@BarackObama to bully Israel tomorrow! …Well. I suppose that he will *try*.

I didn’t really want to post on this, but since Barack Obama feels the need to spout off on it…

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House tomorrow, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster — if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians. Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy. And the president will make the case that Netanyahu, alone among Israelis, has the strength and political credibility to lead his people away from the precipice.

In an hourlong interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach.” He added, “It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

…let me just respond thus: attempting to rough-pressure the duly-elected head of state of a functional representative democracy that has been constantly defending itself from utter extinction since before either I or the President of the United States was born is unlikely to succeed.  And when it does not succeed, if Barack Obama pushes the issue he will merely ignite a major brawl inside one of the two majority parties in this country, and it won’t be the Republicans*.  I cannot imagine what President Obama hopes to gain from that: I sometimes wonder if he does, either.

Moe Lane

*Note that we’re well aware that Jewish voters will still vote Democratic no matter what we do, and we instinctively support Israel anyway: it’s called ‘living by one’s principles,’ and I suggest that Barack Obama try it some time.

17 thoughts on “@BarackObama to bully Israel tomorrow! …Well. I suppose that he will *try*.”

  2. A comment to this post has just been removed. If I see another one like it, I will close this thread. Do not think to push me on this.

    1. Since I have no idea what was said (just getting here) I will keep my snark to myself… 😉

  3. “Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy”

    His time as the first truly anti-Israel ( or at least incredibly hostile) POTUS will be over right around January, 2017.

  4. Exactly what threat can Obama offer against Israel if they don’t voluntarily go along with destroying themselves as a country?

  5. Didn’t you see the last Democrat convention? That party, at least those activist enough to be sent to the convention, abandoned Israel. No, scratch that — not “abandoned”, that implies they ever supported them. They declared their intent to see Israel sacrificed.
    .
    Yeah, some of the high-ranking in the party, and some of the money, still supports Israel. Immaterial. Obama’s sentiments are with the people who shrieked in anger over the party’s plank supporting Israel being reinstated, not with the people who had the clout to get it back in there.

  6. Why does Obama think he has the capital with anyone at this point to force such a thing? I doubt that Netanyahu will do anything to deliberately antagonize him, but instead will try and extend things over the next couple of years. IIRC the process is that the substantive questions have already been discussed at the lower levels, and the answers are to a degree already known.

    Besides what guarantees can Obama give that will now have credibility? The Ukraine is going to loom behind all of this.

  7. Maybe POTUS will just show him that UCLA video over and over in an attempt to get him to cave.
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    *Geneva Conventions might prevent this…

  8. My one public statement on the night of Obama’s re-election was “Pray for Israel”.
    .
    I wish I’d been over-reacting.

  10. Well I suppose Israel should be afraid of Obama seeing as he’s done such a “spectacular” job of screwing up the entire US foreign policy. (SARC) Of course, I’ll admit I’m not sure how much of that is the idiot Sec of State (take your pick which one either Clinton or Kerry) picks even though he is responsible for their actions as well, or how much of it is him directly thinking he can talk his way out of a paper bag. How many Red Lines can be issued before people start tuning him out anyway? I’m sure Putin is shivering in his boots about “his” stern warning. Oh and Assad too. Iran… Libya…Pakistan…Wait, how many more can he screw up over there anyway?

    1. Hopefully this isn’t objectionable – I have no idea how offensive someone would have to be to get blocked on this.

      1. Pretty offensive. I’ve never seen Moe ban anybody before on his own site ( and I’ve been reading for over a year)

  12. Diplomacy is like a game of 43-Man Squamish, “an incredibly complex game with intentionally convoluted and confusing rules.” Attempts by the Obama administration’s State Department to play 43-Man Squamish have not gone well at all.
     
    Worse, President Obama himself is not playing 43-Man Squamish. Instead, he is a spectacularly good player of 2-Man Squamish, the object of which is to lose.

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