Israel Matzav: Former NSA official joins chorus accusing Obama of ordering Kerry and Power to miss Netanyahu speech

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Former NSA official joins chorus accusing Obama of ordering Kerry and Power to miss Netanyahu speech

As those who follow me on Twitter know, I've been trying to get AP's Matt Lee to question the State Department on Secretary Kerry's and Ambassador Power's absences from Prime Minister Netanyahu's UN speech on Thursday.

Correct I believe that & so do many other Israelis @DanielGordis a well-known author He & I not alone in that belief https://t.co/xtiRY6YGer
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) October 4, 2015

Wouldn't put it past Obama. As far as I know he started on time PS I'm going offline in two minutes - holiday here https://t.co/SGIiyFC1cA
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) October 4, 2015

Now, I have more ammunition. Over the weekend, I had retweeted this tweet.

State Dept Source: @AmbassadorPower was instructed to skip @netanyahu's UN speech.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 1, 2015

Rick Grenell was for years the spokesman at the US Mission to the UN and is a very well-informed observer according to former National Security official Elliott Abrams (Hat Tip: Abu Yehuda).

Think of how petty that instruction, which can only have come from the White House, really is. To sit in the seat and listen to Netanyahu isn’t endorsing his remarks, it is the politeness we owe an ally. Deliberate absence recalls the years in which dozens of delegations, Arab and “Third World,” would leave the chamber when any Israeli rose to speak. This administration is still griping about diplomatic errors Netanyahu has made, but a refusal to have the US ambassador listen to his speech is petty and damaging, hinting to anti-Israel delegations that the United States may be willing to let all sorts of anti-Israel measures go without opposition or criticism.

This is a low point for seven years of Obama diplomacy. I’ll admit to surprise that Kerry, who appears to value diplomatic niceties greatly (and arguably too much) let this happen. But perhaps he knew nothing about it or was overruled by the White House.

As for Samantha Power, one has to wonder what was running through her mind when she was instructed to stay away. Is this really why she left the academic and intellectual life– to be used by the Obama administration to insult and damage Israel?

Abrams gives Power too much credit - she's an Israel hater too. But his criticism of Obama's pettiness (which we've seen many times before) is spot-on.

You might all want to retweet the tweet below (and this post) to see if we can get Matt to hit the State Department on Power's (and Kerry's) absence.

@APDiploWriter Nice job 2day on Afghanistan v Gaza, regarding our discussion yesterday, u might want to look at this http://t.co/5zoHwmE90N
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) October 5, 2015

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Elliott Abrams, John Kerry, Samantha Power