gladly swap Israelis (and any other US ally)
to a Crematorium.
Posted on 5/24/2011, 11:51:09 AM by SJackson
Perhaps the most stunning element of Netanyahu’s Washington trip is the degree to which he was surprised by Obama.
WASHINGTON – Perhaps the most stunning element of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Washington trip is the degree to which he was surprised – again – by US President Barack Obama.
For all the clarification Obama made during his Sunday speech to AIPAC of what he really meant by saying last Thursday that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed-upon land swaps, in the final analysis Netanyahu didn’t see this coming. He was taken completely by surprise – something that accounts both for his furious phone call with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just before Obama delivered the Thursday speech, and for his harsh response to the speech, which set a nasty tone for the visit before it even got underway.
RELATED: Our World: Obama's diversionary tactics Barak: Obama's speech lets us leave our differences behind
In a sense, this is diplomatic deja vu. Back in May 2009, during Netanyahu’s first White House meeting with Obama, the president sprang a surprise with his call for an end to settlement construction.
Like the events of the past week, Netanyahu did not see the settlement freeze demand coming. His aides, in prior meetings with administration officials, were not given notice that this was the direction where Obama was headed. It was a major break with previous administration positions and it cast a heavy cloud over Jerusalem’s ties with Washington for months.
The same pattern now repeated itself. For whatever reason – perhaps because there were intense debates among Obama’s advisors regarding what to say about Israel in the Middle East speech – the message picked up both by Israeli officials and US Jewish leaders was that there would be no new ground broken, and that Israel had, as one official said a day before the speech, “nothing to worry about.”
Indeed, 24 hours before Obama’s Thursday address, the Prime Minister’s Office said it was unlikely to issue a response to the speech because a day later Netanyahu would meet with the president and tell him in private what he thought.
But again Obama opted for surprise. Unlike May 2009, however, at which time Netanyahu did not respond directly to the settlement freeze demand in the press conference that followed his first meeting with Obama, this time he changed tactics and in an exceptional delivery of statements during an Oval Office photo-op on Friday told Obama that this simply would not work.
Beyond the whole debate of what Obama truly means when he says “1967 lines with land swaps,” the concern in the Prime Minister’s Office was that if left unchallenged, the impression would be that US policy now called on Israel to return to those lines. It was in order to alter this perception that the prime minister challenged Obama so publicly. And, indeed, Obama clarified his statement, seeming to roll it back a bit.
A bit, but not completely.
What is currently irking Netanyahu, beyond the president’s failure to say specifically that the descendants of Palestinian refugees would need to be absorbed in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel, is the idea of land swaps that appeared in both of Obama’s speeches.
Mutually agreed-upon swaps, Obama said, mean the negotiation of a border that is different from the one that existed before June 4, 1967. But it also presupposes that Israel will have to trade land inside pre-1967 Israel for land retained beyond the Green Line – a principle Netanyahu is opposed to.
This idea was part of the proposal that then-prime minister Ehud Olmert put on the table in his talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, although at the time it was part of an overall package that included agreements on Jerusalem and the refugees – a package the Palestinians did not accept.
Netanyahu has never endorsed publicly or privately the idea of land swaps – and it was one of the things that left him unpleasantly surprised on Thursday. Despite Obama’s subsequent clarifications, it will remain an irritant between Jerusalem and Washington in the near future.
zero mskes it really hard not to be racist.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Obozo was forced by Bibi to finally make a statement about Joplin, today in London. Has he even said anything about the Floods?
Bibi: My friends, before I talk about things about Israel, I want to say something about the scenes on television that I saw today and you have been seeing as well. When tragedy strikes America, Israel -- Israel feels an immediate identification. And tragedy has struck America. In recent days floods and tornadoes have claimed the lives of hundreds of Americans, including today in Joplin, Missouri. All I can say is, America, we're with you on this day, on every day.
Obama seems to have a pattern of inviting guests whom he disagrees with and uses his office to try an embarrass or harass them. The first major demonstration was the state of the union address and his treatment of the Justices.
Sssssh! I was afraid that would be his next step.
Well, I’m not racist. I hate his white half, too.
That’s
“The Chicago Way”
minus the broken bones.
Have you noticed how he does this with our Allies. But he does it notably with Israel.
One does not surprise ones allies with comments regarding their security. I think he intends to abandon Israel to it's enemies.
The contrast between these two men could not be more stark.
Bammy, to Beebee:
Didn’t see that coming?
You ****** up, you trusted me.
Yes, he is a childish punk. He behaves like an arrogant brat in high-school. I’m sure you remember when he was newly elected, anyone he disagreed with would get the middle finger. He would scratch, or point, or whatever, with his middle finger only with people he does not like. Again, high-school level insults. The guy is just immature.
BTW, I have always known that Obama was pro-Islam, but now I am coming to realize that he is pro-Iran as well. He has never said a single word to challenge Iran and consistently pursues policies favorable to the Iranian positions. I think Obama is Sheeite.
What confuses me about this is, I thought he was a member of the house of Saud. This seems to be a conflict of interests.
I’m still thinking about this. It is strange. How does he intend to reconcile his support for the Iranian mullahs with his allegiance to the Saudi King? I don’t know.
But Israel should never be surprised by anything Obama does, including proxy military action against Israel. Israel has to deal with Obama (not America) as a Muslim supporter (he couldn’t make it more clear) and an overt enemy of Israel. With this in mind, Israel should never be ‘surprised’ again.
Fortunately, as America and the world accepts the fact that Obama is a radical Muslim, and is in support of global jihad against the West and moderate Islam, in another year, another election, none of this may matter.
If we can make it that long. Obama seems determined, in everything he does, to start a global conflict. He seems to ‘want’ a world war.
So far, the rest of the world has shown restraint, although we do not know for how much longer this will last. We shall see if Obama is successful in making his ‘world war’ happen.
“”Mutually agreed-upon swaps, Obama said, mean the negotiation of a border that is different from the one that existed before June 4, 1967. But it also presupposes that Israel will have to trade land inside pre-1967 Israel for land retained beyond the Green Line “”
Can someone please explain this to me? obozo said in CLARIFICATION (HA!) that 1967 would be a starting point... Doesn’t pre-1967 give back everything gained in the six day war and what land would the (AHEM!) Palestinians have to swap??
Everything this man does is so convoluted - deliberately so that I just can’t see any logic here.
“”Obozo was forced by Bibi to finally make a statement about Joplin, today in London. Has he even said anything about the Floods?””
I heard that he’d made a phone call from GB back to the states about Joplin but as to the floods - not to my knowledge but I tend to flee the room whenever his name is mentioned or his face appears. I guess he figures only productive citizens were being destroyed by the floods as long as a pest hole like Cairo, IL was saved so why talk about it?
One thing Obama didn’t clarify in his “clarification” was what he meant by the Palestinian land should have contiguous borders and how he plans on accomplishing that.
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