Maybe Obama doesn't think the 'peace process' is so important after all
Maybe the 'peace process' isn't so important to President Obama after all. At least it's apparently not important enough to release Jonathan Pollard. Before the first freeze ended the Obama administration was advised that they could literally force Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to agree to extend the freeze for three additional months by offering Mr. Netanyahu to free Jonathan Pollard in exchange for the freeze extension.Read the whole thing.
This proposal, that was first raised in my weekly commentary and then expanded on in an 18 September item (repeated below) quickly took on a life of its own - being discussed at length in the Israeli media and then around the world.
The underlying veracity of the observation that such an exchange, if offered by President Obama, would readily pass in the Netanyahu Cabinet, was confirmed and reconfirmed by the Israeli media.
The Obama administration was aware of all of this. And I can personally attest to the fact that they were also aware of assessments that, as bizarre as it may sound, Prime Minister Netanyahu had absolutely no intention for Israel to present the idea, but that he would have no choice but to accept such an offer if it came from the White House (in part because if he rejected it the rejection would undoubtedly ultimately be leaked and used against him).
It would have been an easy move for President Obama.
A move made even easier by a flurry of developments that dramatically transformed the release of Jonathan Pollard from a humanitarian issue to a question of justice.
But President Obama opted not to extend the freeze.
Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jonathan Pollard, settlement freeze extension
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:29 PM
1 Comments:
Carl, this column reminds us of the old joke about the Elephant and the Pollard Question...a journalist says that his idea to free Pollard was such a good idea as Likud-bait for a freeze that the President doesn't want a freeze coz he didn't do it? Maybe the President didn't read the original column, or the idea to box Bibi in wasn't actually suggested to him as riveting as the buzz-inducing conzeptia may have been in the awareness of the blogosphere, or, who knows he didn't want to free a convicted spy/traitor (yes yes Israel is an ally, but no, making that call and leaking top secret info wasn't in Pollard's job description) as a wildcard gambit with unknown PR ramifications.
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