The disagreement between Israel and the Obama administration over whether it’s time to acknowledge that diplomacy has failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program is starting to make a lot of people nervous. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak seem to be interpreting the administration’s staunch refusal to abandon a diplomatic track that has already clearly failed as meaning that the president won’t make good on his promise to stop Iran from going nuclear. That has led to talk that Israel will strike Iran without U.S. assistance or permission and that it may do so even before the November presidential election.
The Americans are doing everything they can to persuade the Israelis to stand down but in the absence of trust in the president, mere words may not be enough. That’s why one of Obama’s leading Jewish supporters, columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, believes it’s time for some symbolism. Goldberg writes today in Bloomberg that a long sought presidential visit to Israel before the election would do the trick. He’s right. If President Obama were to take time out from the campaign for a stop in Israel some time in the next few weeks, Netanyahu would have no choice but to postpone any attack plans. Though it is possible that Obama will listen to Goldberg, such a visit with less than 90 days before the election is a long shot. It is far more likely that the president will rely on his usual mode of communication with the Israelis: pressure and threats. But since that has never worked in the past, Obama’s supporters ought to be asking themselves what’s behind the president’s reluctance to act in a manner that might convince both Israelis and their Iranian foes that he isn’t fibbing about being prepared to act on the issue during his second term.
Though the Democrat’s campaign staff may think any time not spent in a swing state is a bad idea, an Obama visit to Israel now would be a coup for the president. It would monopolize media attention during the trip and thus hurt Mitt Romney. It would also bolster the president’s sagging Jewish support.
Even more important, such a dramatic gesture accompanied by a presidential speech in which he warned Iran that they must halt their nuclear program or face the consequences would convince the Israeli public that he could be relied upon to keep the promise he first made about stopping Tehran during the 2008 campaign. Under those circumstances, there would be no possibility of a unilateral Israeli attack since Netanyahu could not then justify such a move by pointing to distrust of Washington.
It would all be so easy but the question to ask about this scenario is why the president has always been so reluctant to show the Israelis some love when it would cost him so little and bring such a great reward?
The only possible answer is the one we always are forced to return to when discussing the problematic relationship between the Obama administration and Israel: the president’s equivocal feelings about the Jewish state. As veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller memorably put it a few weeks ago, Barack Obama is the first president in a generation “not in love with the idea of Israel.” That’s compounded by his open and very public dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu.
While Obama’s defenders are right to note that there’s nothing all that unusual about the lack of a visit to Israel during a first term, this is a president who has gone out of his way to pick fights with Jerusalem and to avoid the country during trips to the region. It appears that if Obama is to go to Israel, as his campaign hinted earlier during this summer, it would only be as a re-elected president with the whip hand over Netanyahu and not as a candidate who has to show some deference to his ally.
One imagines that Obama is recoiling at the very idea of being forced to pretend to be friendly with Netanyahu even if it meant avoiding an attack on Iran that he opposes or helping his re-election. Given the stakes involved, his refusal to take some good advice from a supporter tells us all we need to know about the president’s attitude toward Israel.
Good chance his visit would be (correctly) viewed as a cynical attempt to manipulate Netanyahu and American Jewish voters before the election. n nJonathan may be misreading the Israeli population's tendency to be enthralled with an American President. At least this one, at this point in time. While Obama won't get openly booed, likely, many Israelis will be 'booing in their hearts'. n nNetanyahu certainly won't be charmed, and it is doubtful he will change what he will or won't do. n nThe sure upside will be American Jews of the Goldberg ilk. It's probably worth an increased 10% of the American Jewish vote.
Bibi would be gracious, I'm sure. He has certainly been tactful about the election and is fully aware that Israel may have to live with the consequences of a second Obama adminstration (G-d protect all of us). But would the average Israeli on the street be as tactful? I still remember American Jews (generally considered a more tactful bunch) booing Wolfowitz at a rally in front of the White House back in 2003 or so. What's Hebrew for "Mr. President, anachnu lo freyerim, v'lo noladim etmol!"?
If Obama really wants to help Israel and the U.S. and deter Iran, he'll bow out of the race and let Romney win.
Ha! Dream on, 0bama is a narcissistic idealoge. To bow out would be admitting defeat and incompetence. He couldnt handle that.
And almost all American jews will again march like lemming over the cliff and vote for 0bama.
