It’s Official: Obama Policy Triggers “Most Tense Encounter” In Years Between US And Israel (Plus: Can You Guess MR’s Blind Item?)

I thought this lede would get published in early 2010 and I thought the exact wording would be “most severe crisis,” but close enough:

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, clashed face to face with her Israeli counterpart on Wednesday as the two countries remained at loggerheads over the expansion of settlements in occupied territory. In what appeared one of the most tense encounters between the sides for several years, Mrs Clinton and Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, disagreed on both the US call for a complete freeze on settlement growth and Israel’s contention that the administration of George W. Bush, the former president, had signalled that some expansion was permissible.

I’m still in awe that, out of all the complicated regional issues in play, the Obama administration picked this pretext for detonating a multi-decade alliance. They could have gone for “lack of progress on the Israeli-Syrian track,” which is directly linked to the Iran issue. They could have gone for “Israeli reluctance to arm Palestinian security forces,” which the State Department has spent years setting up as a shining example of Israeli intransigence. But instead they choose “Israelis want to build porches in front of their houses.” What the hell?

At least two possibilities:

(1) Obama really thinks that Palestinians will stop blowing up Israeli schoolchildren if Israelis stop building schools in West Bank cities like Ariel, where 20,000 Israelis live. The technical description for this fantasy is “blisteringly stupid,” but given how Obama got his Middle East education it’s not totally beyond the realm of possibility. I used to think he got his sense of the Israeli-Arab conflict from radical anti-Israel academics. That would explain why he thinks it’s normal for people to sneer at “pro-Likud approaches to Israel,” since “Likudnik” is a euphemism for “warmongering Jewish nationalist” in academic circles where “Zionist” has lost its sting.

But Steve Rosen recently made a solid case that Obama’s views were shaped by American Jewish leftists. That makes even more sense. Obama’s original pert quote was “there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

“You can be anti-Likud but still be pro-Israel” is true, except when Israelis elect Likud Prime Minsters. There’s only one political community that insists that they’re “pro-Israel” precisely because they disagree with the decisions of the Israeli electorate, the Israeli political establishment, and the Israeli military echelon: the group of interchangable Jewish American tools who coalesced strikingly early around the Obama campaign.

Members of this community spent the post-Oslo years launching contemptuous tirades against Israeli settlers, both because they think it sounds sophisticated and because they just don’t like many of those Jews. If this is where Obama got his understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – yeah, he might be deluded enough to think that settlements actually matter.

(2) Obama thinks that pressuring Netanyahu on settlements is the best way to bring down the current Israeli government. This was an early favorite for explaining Obama’s obsessive focus on natural growth, if only because he can’t actually think that ordering Israelis to stop building balconies will work. If this is Obama’s goal, you’d expect him to choose the one single topic which is a red line for Netanyahu’s government but where the Israeli electorate is to the left of the coalition. That excludes Syria and Iran, ergo: settlements

I’m not sure where they got this idea, but Obama’s people apparently believe that Israelis will rush to appease the White House and vote for the Obama-approved candidate. And by “not sure” I mean “totally sure.” Which brings us to this week’s Mere Rhetoric Blind Item:

Rumors have been swirling for months that this Obama-linked Chicago attack dog advised a certain concession-inclined Israeli pol during the last election. The high-ranking Democratic was heavily involved in the campaign but has been overheard bragging that, since he wasn’t paid, there are zero public records establishing his connection.

Feel free to leave your guesses under this post on Mere Rhetoric’s Facebook Page.

References:
* Obama Campaign Demands Ban On Republican Jewish Group, Escalates Thuggish Intimidation [MR]
* Clinton clashes with Israelis over settlers [FT]
* Fatah Weapons Champion, Abject Failure Keith Dayton Said Nablus Was Fatah’s “First Real Test” How’s That Going? (Plus: Dozens Of Fatah Soldiers Building Rockets, Targeting Israelis) [MR]
* Obama Now Actively Channeling Rabid Anti-Israel Academics, Adopting Their Dumbest Anti-Israel Euphemisms [MR]
* Jewish left shaped Obama on Settlements [Rosen]
* Of Course: “Pro-Israel” J-Street Is More Anti-Israel Than Israel’s Sworn Enemies, Equates Israeli Self-Defense With Hamas Violence [MR]
* Pro-Obama Jewish Groups: The Pre-1967 Arab Stranglehold On Israel Was “Pretty Wonderful” [MR]
* Is Obama Aiming to Bring Down Bibi? [PJM]
* Obama administration said to be cultivating Netanyahu opponents