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Lion's Den: A rapid and harsh turn against Israel
The much-anticipated meeting between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu on May 18 went off smoothly, if a bit tensely, as predicted. Everyone was on best behavior and the event excited so little attention that The New York Times reported it on page 12.
As expected, however, the gloves came off immediately thereafter, with a series of tough American demands, especially Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's insistence on May 27 that the Netanyahu government end residential building in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
| Obama: Bare your neck to the blade. |
This prompted a defiant response.
The governing coalition chairman pointed out the mistake of prior "American dictates," a minister compared Obama to pharaoh and the Government Press Office director cheekily mock-admired "the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem."
| Bibi (continues): How stupid do you want to make yourself look in front of your friends? |
...EVEN IF one ignores the folly of focusing on Jerusalemites adding recreation rooms to their houses rather than Iranians adding centrifuges to their nuclear infrastructure and even if one overlooks the obvious counterproductivity of letting Abbas off the hook - the new US approach is doomed.
| Bibi (continues): Merely stupid or really stupid? How cool will they think you are then? |
...If Washington continues on its present course, the result may well be spectacular policy failure that manages both to weaken America's only strategic ally in the Middle East even as it worsens Arab-Israeli tensions.
I wouldn't bet on weaken
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-06-04 |
