It Can Also Get Worse
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni is a woman so consumed by political ambition that the interests of the country she seeks to lead barely enter into her calculations. President Obama’s May 19 remarks outlining his vision of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process were clearly not an act of friendship. The president sought to back Prime Minister Netanyahu into a corner by dropping his bombshell as the latter was about to leave for America for talks with the president and to address a joint session of Congress.
As we argued last week Obama’s speech cast a shadow of illegitimacy over Israel’s presence on any land captured in a defensive war in 1967 made short shrift of the Israel’s need to ensure that the West Bank not become a terrorist haven and adopted the Palestinian demand to negotiate borders of a Palestinian state without recognizing a Jewish state and renouncing the right of return at the same time.
Yet before Netanyahu could catch his breath or figure out how to address this curveball thrown at him Livni rushed to blame him for bringing American-Israeli diplomatic relations to an impasse. Just as Obama could not bring himself to criticize the Palestinians for the freeze in the “peace process” — no mention of Palestinian Authority incitement and encouragement of a cult of martyrdom no mention of the Palestinians refusal to sit down to negotiate over the last two years — so Livni could not bring herself to utter a word of criticism of Obama.
Her expressed view of the role of the Israeli prime minister is that his or her task is to propitiate angry American presidents with whatever sacrifices they demand. So much for a free and sovereign people in their own land. Israel is an American satrapy. Zionism’s forefathers must be rolling in their grave.
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