Israel Matzav

Obama's "or else"

Caroline Glick attributes Prime Minister Netanyahu's irrational behavior on the 'Palestinians' to threats being made to him by US President Hussein Obama.

The question is, what are Obama and his colleagues threatening to do to us? What is the “or else” that follows the American demand for Israel to capitulate to Palestinian demands? The media claim that Netanyahu continues with the phony peace talks because he doesn’t want to be blamed when they fail in April. But even if Netanyahu were to break with his party and form a new government with Livni and the Labor Party, the Arabs and Meretz, and offered Abbas Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and some symbolic right of immigration for a few foreign Arabs to the rump Jewish state, Abbas would reject his offer, just as he rejected Ehud Olmert’s offer and just as Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s offer.

And just as Obama has blamed Israel for Palestinian intransigence and radicalism for the past five-and-a-half years, so he will blame Israel for the failure of the current talks. So as unpleasant as it will be to be blamed, the best thing Israel can do is expose Palestinian bad faith to minimize the price it will pay when it is blamed.

The thing is, Netanyahu must know that Obama will blame Israel no matter what the Palestinians say or do. So perhaps the “strategic interests” he is threatening are more strategic than simply blaming Israel for scuttling phony peace talks. Maybe Obama is telling Netanyahu that if he fails to keep faith with the fake talks, Obama will tip Iran off to an impending Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.

Here, too, Obama has a track record. According to former national security adviser Giora Eiland, Netanyahu was poised to attack Iran’s nuclear installations in the fall of 2012, but Obama pressured him into standing down. It is hard to believe that Obama’s was a soft sell.

Then there is the issue of military sales. Government officials have whispered periodically that Obama is threatening to curtail weapons sales to Israel. Such a move could quickly paralyze the air force.

There is an argument to be made for keeping silent on the nature of Obama’s blackmail.

Exposing it would also expose the growing fissure between the US and Israel, and much of Israel’s deterrent posture is based on a widespread assessment that Israel’s strategic alliance with the US is unbreakable. But then again, Obama’s weakening of the US alliance with Israel – and with Saudi Arabia and Egypt – is well-known. The damage has already been done.

Given this, the argument for exposing the nature of Obama’s threats becomes more compelling by the day. Congress still plays a supervisory role in foreign policy. And the American public supports Israel deeply. There is a strong probability that if the nature of Obama’s threats is revealed, he will be forced to rescind them before Israel becomes the foreign corollary to the Americans whose health insurance Obama canceled.

Read the whole thing. In Hussein Obama, the US actually has a leader who is a bigger liar than Netanyahu.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, lies

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:51 PM