Not almost all, yamama, but a majority, for sure. The "problem" with secular American Jewry is that America has been very good to them by and large, and they have prospered enormously as a result. And with this success comes a false feeling of arrogance, superiority, and intelligence. Also because of America's goodness they have rarely if ever, had to deal with anti-Semitism on a personal level.dealt. Even now, with Obama's openly hostile attitudes to Israel and PM Netanyahu, they do not perceive it and remain self-deluded and oblivious. Woe to Christopher Columbus.
Excellent take. Agree fully.
Jews are usually Democrats anyway, but in this particular case they had a black man to vote for too. for many old civil-rights warriors and sympathizers, this was the culmination of all their dreams. no way were they going to vote for the boring old white man! n nI don't think Obama will do quite as well this time. his numbers are way down with Jews–from 78% when he was elected to 62% today. the GOP has a huge opportunity– n n–which is why it's so distressing to hear that the Republicans have a positively medieval abortion policy, which will just give credence to the "war on women" nonsense. Jews are very liberal on social policies and this could drive them back into Obama's cheatin' arms.
We humans tend to vote in support of our identities. As long as the Republicans are identified with the Christian right, the majority of American Jews will vote Democrat… even against their own self interest.
Unfortunately true, even if most Jews have never even met an Evangelical, and a majority of Democrats are anti-Israel.
So in the face of an Iranian attack against his citizens Netanyahu will cease and desist stopping it because the Name appeared on stage?
The Iranians certainly won’t desist because they have nothing but contempt for the US certainly after Baker and Weinberger turned tail and ran from the Beirut bombing of the Marine baracks, and the ease with which they harried American troops in Iraq with their IEDs while encountering no response.
The US is to them a paper tiger and Obama a puppet and if Netanyahu is stupid enough to be influenced by the appearance of Obama into not protecting Israelis then there is no hope for Israel.
Israel should instruct the State Dept to remind Obama that his plane might be targeted like Dempsey's was yesterday and he should stay home. Were anything to happen to Obama's pinky anywhere near Israel it would be the end of Israel.
Agreed. He really should stay home and stick to calling Romney a murderer and felon. n nThe real murderers and felons in Iran hold no interest for Obama.
The bottom line here is a deficit of trust. When Obama justified Israel to the Moslem world only as the moral response to the Holocaust; and followed this up with pressure to stop building even in areas that would be Israeli in a final settlement; and followed this up with bringing Bibi through the servants' side door; and with setting the 1949/1967 lines as the starting point of negotiations — reversing a basic tenet of US policy from 1967…And now pursuing a policy of studied ambiguity.. What's an ally to think? When a spouse ( male or female) sleeps wit the enemy , how long will it take for s/he to regain connubial bliss? A trip to Israel in election season? Another declaration of support ? Out of which side of his mouth? or of his mind? Trust. That's the rub!
and this only made the case stronger for: “Abbas denies the Jewish connection to Jerusalem”
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=282090
Two reasons Obama won't go: n n1) The people who killed Rabin would do their very best to kill Obama. They are nuts. They are connected to power, too. n n2) Netanyahu would do his best to humiliate Obama, even more so than when he came here, and might do some real damage.
If you believe any of that, you are the one that's nuts.
Agreed. Best money's on the: n nPrice Taggers; n nDanny Danon; n nLynch Mob Kids; and/or, n nAvigdor Lieberman.
Maybe he figures that if his Passport has an entry from Israel, he could not go to an Arab country…… NOT!
Obama would still need an 'Invitation' to visit a foreign land, Right?
Anyone with an Israeli stamp on their passport is forever barred from going to Saudi Arabia.
President Barack Obama is anti-Israel for several reasons. One is his support of Mohammedanism, both domestically (he refuses to call the Fort Hood massacre one of Islamist terrorism and calls it instead "workplace violence"), his Cairo speech filled with falsehoods about Mohammedanism (Muslims invented the printing press (not Gutenberg), they invented the compass (not the Chinese), they founded the first university (not Italians in Bologna) and given in Cairo, his defense of Huma Abedin (see Andrew McCarthy on her connection to the Muslim Brotherhood), and his recent reception of the new president of Egypt, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi – in contrast to his reception of the Prime Minister of Israel Benyamin Netanyahu. Obama was a member of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church in Chicago, communist "black liberation," anti-white, anti-semitic.