She adduces five reasons for President Obama's apparent hostility toward Israel. The Geek won't reiterate them as he cannot improve upon her presentation. But, it appears that she has overlooked a couple of alternatives either of which would serve as sufficient explanation for the current administration's pronounced "tilt" toward the Palestinians and their fellow Arabs.
The first, and less important, of these is the Nice Young Man From Chicago has employed once again the tactic espoused by his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. You will recall that this Not So Nice, Not So Young Man From Chicago advised, "Let no crisis go by unexploited." The structural lunacy of the local planning board in Jerusalem announcing the approval of over a thousand new housing units for Jews in Jerusalem just as Joe Biden was arriving presented a welcome opportunity to both manufacture a "crisis" and exploit it.
The second, more fundamental basis for the administration's offensive for the Palestinians--even if not necessarily against the Israelis--is shown in its record of mistreating long-standing allies. The President and his people have openly (and repeatedly) dissed the UK. As far as the rest of Western Europe is concerned, the sense among all the governments there is that while they have not been "Gordon Browned," the Obama administration is remarkably and unprecedentedly remote and uninterested in the region and its concerns or views.
The diplomatic blundering surrounding the replacement of the land-based ABM system proposed by the W. Bush administration with a sea-based one caused shudders of seismic strength to run through the capitals of the former Warsaw Pact states. The on and off attempts to "engage" or coerce North Korea have not gained any new credibility for the US in either South Korea or Japan, both of which would have been greatly reassured by a more consistent focus in US policy. (The resulting loss of trust in US guarantees has been reflected in recent days by the pointed acknowledgement in South Korea that both that country and Japan could build deliverable nuclear weapons is a very short time should either choose.)
At the same time as the administration has been turning a chilly if not downright frigid shoulder to old allies, it has been extending always warm hands of friendship to regimes which show by their behavior that they are frankly hostile to American national interests. Charming smiles, open hands, and warm words of "engagement" and "acceptance" have replaced any appearance of firm resolve in pursuit of our better national interests and higher values.
The nice gestures and happy words have brought no noticeable, positive result. China is frankly unhelpful. The Russians are equivocal at best regarding interests which should be mutual. The dictatorships of the Bolivarian Revolution are every bit as antithetical to the US today as they were when Bush/Cheney hung their hats on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The mullahs and their men are still firmly in power. Their centrifuges keep on spinning. Deadlines come and go, unheeded. Blandishments alternate with threats, both to no avail.
Overall the combination of ignoring friends and appeasing enemies has given the general impression that the US either has no foreign policy or that its policy now is predicated upon a total reversal of all past trajectories. More kindly the interpretation of the contradictory behaviors of the administration over the past year might be that the whole crew is both ideologically driven and naive concerning the realities of international politics.
President Obama and many in his administration have accepted the view of Israel which emerged in and among the American and Western European hoi oligoi during and following the first Intifada. They have rejected the old and to an extent specious narrative of Israel the embattled David facing the monolithic Goliath of the "Arab World." To a degree which cannot be ascertained with accuracy, the president and his people have embraced the new narrative which casts Israel as an intransigent, land-grabbing, Arab-hating state.
Both narratives contain a degree of accuracy. Neither is a sound basis for policy.
To a degree which has proven nearly disastrous, US administrations from Kennedy to W. Bush based policy on the old narrative. Both the American public and elite did so as well even if the latter shifted from the old to the new first and most rapidly during the first Intifada. It was not unfair to characterize US policy toward Israel as being one where the tail wagged the dog.
The Obama version of "hope and change" quite obviously took the new narrative at face value. This coupled with the ignore-friends-because-they-are-friends to assure the pro-Palestinian "tilt." The Ramat Shlomo incident provided the perfect excuse for an exploitable "crisis."
Adding additional impetus to the "tilt" is the Arab position of if-you're-not-tough-on-Israel-how-can-we-believe-you're-tough-on-Iran, the Obama administration has rushed to get ahead of the European Union in advancing the cause of the Palestinians at the expense of Israel. Given the inclinations of the senior members of the Obama administration--including the president--the race between the EU and the US to be the greatest champion of the downtrodden Palestinian masses is well-neigh inevitable. Think of it as a case of hoi oligoi of a feather flock together.
Of course this new fashion of kicking allies in order to kiss adversaries requires a particular skill at ignoring both historical and current realities in the Mideast. The assorted Palestinian entities including both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are committed to removing Israel from the map. The portfolio of Arab/Palestinian demands includes returning Israel to the Green Line of the ceasefire ending the 1948-49 wars and admitting Palestinians to Israel under a perversion of the "law of return."
These demands lead with the certainty of night following day to the extinction of Israel. The current administration must realize this. Yet on they push.
Who is going to stop them?
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