Chris McGreal in the Guardian says that Obama slam-dunked Netanyahu this week, and that the world applauds it, even Israel. By doing so, Obama has gained time, McGreal says.
In his speech to Aipac, Obama took aim at Israel for "too much loose talk of war".
The Jewish state's more ardent supporters in the west, ever ready to play down differences between the White House and the Israeli leadership, tried to deny Obama's comments were aimed at Netanyahu's government. But the president's warning that such talk was driving up oil prices and so helping fund Iran's nuclear programme suggested he wasn't talking about the armchair generals in the Republican party but the real ones in Jerusalem.
Levy argues that Obama's stand will strengthen the hand of influential voices inside Israel, such as the former heads of Israel's intelligence service, Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy, who are opposed to an attack on Iran in the near future.
Dagan this week crossed Netanyahu by saying it is wrong to portray the Iranian government as irrational and that he trusts the US to make the call on whether or not to attack.
"An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way," he told CBS. "[Obama] said openly that the military option is on the table and he is not going to let Iran become a nuclear state and from my experience, I usually trust the president of the US."
That view is shared by many Israelis. A poll by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz this week showed that 58% of the population opposes a strike on Iran without US backing.
There has also been strong criticism inside Israel of Netanyahu's invoking of the Holocaust. The opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, called it "hysterical" and said that it scared Israelis and cast the Jewish state as weak.
it seems that Obama out-smarted and out-flanked self-delusional Netanyahu by a classic rope-a-dope.
“… and cast the Jewish state as weak.”
Rather, it exposed the leaders of the Jewish state as psychopathic.
This once, one small step for mankind.
But Obama — showing that living in Washington DC is like living on Mars or in a Cave — says, “Palestinians must abandon violence” where the proper formulation, on the facts and on ethics, is:
A very small step, indeed, but at least, by God, one in the right direction.
One step at a time.
Obama learned there are some issues that can’t be rushed, and the Israeli/Palestinian/Iran games fit the bill big time. Demanding action immediately loses everything, and its a tribute to Obama who learns quickly while managing to remain a vital actor at the same time. This is a very underestimated man.
Sheesh.
Obama essentially had all his brothers (generals) talk to the bully then he popped the bully on the nose once the crowd gathered – it buys him time but he did not thrash the bully, which is what it takes to get the bully to stop bullying
Too soon radii…too soon. There’s an election that has to won first.
OMG!
“Ben Nitay” at age 28, before he became Binyamin Netanyahu, spouting the exact SAME hasbara that’s still being fed to us today:
link to youtube.com
In 1978 “Jordan is Palestine” and all sorts of other cr*p. No “second” Palestinian state.
And, jeepers, his eyes are exactly like no.1 brother! But since bro doesn’t have a spare ounce, his haven’t gone fleshy yet, nor has his hair (yet, at over 50) got any grey. So similar tho, my jaw dropped.
Dammit, link’s wrong, edit timed out!
link to youtube.com
RE: “There has also been strong criticism inside Israel of Netanyahu’s invoking of the Holocaust. The opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, called it ‘hysterical’ and said that it scared Israelis and cast the Jewish state as weak.” ~ McGreal
SEE: Israel’s Defense Chief OK’s Hundreds of Israeli Deaths, By Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, 11/11/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to commondreams.org
ALSO SEE – Iranophobia: The Panic of the Hegemons, by Ira Chernus, Tikkun Magazine, November/December 2010
LINK – link to tikkun.org
“The United States offered Israel advanced weaponry in return for it committing not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities this year, Israeli daily Maariv reported on Thursday.
Citing unnamed Western diplomats and intelligence sources, the report said that during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week, the US administration offered to supply Israel with advanced bunker-busting bombs and long-range refuelling planes. In return, Israel would agree to put off a possible attack on Iran till 2013, after the US elections in November.”
link to news.yahoo.com
Big deal. Worthless sledgehammers to strike a mosquito whose defensive planning is in depth and asymmetric. Conventional armaments are impotent against such an enemy in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, who have demonstrated a phenomenal will to resist and sacrifice compared to the Israelis.
Israel loses a troop here and there and the entire Zionist state has a major, defeatist, psychological breakdown. The IDF is not the military of the founding generation. Its rotted to the core due to years of being an occupation force suppressing indigents. It can’t fight and God help the USA if we ever have to rely upon Israel as an ally and its IDF in a war.
If our army was a draftee army,the same breakdown would be seen in ours,as our people are the softest malleable bunch of marshmellows in world history,caught up in voyeurism,consumerism and fattism, incapable of discipline,brainwashed by traitors,and of the same ilk of those Sodom and Gomorrah idiots of yesteryear,overweening pride mixed with venality,a sign of a collapsing people.
