Obama Complains: It's A Media-Fueled "Misperception" That I'm Trying To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship
Even if his explanation about how he's also pressuring the Palestinians wasn't vacuous - and it is - "American pressure on Israel" is just a sideshow. The administration's genuine broadsides against the Jewish State have been (a) Obama's reversal of past diplomatic guarantees and (b) Obama's insistence that progress on Middle East instability, including Iranian nuclearization, is linked to Israeli territorial concessions. Some might add, from the Cairo speech, (c) Obama's minimization of the Jewish right to Israel and (d) Obama's juxtaposition of the Holocaust and the Israeli "occupation," but I think those had more to do with cheap moral equivalence than active diplomatic animus.
None of those could possibly be misperceptions of opaque negotiations since they are policy formulations based on words that came out of Obama's mouth as far back as the campaign. Obama's implication that Israel is responsible for the length and breadth of Middle East instability became an explicit policy when Emanuel linked progress on Iran to progress on the peace process.
But hey, if Obama didn't really say that Israeli concessions "strengthen our hand... in dealing with a potential Iranian threat" or, in reference to natural growth in settlement blocs, he didn't really say "it is time for these settlements to stop" - if he didn't say those things then I guess I might be suffering under media misperceptions.
Just on principle though, it's worth pointing out that even his shtick on the "pressure" sideshow was so unpersuasive that Obama-worshiping liberal Jewish leaders "still disagreed:"
Several representatives from the 14 Jewish groups that participated described Obama as blaming the media for the "misperception" that Israel needs to do more than the Arabs at this stage, equating it with a "man bites dog" story when the US criticizes Israel as opposed to the Arab states... Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Committee, said Obama stressed he fully appreciated how difficult the challenges were. "He must have said a dozen times, 'This is really hard.' This is not sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya," said Forman, who praised the president's grasp on the complexities of the region. But Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman said that, for his part, while he was impressed with Obama's response, he still disagreed... Obama also indicated that US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were close to reaching an agreement on the settlements after weeks of shuttling back and forth.
The logical question - "if Mitchell isn't disproportionately applying pressure to Israel why is he holed up in meetings with Israel" - was presumably never asked. I'd also like to know which part of the media misled Israeli Minister of Intelligence Dan Meridor into throwing up his hands in disgust at how the Obama administration was abrogating past diplomatic agreements:
"We never had a deal with the Republican administration, we had an agreement with the United States," Minister of Intelligence Services and Israel's Atomic Energy Commission Dan Meridor said Monday, during a foreign press briefing in Jerusalem... Speaking of the Road Map agreement, struck between the US and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, Meridor said that "the relations between the two countries are based in mutual agreements, and agreements must be upheld."
I did particularly like this part from Tapper's writeup:
One participant said that the perception is that the Obama administration is applying more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas recently seemed to suggest to the Washington Post that all the concessions that need to be made are by Israel, and Palestinians can wait it out until Netanyahu's government fails.
Do you think Abbas got that impression from the time when Keith Dayton - otherwise known as the American general arming and training Palestinian security forces - insinuated that they might turn their US weapons and tactics on Israel if Netanyahu didn't make concessions? Or that other time when Middle East watchers concluded that Obama's behavior was inexplicable except as a way to topple Netanyahu and install a more compromise-inclined government? Or maybe that other other time when Obama surrogates, including the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense, conducted a public campaign to limit Netanyahu's options on Iran.
Even Hamas, an organization which has never encountered an anti-Western conspiracy it didn't embrace, appreciates Obama. They must be getting their misperceptions from the media!
References:
* Abrams: Of Course There Was A Bush-Sharon Agreement On Settlements [MR]
* Dershowitz: Obama Has Iran Linkage Backwards [A7]
* Obama's Cairo Speech - a Crass Exercise in Historical Revisionism [Red Country]
* Obama: We Must Achieve Peace By Forcing Israel To Give Up Jerusalem And Open Its Borders [MR]
* Obama Figures Out The Real Problem With Iranian Nuclearization (Plus: Obama's Foreign Policy Kneejerks Provide Excellent Illustration Of Exactly How He'd Screw Israel) [MR]
* New Palin Smear: She Supports Hamas (Plus: Obama's Anti-Israel FP Sensibility, Support From Hamas) [MR]
* Emanuel: Thwarting Iran easier with Israeli-Palestinian talks [JPost]
* Obama tries to allay US Jews' concern [JPost]
* Meridor: 'Natural Growth' was part of Road Map [YNet]
* President Obama to Jewish Leaders: Every Time I'm on Al Jazeera They Show Me at the Western Wall with a Yarmulke On [ABC News]
* US Gen. Arming And Training Palestinian Troops: You Know, They Might Attack Israel [MR]
* Is Obama Aiming to Bring Down Bibi? [PJM]
* Gates: Israeli Attack On Iran's Nukes Will Cause Iran To Pursue Nukes, Detonate US-Israeli Relations [MR]
* Hamas: You Know What? We Really Like This New Obama Guy. [MR]
Previously:
* No Kidding: Obama To Pressure Israel On Its Nuclear Deterrent
* State Dept. Banning Pro-Israel Obama Officials From Speaking Out
* WND: Obama Pressured Israel To Declare Ceasefire
