Why Obama still won't go to Israel
On Sunday, I did a post about what Barack Hussein Obama might do to convince Israelis that he is serious about stopping Iran. On Tuesday, Jonathan Tobin wrote a piece in Contentions about why Obama won't do it. The only possible answer is the one we always are forced to return to when discussing the problematic relationship between the Obama administration and Israel: the president’s equivocal feelings about the Jewish state. As veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller memorably put it a few weeks ago, Barack Obama is the first president in a generation “not in love with the idea of Israel.” That’s compounded by his open and very public dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu.It sure does. So why can't so many self-proclaimed American Jewish supporters of Israel see it? (Answer - Because Israel isn't a high enough priority for them).
While Obama’s defenders are right to note that there’s nothing all that unusual about the lack of a visit to Israel during a first term, this is a president who has gone out of his way to pick fights with Jerusalem and to avoid the country during trips to the region. It appears that if Obama is to go to Israel, as his campaign hinted earlier during this summer, it would only be as a re-elected president with the whip hand over Netanyahu and not as a candidate who has to show some deference to his ally.
One imagines that Obama is recoiling at the very idea of being forced to pretend to be friendly with Netanyahu even if it meant avoiding an attack on Iran that he opposes or helping his re-election. Given the stakes involved, his refusal to take some good advice from a supporter tells us all we need to know about the president’s attitude toward Israel.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:58 PM
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