Israel Matzav

Oy vey: 'I can hardly remember a better period of US support for Israel'

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News' Greta van Sustern this week that he can hardly remember a better period of US support for Israel than the Obama administration (Note to Lefty blog Think Progress: Time to get a new picture. The one you used is from the 2008 campaign when Livni was Foreign Minister and Barak was Defense Minister).

And now yet another pillar of the farce that has been Israeli right wing and American neoconservative criticism of Obama’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Israel is collapsing. In an interview on Fox News, Israel’s foreign minister (and former prime minister) Ehud Barak laid to rest the myth that the Obama administration is casting aside the U.S.’s special relationship with Israel.

Baited by Fox host Greta Van Sustren on whether “Israelis [are] disenchanted a little bit with the Obama administration,” Barak responded:

BARAK: No. Our countries are good friends. And I’m the minister of defense, I can tell you that I can hardly remember — I was in uniform for decades — I can hardly remember a better period of support, American support and cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than what we have right now.

And it’s true that not all the Israelis are really happy with the positions of the administration, but I should tell you honestly that the president didn’t say that Israel should go back to the borders of ’67. He made it very clear that he thinks that Palestinians deserve a state of their own. We also believe in two states, Israel side by side — secure Israel side by side with a demilitarized Palestinian state that will basically have the same area that’s West Bank and Gaza Strip had before ’67 with certain swaps, with understanding of the transformation on the ground. [...] Some security consideration we take into account. I don’t think that contradicts what the president said.

Let's go to the videotape (unlike Think Progress, I'm giving you the full interview).



Think Progress' Ali Gharib can hardly restrain himself.

This, from the hawkish defense minister from Netanyahu’s own government, should finally make crystal clear that those in Congress and elsewhere who went after Obama’s comments were misled by a teeny cohort of politically motivated politicians from Netanyahu’s Likud Party and their allies in neoconservative punditry. Perhaps that’s why some of these pundits have been unable to answer questions about their stances. The whole thing was little more than politically-motivated spin, a public relations theater for far right audiences.

But with the Israeli prime minister taking a patently dishonest stand to lead the charge against a U.S. president that has, by almost all accounts, vowed nothing short of full diplomatic support for Israel and broadened the security relationship to heretofore unseen heights, maybe we should be asking who exactly is trying to drive a wedge in the U.S.-Israel relationship here.

Ehud Barak, who tried to give the country away in 2000, isn't 'hawkish.' He's from the Left wing Labor party, and while he's not willing to commit suicide for a 'Palestinian state' (unlike the true believers on the Left), he's far from a hawk.

Isn't it funny that Gharib is arguing that the 'teeny cohort of politically motivated politicians from Netanyahu's Likud party' includes Netanyahu himself? What Obama has given Israel is far short of full diplomatic support. For example, to this day, Obama has still not come out and said that he will instruct his ambassador to veto the 'Palestinian' attempt at unilateral statehood. That might have put the whole exercise to an end.

Over at the NJDC, they're also gloating. They seize on this.

And it’s true that not all the Israelis are really happy with the positions of the administration, but I should tell you honestly that the president didn’t say that Israel should go back to the borders of ‘67. He made it very clear that he thinks that Palestinians deserve a state of their own. We also believe in two states, Israel side by side - secure Israel side by side with a demilitarized Palestinian state that will basically have the same area that’s West Bank and Gaza Strip had before ‘67 with certain swaps, with understanding of the transformation on the ground…. Some security consideration we take into account. I don’t think that contradicts what the president said.

What he did say - more importantly - is that the default position is that we go back to the '1967 borders' (1949 armistice lines) and nothing else without the 'Palestinians' consent. That kind of changes the game from what it was until now, doesn't it? It used to be that we'd agree on borders. Now we start with 1949 and try to get the 'Palestinians' to agree to let us push outward from there.

But at the end of the day, what do you expect Barak to do? Do you really expect him to tell Greta van Sustern "relations with the US are awful and we hope and pray Obama doesn't get reelected"? Barak isn't a blogger. He's the Defense Minister!

Over the past two and a half years, I have been at numerous off-the-record briefings by Israeli government officials, and I can guarantee you that what they said was far closer to "relations with the US are awful and we hope and pray Obama doesn't get reelected" than they were to "I can hardly remember a better period of US support for Israel."

Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:29 PM