My latest piece for IPS News is up. It looks at the meeting today between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama and the fallout from it.
Rethinking Foreign Policy
Analysis of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East and Around The World
My latest piece for IPS News is up. It looks at the meeting today between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama and the fallout from it.
Pingback: Netanyahu Rejects Obama Proposal on Pre-1967 Borders
Bibi wouldn’t bring the fight directly to Obama if he didn’t know that AIPAC and members of Congress will back him up. The question is, has Bibi finally over-stepped his bounds in the eyes of average Americans who don’t follow this issue closely but who don’t like the idea of a foreign leaders- any foreign leader- coming to the US and trying to publicly embarrass the US while at the same time making more demands? That remains to be seen.
Tweets indicate that AIPAC isn’t happy but due to the conference has refrained from speaking out publicly against the Obama speech. Bibi will get a rousing welcome tomorrow and Obama will get a polite golf clap.
Nice piece, Mitchell. I find it interesting that neither Obama nor Bibi make much of the Nakbah demonstrations, yet they represent just the beginning of something. I think that Gwynne Dyer has it right today:
For fifty years, Israel has successfully kept the refugees (and their descendants) out, and by and large the international community has accepted it. But now the Palestinians, emboldened by the non-violent spread of popular rule elsewhere in the Arab world, are not just saying they have the right to return. They are acting on it.
“…if Palestinians go on trying to cross the border, despite the fact that some will get killed each time, then Arab opinion will be firmly on their side. So will the newly democratic governments of the Arab world – and other Arab regimes that are just trying to stay ahead of public anger. Israel will also find itself increasingly isolated in the wider world, especially if it continues to use violence.
“This is just one example of how much has changed in the Middle East in the past few months, and American policy has not even begun to take account of it. Obama is trying, but he will have to run much faster to keep up.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/21-1
Moreover, that the NYT questions Bibi’s howls of outrage seems pretty significant to me. In my view, the more Bibi tries to manipulate Obama’s words in order to preserve his coalition government without any concern for what he’s doing to Israel, the closer he moves in the direction of Israeli self-destruction.