Israel Matzav

Kurtzer rips Obama administration on Israel

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer, who served as an adviser to the Obama campaign in 2008, has criticized the Obama administration for its approach to the 'peace process.'

Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. mediator and ambassador to Israel and Egypt who served both Democrat and Republican presidents, took a more skeptical view. He said it's "not understandable why we would now have them sit in separate rooms and move between them."

"I have been disappointed this past year with the lack of boldness and the lack of creativity and the lack of strength in our diplomacy with respect to this peace process. We have not articulated a policy, and we don't have a strategy," Kurtzer, who advised Obama's presidential campaign, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.

Kurtzer is right. Obama has bowed to every Arab dictator in the region, but has refused to speak to Israel or to visit here. In his last meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Prime Minister came and left late at night through a backdoor of the White House, and all photographers were barred other than the White House's own photographer. It goes without saying that there was no press conference.

Obama's first act upon taking office was to appoint retread George Mitchell as his 'special envoy.' Mitchell's biases against Israel were known before he ever assumed his position. Obama's second act was to be more 'Palestinian' than the 'Palestinians' by demanding a 'settlement freeze' when the 'Palestinians' had been talking to Israel without one for 16 years. Worse, he demanded that it include Jerusalem, to which no Israeli government could agree.

Spit in our face, Mr. Obama, and we'll spit in yours. Don't treat our Prime Minister like your butler and expect your Vice President to be treated like a king here.

What could go wrong?

UPDATE 2:44 PM

Kurtzer expands on the WaPo remarks here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:57 PM