Pathetic and non pitiable,as our pity quotient has expired.
Perfect post from Keith. What’s going on here? So may familiar Mondoweiss voices suddenly drinking the Obama Kool-Aid. This charade by Obama is laughingly transparent. It’s embarrassing to have to point it out. Gee, now which voters do you think he is winning over by pretending to stand up to Netanyahu? Of course, it is the so called Progressive anti-war base he needs to get re-elected. But once the coronation is over, it will be war-mongering business as usual. Did we learn nothing from the 2008 election cycle? Obama will say anything. But he won’t deliver on any of it. Please give me some examples of any instance when this was not the case over the last three years.
This weapons deal is very much like the behind the scenes maneuvering Obama did before his previous coronation. He promised Israel a fast track for some much needed weapons in exchange for an end to Cast Lead (golly gee what do you know) just in time for his inauguration party. The cynical disregard for human life this type of chicanery illustrates should make us all sick to our stomachs. Don’t forget, this is the same guy who now claims the right to kill anyone he wants, appointing himself the sole arbiter of “due process.”
Waiting until after the election to give Israel the bunker buster bombs it will use on Iran is no concession at all. Quit pretending there is anything new in this recent round of three card Monty. We’re still going to lose our twenty bucks. There ain’t no queen to be found. Just more slight of hand from ObamaCon, Wizard of Guile.
joemowrey – I’m no fan of Obama and I don’t mind saying that a lot of his conduct has been disgraceful. However there is a problem with your narrative. Early in his term, it was clear from the Israeli media that Bibi and a lot of other Israeli politicians were seriously scared of Obama. They thought he was going to lay down the law. Remember, the House Republicans were also visibly scared of him, for the same reason: they figured he would treat them the way Bush treated those opposite.
You have to remember Obama was very popular in those early days. There was talk of the permanent decline of the Republicans. Governments, including Israel, took Obama very seriously.
So what happened? Well, Obama’s character was revealed in his actions and it became clear that he was the milkiest, toastiest milquetoast there ever was!
As soon as Bibi got his measure, he started to wipe the floor with Obama. That continued until just recently, when Obama was forced, with his back to the wall, to push back.
Now I agree that it does not inspire confidence that Obama has to be in such deep trouble before tackling those who are trying to destroy him (and his country).
But I would point out that after the election, an attack on Iran will still be a disaster for a sitting US president. The economy will most likely be even worse than it is now and an oil shock would be that much more destructive. There will still be plenty of reasons for the US to keep Israel at bay.
I am not expressing confidence, just guarded optimism.
On that note, the Financial Times has an interview recently where it was stated that oil traders are factoring in an extremely low probability of a strike. The recent run up in oil prices is due to the embargo on Iran’s oil resulting in reduced global supply, and was not due to a war premium.
In other words, oil traders don’t take Bibi seriously and I’m inclined to agree with them.
Opaleye,
Optimism is good. Maybe sanity will over ride greed this time around. I won’t say “Let’s hope so,” because that word is no longer in my vocabulary! It’s all a question of where and how the most money is to be made by those pulling the strings behind the scenes.
For a very in depth look at what Obama and his gang are up to when it comes to war-mongering precedents, check out this article today by Tom Engelhardt. He is generally pretty milk toast himself when it comes to Palestine. But he has some sharp incites in this piece. Obama is just another shepherd of Empire. The game plan is always the same, only the names of the players change now and then.
link to commondreams.org
“Guarded optimism” might be about right. Obama is utterly cynical and two-faced when it comes to the moral positions of the two sides–he praises Israel’s “values” and never condemns their violence while condemning Palestinian terrorism, but he’s not a complete idiot.
On the other hand he’s not always too swift either. He came into office as a centrist (it was obvious to some of us) with Obama-worshiping progressives under the largely self-inflicted delusion that he was one of them. But he had his own delusion, which is that he could ally himself with centrist Republicans and centrist Democrats and throw the left wing of the Democrats along with the right wing of the Republicans under the bus and govern that way. Unfortunately for him there was no Republican center he could ally with. He only looks good now because the Republican right has overreached.
I think his Mideast policy has been the same. He tried steering a centrist tack, condemning Palestinian terror but demanding a cessation of settlement building and the rightwing Israelis trampled over him. He only looks good now because the Israeli right has overreached on demanding an immediate war. But Obama is the one who has declared that an Iranian bomb would mean war and is pushing for harsh sanctions, just like in domestic policy he embraced most of the Republican positions, only to see them shift so far to the right he seemed reasonable in comparison.
