged to do, and I think we should support him and see that this pledge is seen through, not merely for the sake of my country, Israel, but for the sake of mankind. This is a great danger to the peace of the world.
"I think if you engage Iran and thereby give it time to build nuclear bombs that will hit your allies and then you, that will be a mistake. I hope that my words here are a sober reminder that we have to keep our eye on the ball. The main this is, prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. What have we been doing about Iran for the past year plus while Obama and his administration have been obsessed with passing a health care bill the nation doesn't want? We have, quite simply, "taken our eye off the ball." As Jonah Goldberg put it, "Obama's Iran Policy Is Dead. Goldberg's article was in June of 2009. Obama apparently has given up on the policy of preventing Iran from acquiring an atom bomb.
God help us all.
Update #3. From HotAir. Sounds like that middle finger from The One at the White House earlier this week didn't have the desired effect. Go figure.
This is quoted at HotAir: Late Friday evening, Israel Radio reported that Netanyahu holds to the view that Israel must not change its policy in Jerusalem, despite the fact that this was the main point of contentions between Israel and the United States.
In closed talks, Netanyahu clarified that he has no intention of breaking up his rightwing coalition to form a more moderate centrist alliance, despite continuing pressure from the United States for a compromise over Israeli building in east Jerusalem.
“I do not need coalition partners to pressure me into continuing to build in Jerusalem,” he said. “I, myself, plan to continue building in Jerusalem as all previous prime ministers did before me.”
I'm just guessing, but our former Chicago community organizer president has never had to look eye-to-eye with a former commander of Israel's elite special forces unit. Obama may think he won a battle at the White House the other day, but for winning this war, my money is on the Israeli. Hell, I doubt nancy-boy Obama has never even been off a sidewalk, except to run gayly down the beach. He is so out of his league.
Sounds like Barry just created for himself a "Jewish problem." Way to go, Champ.
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