AP: Tail refuses to be wagged by dog

by on May 18, 2009 10

From the Associated Press:

A senior aide to Netanyahu, national security adviser Uzi Arad, suggested the Israeli leader might not yield to pressure from Obama for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. He also seemed to hint that Israel might consider military action against Iran when he said there was a "sense of urgency" in Israel over the Iranian nuclear threat.

Such rhetoric suggests diplomatic high stakes as the two men hold their first White House meeting against a backdrop of disagreement over several key issues..

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, Israeli Government, US Politics

{ 10 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Colin_Murray says:
    May 18, 2009 at 4:06 pm

    Why wouldn't they play political chicken? The Lobby has been astoundingly successful in derailing attempts to revise ME policy, and apparently the current Israeli government believes an American war with Iran is, for them, a critical national interest. The chance that they will attack Iran without our permission or cooperation is non-trivial. The Obama administration would be criminally negligent if it didn't have contingency plans for that scenario. Avoiding a third war is a critical American national interest. It's time for Americans to stand our ground, leash that pooch, and send it to behavior training.

  2. Marion says:
    May 18, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    Change We Can Believe In for U.S.-Israeli Relations? By Phyllis Bennis http://www.alternet.org/audits/140065/change_we_c...

  3. MRW says:
    May 18, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    I agree with Colin. The threat these paranoics perceive could lead to a real WWIII situation through their recklessness and bad judgment. I am just fed up with Israel's braying about its threatened state. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and appears to have been throughout history. Zionists goaded WWI, WWII, and now want a repeat? Enough.

  4. RowanBerkeley says:
    May 18, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    There's been an absolute welter of this manipulative, pre-meeting commentary. This is normal MO for the zionists in the US and Israel, to write speculative pieces that try to prejudge the target's options. It's best to ignore them all, IMHO.

  5. Ed says:
    May 18, 2009 at 5:40 pm

    The first president in US history to back down the Zionists and ram through the two state solution will go down in the history books as accomplishing what no other president could. Unfortunately, at its upper levels, the corrupt two-part regime produces nothing but Zionist sycophants and appeasers, in large measure to curry favor with corrupt American Zionists of all strains, from Jewish to Christian to Judeophile liberal internationalists. Contemporary American politicians aren’t leaders; they’re managers, technocrats and bureaucrats seeking the path of least resistance. Reining in the Zionists is at this point is so obviously in America’s interests and the pent-up failure to do so is of such clear and present danger that any president worth his salt as a leader wouldn’t hesitate for even a second. In fact, to NOT do so is malpractice.

  6. dalybean says:
    May 18, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    In today's Washington Post, Sally Quinn speaks openly of the long knives out for the National Security Advisor, Jim Jones. Who will get to the bottom of this before Jones ends up like Chas. Freeman? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...

  7. MRW says:
    May 18, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    The link is bad.

  8. US Objector says:
    May 18, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    It's all hasbara rhetoric. The Israeli press has been pushing Bibi to be tough with Obama, and the thumb in his eye is the continuation of construction in the settlements, announced hours before Obama's meeting with Netanyahu. Israel can talk tough with Obama as long as Congress hands $3 billion each year to that rogue nation. The real question is where's Congress' head these days on the I/P issue (still up its arse?). Does Congress continue to believe that the US citizenry is so doped up on Britney Spears, NASCAR and pop culture that it doesn't care about the I/P issue, or is otherwise too "low-information" to know better. As long as the MSM conspires to keep the truth from the people, they may pull this off. Or will they? Obama knows what depths AIPAC will sink to prevent America from doing the right thing in the I/P situation. It's going to be a showdown between Obama and the US Congress, not between Obama and Netanyahoo.

  9. Senhal says:
    May 18, 2009 at 7:05 pm

    Ed, I think your genuine desire for democracy would be much better served if you abandoned your fear of the 'Left'. Read what the (Jewish) Revolutionary Communist Party of Palestine had to say in 1947 and 1948:

    To sum up: the proposal of the UN committee is a solution neither for the Jews nor for the Arabs; it is a solution pure and exclusively for the imperialist countries. The Zionist policy-makers avidly seized the bone imperialism threw to them. And the “left-wing” Zionist critics, in the name of removing the mask from the imperialists’ game, attack half-heartedly the partition proposal, and call for … a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine! A bi-national state according to the Shomer HaTsa’ir (Young Guard) proposal is just a fig-leaf for the right of the Jews to impose on the Arabs – without their consent and against their will – Jewish immigration and Zionist policies.

    http://www.marxists.de/middleast/misc/pal1948.htm

    What about the Jewish “Communists”? The patriotic wave makes sitting on the fence very uncomfortable. The Zionist “Socialist” parties soon “corrected” their anti-imperialist phrases and stubborn “resistance” against “cutting up the country to pieces” and gave way to full and enthusiastic support of the imperialist partition policy. That was a trifling matter, a question of merely changing Zionist tactics. Yet the Communist Party of Palestine might have been expected to take up a different position. Have they no repeatedly warned against the fatal results bound to come with the establishment of a Jewish state? “Partition must needs be disastrous for Jew and Arab alike … partition is an imperialist scheme intended to give British rule a new lease on life …” (evidence given by the PCP before the Anglo-American Commission of Enquiry on Mar. 25, 1946). The secretary of the party loyally stuck to this attitude as late as July 1947 when he said before the UNO commission: “We refuse the partition scheme point blank, as this scheme is detrimental to the interests of the two peoples.” However, after this scheme had been pulled off with the support of the Soviet representatives, Kol Ha’Am (the Stalinist central organ) hastened to declare that “democracy and justice have won the day (!)”. And overnight there appeared a newly baptized party: the name of Communist Party of Palestine was changed to Communist Party of Eretz Israel (Communist Party of the Hebrew Land). Thus even the last vestige of contact with the Arab population was broken off. The gap that still separated them from Zionism was finally bridged. Instead of being the vanguard of the anti-imperialist struggle of the Arab and Jewish masses, the Palestine Communist Party became the “Communist” tail of the “left” Zionists. Precisely in an hour when Zionism shows to everyone its counter-revolutionary face, its blatant servility to imperialism. Thus the Communist Party itself held up all its former exposure of imperialist and Zionist deceptions to ridicule.

    http://www.marxists.de/middleast/misc/pal1948.htm

  10. DICKERSON3870 says:
    May 18, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    *RE: "Gen. Jones and the Anonymous Long Knives" Your link does not appear to work. (On this site, you must redo the link whenever you edit.) LINK – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...

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