Saturday, March 20, 2010

"Obama's war on Israel?", so says Caroline Glick


David Seaton's News Link
Caroline Glick is the number one op-ed columnist of English language, Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, which could be credibly linked to both The Wall Street Journal and the neocon faction in the USA. Here is how Wikipedia describes her:
Glick was born in Chicago and graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She immigrated to Israel in 1991 and joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). She worked in the IDF's Judge Advocate General division during the First Intifada in 1992, and while there edited and co-authored an IDF-published book, Israel, the Intifada and the Rule of Law. Following the Oslo Accords, she worked as coordinator of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. She retired from the military with the rank of captain at the end of 1996. In 1997 and 1998 she served as assistant foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She returned to the US to get her Master of Arts in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, in 2000. Upon her return to Israel, she became, and remains, the chief diplomatic correspondent for Makor Rishon newspaper, for which she writes a weekly column in Hebrew. She is also the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post for which she writes two weekly syndicated columns. Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Times, Maariv and major Jewish newspapers worldwide. She has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Sky News, the Christian Broadcasting Network, and all of Israel's major television networks. She also makes frequent radio appearances both in the US and Israel.
Without getting into touchy themes like "dual loyalty", I think it might be fair to say that Ms. Glick keeps a foot in both camps and has a finger in several pies. In many ways she could be held up as an example of what a strange path right-wing American Zionism has taken since the 1980s in evaluating what the United States of America is, what Americans are and what America's role in the world should be.

This is Caroline Glick on Barack Obama and the "crisis" in US-Israeli relations. (I have emphasized some of the juicy parts for lazier readers)
(I)nstead of acting like his predecessors, Obama has behaved like the Palestinians. Rather than reward Netanyahu for taking a risk for peace, Obama has, in the model of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, pocketed Netanyahu's concessions and escalated his demands. This is not the behavior of a mediator. This is the behavior of an adversary. (...) And so, in the wake of Obama's onslaught on Israel's right to Jerusalem, Palestinian incitement against Israel and Jews has risen to levels not seen since the outbreak of the last terror war in September 2000. And just as night follows day, that incitement has led to violence. This week's Arab riots from Jerusalem to Jaffa, and the renewed rocket offensive from Gaza are directly related to Obama's malicious attacks on Israel.(...)  Obama's assault on Israel is likely related to the failure of his Iran policy. Over the past week, senior administration officials including Gen. David Petraeus have made viciously defamatory attacks on Israel, insinuating that the construction of homes for Jews in Jerusalem is a primary cause for bad behavior on the part of Iran and its proxies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.(...) he may be attacking Israel in a bid to coerce Netanyahu into agreeing to give Obama veto power over any Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear installations.(...) Obama's advisers told friendly reporters that Obama wants to bring down Netanyahu's government. By making demands Netanyahu and his coalition partners cannot accept, Obama hopes to either bring down the government and replace Netanyahu and Likud with the far-leftist Tzipi Livni and Kadima, or force Israel Beiteinu and Shas to bolt the coalition and compel Netanyahu to accept Livni as a co-prime minister.(...) (H)e seeks to realign US foreign policy away from Israel. Obama's constant attempts to cultivate relations with Iran's unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad's Arab lackey Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, and Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan make clear that he views developing US relations with these anti-American regimes as a primary foreign policy goal.(...) His consistent castigation of Israel as obstructionist and defiant has led some surveys to claim that over the past year US popular support for Israel has dropped from 77 to 58 percent. The more Obama fills newspaper headlines with allegations that Israel is responsible for everything from US combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran's nuclear program, the lower those numbers can be expected to fall. And the more popular American support for Israel falls, the easier it will be for Obama to engineer an open breach with the Jewish state.(...)  Likewise, the crisis Obama has manufactured with Israel could pave the way for him to recognize a Palestinian state if the Palestinians follow through on their threat to unilaterally declare statehood next year regardless of the status of negotiations with Israel. Such a US move could in turn lead to the deployment of US forces in Judea and Samaria to "protect" the unilaterally declared Palestinian state from Israel.(...) The question is, what should Netanyahu do? One front in the war Obama has started is at home. Netanyahu must ensure that he maintains popular domestic support for his government to scuttle Obama's plan to overthrow his government. So far, in large part due to Obama's unprecedented nastiness, Netanyahu's domestic support has held steady.(...) Netanyahu has to keep two issues in mind. First, no foreign leader can win a popularity contest against a sitting US president. Therefore, Netanyahu must continue to avoid any personal attacks on Obama.(...) Netanyahu must remember that Obama's hostility toward Israel is not shared by the majority of Americans.(...) While in Washington, Netanyahu should meet with every Congressman and Senator who wishes to meet with him as well as every administration member who seeks him out. (...) Obama has made clear that he is not Israel's ally. And for the remainder of his term, he will do everything he can to downgrade US relations with Israel while maintaining his constant genuflection to the likes of Iran, Syria, the Palestinians and Turkey. 
Whew! That's about as rough as it comes.

