Obama's frayed relations with Netanyahu a badly kept secret
Vicious truths best left behind closed
doors rarely match the superficial and carefully scripted handshakes and
warm wishes that cloak difficult U.S.-Israeli relations. But President
Barack Obama’s testy impatience with Israel’s tough-talking and
unreliable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is Washington’s worst-kept
secret.
The two have what is often regarded as the
worst relations between an American president and the head of the
Jewish state since its founding in 1948.
So the revelation that France’s President,
Nicolas Sarkozy, regards Mr. Netanyahu as “a liar” and frankly says: ‘I
can’t bear Netanyahu” is less a surprise than a confirmation of widely
accepted views.
Even less of a surprise is that Mr. Obama,
who pointedly snubbed Mr. Netanyahu on the Israeli Prime Minister’s
last visit to Washington, trumped the French President when he replied:
“You’re fed up, but I have to deal with him every day.”
The backroom exchange at last week’s G20
summit in Cannes was picked up by microphones worn by the two leaders
and delivered to a waiting press corps before the start of a scheduled
news conference.
Perhaps the only real surprise is that a
clutch of journalists privy to the conversation apparently agreed to
keep it secret. That didn’t last long.
Still, Mr. Obama’s public disparagement of the Israeli leader will only worsen already miserable relations between the two men.
Their mutual dislike goes beyond the personal.
They differ sharply on policy, and Mr.
Netanyahu, in particular, seems to have gone out of his way to publicly
snub the President and show himself off at home as a tough guy.
Every meeting between the two is fraught and full of drama.
Mr. Obama’s chilly relations with Mr.
Netanyahu have further alienated the President from America’s right-wing
Christians, who tend to ardently support the Jewish state. More
problematic for the President is whether his policies will erode support
among Jewish Americans, who form a vital voting block in some swing
states such as Florida.
Last May, after Mr. Obama restated
long-standing American policy – but did so with a barb by pointedly
referring to Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries – it sparked a huge flap and
much nastiness in Washington and Israel.
“Israel will not return to the
indefensible boundaries of 1967,” Mr. Netanyahu bluntly said, the third
time in five days he explicitly rejected Mr. Obama’s qualified call for
those lines, redrawn with “mutually agreed swaps” of territory, to be a
starting point for negotiations.
An earlier snub provoked this: “There is
no humiliation exercise that the Americans did not try on the prime
minister and his entourage,” according to Israel’s Maariv newspaper. And
with just a touch of racism, it added: “Bibi received in the White
House the treatment reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea.”
While the powerful Jewish-American lobby
keeps trying to patch up relations, the reality is that Mr. Obama’s
policies are at odds with Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line approach.
Mr. Obama wants Israel to make good on its
many – and equally often broken – promises to cease settlement building
in the West Bank.
The policy differences have spilled into
first private, then public snubs. Fed up with Mr. Netanyahu’s
intransigence at one White House meeting, Mr. Obama told the Israeli
leader that he was leaving for dinner with Michelle and his daughters in
the private quarters, leaving Mr. Netanyahu cooling his heels.
Mr. Obama is not alone in his distaste for
what many regard as Mr. Netanyahu’s duplicity. That Mr. Sarkozy called
him a “liar” – even in private – demonstrates the depth of the aversion.
Other European leaders have increasingly distanced themselves from Mr.
Netanyahu.
The more important fact, however, is
whether the evident dislike between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu dooms
hope for a Palestinian-Israeli peace as long as they are both in office.
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