Israel Matzav

He encouraged Obama

Barack Obama apparently did more than just stare at a 16-year old Brazilian girl's rear end during his July 2009 meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. According to a Wikileaks document dump, Sarkozy also encouraged Obama to push Israel hard on dealing with the 'Palestinians.'

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had three stark messages for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when they met in Paris in June 2009, according to a WikiLeaks cable released late on Sunday night:

“You think you’ve got time, but you don’t.”

“You think you have an alternative solution, but you don’t.”

“You think you’re stronger than the Palestinians, but you’re not.”

Those bleak assertions to be delivered by Sarkozy were relayed to US officials in Paris ahead of the meeting by Patrice Paoli, director for North Africa and the Middle East at France’s Foreign Ministry.

Paoli added that Sarkozy would stress that “there is a single door and it is imperative to move through it now.”

...

France supported the US efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians and wanted to get involved in advance of a consensus position on the matter by the 27 EU states, Paoli said.

Specifically, France wanted to help push Israel to freeze settlements and in the monitoring of an eventual peace agreement, Paoli said.

The issue of monitoring was a flaw in the Annapolis process, he said, and added, “The US can not be the only judge of progress.”

During a visit to Paris earlier in June 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told French officials that Israel had a “secret accord” with the US to continue natural growth in the settlements, Paoli also said.

Paoli added that the Obama administration’s credibility would be judged by its attitude toward the settlements.

I don't believe Obama needed the encouragement, but it certainly didn't hurt his determination to continue pushing his obtuse position.

But Paoli has been proven wrong. Obama pushed Israel hard on the 'settlements' but eventually came up against the limitation that Israel is a democracy and is limited in what it can impose on its citizens without their consent. And the Obama administration has zero credibility with the Arabs because (predictably) they couldn't 'deliver' Israel.

And Sarkozy couldn't deliver the girl either. Maybe Obama was too busy concentrating on her to think straight?

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, settlement freeze, Wikileaks

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:36 PM