Obama Belittles Israel: The Latest Snubs and Sneers Won’t Help U.S. Interests in the Mideast.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-belittles-israel-1414712575
The Obama Administration is disappointed, insulted, unhappy and even downright angry with the government of Israel. This isn’t news, and hasn’t been almost from the time President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both came to office in 2009. But the feud is increasingly bitter and out in the open, thanks to a series of Administration leaks and snubs.
The latest eruption began last week, after a visit to Washington by Moshe Yaalon. The Israeli Defense Minister met with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and agreed that Israel would buy a second squadron of F-35 jets in a $2.75 billion deal. That’s good news for defense contractor Lockheed Martin , which has struggled to persuade foreign customers like Canada to stick with the troubled fighter.
The visit was also supposed to be an opportunity for Mr. Yaalon to make personal amends to John Kerry for remarks earlier this year when he called the Secretary of State “obsessive and messianic” and lamented that U.S. policy toward Iran was “showing weakness.” The remarks were made in private, and Mr. Yaalon publicly apologized.
Instead, Mr. Yaalon was denied a private meeting with Mr. Kerry, as he was with Vice President Joe Biden . (He did meet with U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, who apparently didn’t get the memo that the Israeli was under quarantine.) For bad measure, Administration officials leaked the story of the snubs to an Israeli newspaper as Mr. Yaalon was returning to Israel—guaranteeing his public embarrassment.
Then on Tuesday Jeffrey Goldberg—the Administration’s media spokesman on Israel—reported a conversation with a senior Administration source who described Mr. Netanyahu, a former elite commando who was wounded in a 1972 hostage rescue operation, as a “chicken—.”
Another official quoted by Mr. Goldberg called Mr. Netanyahu a “coward” on the Iranian nuclear issue, presumably because Israel has done what the Administration asked and not bombed Iran’s nuclear installations, especially before the 2012 election. On Wednesday Press Secretary Josh Earnest tried to disavow the comments, but the damage was done.
This public show of condescension makes no sense for an Administration facing multiple Mideast crises and struggling to keep the friends it has. It makes even less sense if Mr. Obama strikes a nuclear deal with Iran next month. The White House has leaked that it intends to bypass Congress to conclude a deal, but it cannot unilaterally overturn sanctions passed by Congress. Broadcasting its dislike for the Jewish state won’t instill confidence in Congress and the public that such a deal won’t mortally threaten Israel.
The broader problem for the Administration is that its perceptions of the Middle East increasingly differ from Israel’s, not to mention those of a growing list of disillusioned allies in Europe, Asia and the Arab world. Mr. Obama likes to say that he prefers to listen rather than lecture, so the disarray in the region should be an occasion to rethink some of his assumptions, such as his faith that force-feeding an Israeli-Palestinian peace would solve other regional problems.
But that’s not how this President rolls. Israel will draw its own conclusions about what it needs to do to survive in a tough neighborhood. The Administration’s main accomplishment is to have needlessly unsettled another alliance in another fit of pique.
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