Netanyahu-Obama Relations at a Low Point?

[Casino67]

World Affairs:

 

How happy is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the results of this week’s US presidential election? Let’s put it this way: A guy who embraces Romney in August isn’t likely to bask in Obama’s warmth in November. A guy who shows the UN General Assembly a large piece of cardboard bearing a felt-tipped illustration of a ticking bomb that looks like it’s been pulled straight out of a Road Runner cartoon isn’t one who’s likely get Obama’s devoted attention in the future.

 

The bomb was of course Netanyahu’s stab in late September at trying to pull the US into yet another war, this one with Iran, and when that stunt failed, he tried another tack: with every breath the right-wing prime minister seemed to castigate his American counterpart for what he made clear through implication were Obama’s pusillanimous demurrals.

 

Why Israeli leadership should believe—still, after all this time—that American Jews vote all-Israel all the time in American elections is a puzzle. They never do. Exit polls this time around showed that around 70 percent of American Jews at the polls voted for Obama, a number only slightly lower than four years ago. (As the late Milton Himmelfarb of the American Jewish Committee famously put it: “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.”)

 

In other words, Mitt Romney’s declaration in late October that Obama had “pushed allies like Israel under a bus”; his insistence, after accepting the nomination, that Obama had pursued what-me-worry policies that left Iran to its own nuclear devices and Americans “less secure”—all this failed to gain traction among the very voters Romney was playing to.

[Rokke]

Israel has a much more important ally than the US.

[Casino67]

Israel has a much more important ally than the US.

 

Are you referring to the ally up above?

[Rokke]

Israel has a much more important ally than the US.

 

Are you referring to the ally up above?

Yeah. I certainly wouldn't bet against him if I were Iran. Or Obama.

[Casino67]

Israel has a much more important ally than the US.

 

Are you referring to the ally up above?

Yeah. I certainly wouldn't bet against him if I were Iran. Or Obama.

 

Agree, can't see him letting Israel go away again.

[Allegra]

Yes, it's mentioned a few times in some Book I read.

[Rokke]

@Allegra, you are more familiar that most with the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region. I think it's impossible to serve over there and not get a sense of the literal miracle that Israel survives in a sea of constant tumalt. When the world is against you, divine help is the only security and today I am more confident of Israel's survival than our own. But given Obama's public repudiation of Israel, I suspect it will not be long before we see who ultimately leads the world.

[SrWoodchuck]

There is some trouble in Israel for Bibi, though. Ehud Olmert has decided to resurrect his own political life, despite being convicted of some housing scandal & wants to combine with Tzipi Livni, to form a party in opposition to Bibi. The statements Olmert's made, say that Bibi has put Israel into danger by making Obama angry, and he/they want him to apologize and try to negotiate for America's continued protection.

 

Personally, I'd be proud to have Bibi as my leader, and if Israel is to survive, he is the best man for the job.