Anybody that reads my stuff knows that I have yet to be converted to Obamism and they probably know that I think that taking on Israel before getting health care or moving decisively to create more jobs is a strategic error of a certain magnitude (as we can see in Glick's advice as to what Netanyahu should do while in Washington.) I also have a certain suspicion that this all might be a "bad cop, good cop" routine in which the Palestinians get screwed for the umpteenth time.

However....

If half of what Ms. Glick says is true, and Barack Obama has actually got the nads to use nothing less than the US Army to turn all America's rednecks, who love Jesus almost as much as they love the US Army and the US Marines, against Israel, because they are endangering "our troops" and thus make the Israelis comply with the letter and the spirit of UN-242, then, brothers and sisters, verily shall I fall down upon my knees and bathe Obama's feet with my tears and dry them with what is left of my hair and consider myself as truly one of his flock. DS

4 comments:

stunted said...

I have no first-hand experience of Israel and its society, but if this is what passes for intelligent commentary in one of its major newspapers, Israel is even worse-off than we in America with our media. This woman makes teabaggers and birthers seem enlightened thinkers grounded in reality.

Forget the 'nads; Obama has zero inclination to send U.S. troops to Israel to protect Palestinians. Americans will never stand for using the U.S. military to protect Arabs. Ms. Glick is spewing rank paranoia, and none of it bodes well for Palestinians if this reflects how a large portion of Israelis think. Nothing in your excerpt even faintly resembles what has transpired in this ersatz crisis. I'd wager you'll have to find some other use for what's left of your hair.

David Seaton's Newslinks said...

Stunts,
I think something is really going on. Petraeus saying that Israeli intransigence was endangering the lives of American service men and women take the thing into a whole new dimension. The neocons were crazy to ever want American troops on the ground in the ME.

stunted said...

Petraeus' comment is a new dimension, but the New York Times already has an article today papering over the crisis; i.e., it's time to move on. I guess we'll get a clearer picture starting tomorrow with the AIPAC shindig. I don't see how Obama, even were he so inclined(which I sincerely doubt), can afford to antagonize the Jewish electorate which was never that sold on his being a true friend of Israel--the hard place in your previous post. I think even more so now that he has yet again disappointed those who pass for progressives here with his health reform/corporate boondoggle.

If the tiff remains on the stern statement level with no solid, physical whacking, like withholding the billions of dollars in annual aid until the settlement building ceases, it's still U.S. diplomacy as usual and will be seen correctly as such in the rest of the world. Even Thomas L. Friedman wrote that Biden should have gone directly to Air Force 2 and headed back to Washington after Israel announced the new construction upon his swooning about how good it was to be home in Israel. Petraeus' comments (those viciously defamatory attacks) got little play here to the public and will quickly fade if he doesn't elaborate on his thinking in the very near future. They are a new wrinkle, though. I speak of wrinkles; Palestinians are being flayed.

Jacob Gittes said...

that woman is insane.
Obama is playing his cards well so far, but I suspect the Israel lobby is plotting a comeback.
I have no hope that the outcome will be good: at worst, a war that involves Israel, Iran, & the USA (along with Lebanon and more).

The Palestinians are the victims of a slow genocide. If the world turns against Israel in terms of public opinion, I suspect they will just go for the quick genocide route.