This is what foreign policy experts would call “diplomatic momentum.” It’s what the rest of us call “starting a fight and then stepping back so you don’t have to take the blame.” Although Obama’s Israel policy is such a diplomatic train wreck in so many ways that I’m almost willing to believe this was unintentional. Almost:
On the brink of this flood of top US officials, one senior Israeli source noted with satisfaction that the US administration’s response to Netanyahu’s pledge to continue building in east Jerusalem despite American opposition was relatively low-key… But if the US response was relatively low-key, Russia, France and Germany all called on Israel on Tuesday to stop all settlement construction, including construction in east Jerusalem, creating what one Israeli source called “unpleasant momentum.”
“The settlement should be stopped immediately in line with the road map,” AFP quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko as saying, in reference to the plan to build 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah. The French media reported that its Foreign Ministry would summon Israeli Ambassador Daniel Shek to protest the plan, and in Germany Reuters quoted Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, as saying Israel ran the risk “of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state” if it did not stop the construction. Polenz, head of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Rheinische Post daily, “Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without east Jerusalem.”
Well you know: the Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 because advancing Arab armies told them to wait elsewhere while they annihilated the local Jewish population – they have “legitimate grievances” related to their “right of return.” But the thousands of Jews who were cleansed from Jerusalem while Jordanian generals bragged that “for the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter” – they don’t get to move into Israel’s capital because it would impinge on Arab sensibilities. Poor babies.
And for what it’s worth, were I the head of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, I would avoid talking about “solutions” that involve keeping entire neighborhoods Jew-free.
References:
* Obama Alienates The Israeli Left: “He Has Spoken About Us But Not To Us” [MR]
* Obama’s Anti-Israel Posture Undermining The Peace Process, Hardening Palestinian Demands [MR]
* US says sanctions on Israel ‘premature’ [JPost]
* Netanyahu To Obama: Actually, We’re Going To Keep Letting Jews Build Homes In Jerusalem [MR]
Previously:
* Obama: Israel Must "Engage In Serious Self-Reflection"
* Awesome: Obama Now Wrecking Israel’s Economy Too
* Figures: Obama’s Manufactured Spat Undermining US-Israeli Military Cooperation, IDF Action Against Iran