You can’t trust this guy. He’s not as crazy as the right. It doesn’t make him a hero.
I don’t trust him one bit. The only reason for my guarded optimism is the evidence that he has finally realized he needs to protect himself from those who care nothing either for him or his country. That is to say, I’m banking on a combination of his cynicism and the apparent emergence of an instinct for self-preservation. It remains to be seen how far it goes.
I tend to agree about Obama. I think the moral capacity of a significant leader grasping the reins was way overstated in his message of Hope. But he was always short on details, and people wanted to fill in the blanks about what a black, and supposedly transformational president may bring.
Here’s a semi-humorous link on the Cult of Personality campaign that filmmaker Davis Guggenheim is currently making. And apparently he is still enjoying the Kool-Aid served by the White House.
Obama Launches The Cult of Personality Campaign
Anti Obama critics want a Moses, magician or miracle worker with a bag of pixie dust to make the world beautiful. Its they who have misunderstood the man and chose to believe in a godlike personality that does not exist.
Obama is just man and a politician who is dealing with extremely difficult domestic, foreign and economic policy issues that are not amendable to quick fixes or easy solutions. He of course has made mistakes, but nothing as massive or unrecoverable as Bush 42, Clinton or the stupidest man in the universe the Shrub.
As far as I’m concerned Obama is infinitely better than these 3 previous cluster f@@@ up artists singular or plural, or any of the candidates past, present or future in the current Republican party.
Not looking for Moses, just a guy who doesn’t jail whistleblowers, doesn’t aggressively attack other countries in spite of congressional disapproval and votes (libya) who doesn’t claim the right to indefinitely detain and murder americans with no due process, who doesnt claim “state secrets” more than Bush, or cite the espionage act for prosecution more than any other president, ever;
Obama is indeed the most radical president in the history of the country, he just aint a socialist. No, Barry has proven to be a more sinister administrator of empire and the 1% agenda than any previous president, and clowns like you cant wait to vote for him again. That (D) next to his name is an amazingly powerful device isnt it?
daniel ellsburg leaked “top secret” material and was set free. bradley manning leaked “secret” material and faces life in prison. Why? Barack Obama. Go Cheerlead for your Fearless Leader elsewhere.
link to salon.com
Defending Anwar al-Awlaki? The terminated traitor who took up arms against the US, a regional commander within al-Qaeda preaching, planning operations and attacks against the US, tried in abstentia by the Yemeni government and wanted “dead or alive” for being an al Qaeda member and plotting to kill foreigners? Taking this goof out is false proof Obama is “sinister,” besides all the other baseless mentalisms recklessly and sloppily thrown around. You better come up with a hell of lot more than that if you want to be taken seriously.
Socialist? When or where has Obama ever claimed he was a socialist?
As for Congress they did literally nothing to stop, hinder or legislate against Obama taking action in Libya.
Nor is Obama a rogue CinC laying waste to the nations of the world as far left lunatics claim.
And this whining by the far left about American empire demonstrates they’re as far out in orbit around Pluto as neocons, who themselves stupidly broached the subject as an anal justification for loser wars in the Middle East. Such arguments were present at the very beginning of the Republic between Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, and a rational argument among historians can make the claim the US is in danger of losing the republic and becoming an empire, a process, a thing in the becoming, but hardly yet a fact that can be dated from the seizure of the Hawaiian Islands and the Spanish/American War.
The biggest current threat to the US republic isn’t empire, China, Iran, international terrorism, Islam, the Israel Lobby, Obama, or any other manufactured jingoism of the left or the right. Its the rise of the ‘national security state’ Eisenhower warned would be the result of the irresponsible politics and corrupt relationships between Congress and corporate America in his famous speech. A monster Bush 43, the stupidest man in the universe birthed during his administration, which Obama and probably future presidents are going to have to deal with before its tamed and put back in its cage.
Obama is an ‘establishment,’ liberal Democrat who is trying to govern from the center/left in the US. He has never claimed to be anything else. Its whacked denzions of the left who are losing their water and dropping their loads because their false premises and wishful thinking regarding Obama had been dead wrong in all respects from day one.
Its no wonder the sloppy thinking on the far left and they’re brain dead world views aren’t taken seriously in US politics and by the American people. Obama is the right man at the right time, and I’m going to proselytize that no matter how much it burns someones ass.
By the way, another correction for a wrong headed point straight out of left-field is I’m not a Democrat or a lefty.
>> link to salon.com
Way to go, Barry O.
The market is not taking Netanyahu seriously NOW! The past several months speculators were yapping another tune over war fears pumping the premium.