Posted on 09/25/2009 5:03:08 AM PDT by SJackson
We're making the president of the United States look pathetic - and the Republicans are laughing along with us.
It's been a terrible week for tough love. One of the worst. First the Goldstone report was left to twist in the wind by the Obama administration, by Europe, by J Street and by the ghost of the Israeli peace camp. Then, at Tuesday's "summit" in New York, President Barack Obama gave his clearest signal yet that he was caving in to the Netanyahu government on the peace process, dropping the idea of a "freeze" on settlements for the softer, kinder call for "restraint."
This has been a great week for Israeli war-lovers and settlers and an atrocious one for Palestinians, peaceniks and human rights advocates. And the person to blame, above all, is Obama.
I'm worried about this guy. He has wonderful goals, but he doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to achieve them. When somebody tells him "no," he's stumped. His instinct is to retreat into his Ivy League professor's mode, turn up his nose, say to himself, "I'm not going to sink to that level," walk away and go on thinking his deep thoughts.
That's fine for a professor, but not for a leader. In a leader, that translates as an unwillingness to fight. It translates as weakness. And the worst reputation a leader can get, the one that can destroy him like no other, is one for weakness.
THAT'S THE reputation Obama is getting - especially in Israel. We're laughing at this guy now. Look, Binyamin Netanyahu stared down the president of the United States! The settlers have stopped worrying. All is well again in our little "villa in the jungle," as Ehud Barak, the government's man of the Left, likes to describe this country.
And if Israel is happy - 21st century Israel, that is, Israel the right-wing monolith - then the Republican Party is happy, too. We're allies, Israelis and Republicans. If we stare down Obama, the Republicans are encouraged, and vice versa.
In the campaign to cripple the Obama administration, to destroy his presidency, Israel is doing much, much more than its share. As noted, this past week has been especially fruitful. We lobbied the US State Department into shooting down the Goldstone report, and now the Obama administration is effectively an apologist for alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. We wore down Middle East envoy George Mitchell on the settlement freeze, and now it may only be a matter of time before we see "hilltop youth" building a new outpost called Havat Obama.
We're making the president of the United States look pathetic. He's becoming a national joke. And the Republicans are laughing along with us.
THIS CANNOT go on. Obama, for the sake of his presidency, cannot allow this to go on.
Which is why I'm optimistic that he won't. Obama didn't come this far and didn't set such lofty goals to be hamstrung, to become a lame duck, so soon after entering the White House. He may not be a gut fighter, but he's too ambitious, too smart, and he's surrounded himself with too many barracudas to let the likes of Likud, Israel Beiteinu, Shas and the settlers do him in.
The spin around here is that he's learned his lesson. He's learned that it was a mistake to insist on a total settlement freeze, a mistake to think he could dictate terms to us, a mistake to think he could change the Middle East with the force of his personality. From now on, goes the local consensus wisdom, Obama will be more patient, he'll go along to get along; after all, if he doesn't, Bibi and Co. will teach him another lesson.
I also believe Obama has learned something from this bruising experience, but not what Israelis think. Instead, he's learned that there is no meeting point between him and the Israeli government on the peace process, that one of them is going to have to give in, and God help him if he's the one. Obama's learning that if he allows the most right-wing government in Israeli history to dictate his Middle East policy, that policy will fail utterly and his presidency will suffer the most devastating blow.
He's learning that at some point in the not-too-distant future, he's going to have to either bend Israel to his will or admit defeat in the Middle East and get blamed for the next war.
There are lots of ways he can bend Israel to his will. George Bush the Elder did it with money - by holding back $10 billion in loan guarantees as a penalty for settlement construction, then releasing the money after settlement construction was frozen. I'm sure Rahm Emanuel can think of dozens of ways to squeeze the eminently squeezable Bibi Netanyahu. All that's required is Obama's go-ahead.
He's not there yet. But he's getting there. He'll have no choice.
SO AS disappointed as I am in Obama, I'm not giving up on him by any means. He's still new in the job, and he has certain strengths that should serve his purposes well. He's a quick study, especially when it comes to learning from his mistakes. He rebounds from adversity. He's patient.
True, it's been a miserable week. It's been a miserable year, in fact. But from a strictly realpolitik view of US-Israeli relations, I still think there's a decent chance that in the end, tough love will conquer all.
Is this a serious article? This writer has contorted his logic so far to think that Obamarx’s shredding of Israel in his U.N. propaganda talk is, in fact, caving to Bibi. That’s just crazy talk...
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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The national interest of Israel, like America, is defined by making Obama look good.
That's about the size of it...
It's not fine for a professor, either.
I'm worried about this guy [Obama]. He has wonderful goals, but he doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to achieve them.
He has wonderful goals - Hmm, call me skeptical on that
but he doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to achieve them - Thanks, G-d!
What is Derfner’s agenda, if standing up for a country’s rights and sovereignty and winning is a terrible week?
If Obama looks like the naive foreign policy amerature that his is, and is failing the Israeli “left”, it's because that Obama’s ideology just happens to be aligned with that of the author of this article - a suicidal formuala for Israel.
Bibi makes Obama look like just another one of the characters from the Star Wars bar-room scene, because that's who Obama is.
This dope is utterly blind to the hopelessness of his own left wing thoughts, and therefore blames Obama for not publicly acting more like Chavez or Ahmadinejad.
No, it’s not real; some Muslim wrote it for the “0”.
Don’t you mean to say “more pathetic”?
The Obamaloon is doing an A-1 job of demonstrating that he’s a weak-kneed, metrosexual with the intelligence of a NYT reporter on his own. He’d be outclassed by your local pot smoker.
What irony.
We don’t have a leader in Obummer!
He is a campaigner but not a Leader.
Yes he Can’t !
Yes he Can’t !
Yes he Can’t !
Yes he Can’t !
He doesn’t need much help looking pathetic, but only glad to oblige.
I read the words, but I could not follow this guys logic.
Parts I would agree with and parts I don’t but the two parts do not make a whole. So what ever point this guy was trying to make, he failed. At least as far as this reader is concerned.
Oh, so that's the real choice. Submit to President Obama's "will" or face war. Hmmm. Can anyone remind me what the President's "will" was for dealing with a nuclear armed Ahmadinejad, who has referred to Israel as a rotting corpse?
What’s his fascination with the Republicans? Isn’t Larry Derfner the JP writer who was for Livni?
So even Israel has its traitors, in Jerusalem no less.
What the he**, no barf alert on this article? It seems like it should have a triple bag barf alert to me.
??? This is like trying to read a letter from a Martian.
besides this confusing article, this weirdo spends a lot of time defending the gay agenda and taking the side of the Pallis versus Israeli Troops:
This search shows how the writer, when he is not defending the Pallis is pushing the gay agenda:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=LARRY%20DERFNER%20%20%2b%20gay&type=
A long op that sheds light on the mental condition of this liberal jew who apparently takes the side of the Pallis inspite of hard evidence against the agendas pushed by the Pallis.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/05/29/mos-meets-al-durah-forgery-larry-derfner-weighs-in/
This article should come with a warning.
I don’t know why JPost publishes this consistently ‘hate Israel first’ author.
This dude sounds like a a left wing US democrat instead of a citizen of Israel. And Obama is pathetic !!
When I saw the title of this piece, I knew it was by Larry Derfner.
he already looked pathetic
Where has the writer established, in this article, that Bibi's Middle East policy "will fail utterly?"
... Or did I miss something?
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