President Obama’s toxic foreign policy consists mainly of placating America’s adversaries and manipulating our friends (that and combatting the imminent threat of global warming with a one-sided American policy of economic seppuku). Now we are learning of Obama’s latest reach into what has always been the ken of agencies like the CIA: regime change. Only this isn’t to topple Communism in Central America or extremists in Tehran. It’s to overthrow Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in our middle-east ally Israel.
Aaron Klein wrote in the Jerusalem Post,
The White House has singled out Netanyahu as standing in the way of Obama’s utopian vision for a new Middle East and Persian Gulf. What better way to bypass this obstacle than aiding in Netanyahu’s removal from office?
Last week, Netanyahu’s fragile coalition finally fractured, with both Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, dismissed, and Netanyahu’s dissolving of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) with new elections to be scheduled. This will be Netanyahu’s greatest internal challenge, and Klein contents that it was in no small part brought about by the Obama administration’s meddling in Israeli politics.
His points are convincing.
- Last October, Netanyahu’s Defense Minister Ya’alon was denied a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State [mc_name name=’Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000148′ ], and National Security Adviser (and national stunt double) Susan rice during his visit to Washington. This basically never happens.
- Ha’aretz reported that prior to a meeting between Obama and Netanyahu last October, a classified discussion was held “about possibly taking more proactive measures against the “settlements,” including mulling sanctions or punishing Israel at the United Nations.”
- Following the meeting, both the State Department and the White House released almost identical statements condemning new construction in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s political adversaries jumped right in, as if on cue, criticizing him in Israel.
- Jeffrey Goldberg’s hit-piece in October described senior Obama officials as calling Netanyahu a “chickenshit” on the Palestinian peace process. This was framed as a crisis in The Atlantic article, and also by Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid, a Netanyahu opponent who is part of the now-sunk coalition.
And this.
Here’s the kicker. In March, an informed diplomatic source in Jerusalem told [Klein] that representatives of the Obama administration held meetings with Lapid to check him out politically and to discuss the kind of prime minister he would make if he won elections in the future. The diplomatic source said the Obama administration identified Lapid as a moderate who would support Israeli-Palestinian talks. While the alleged meeting might have been as innocent as getting to know the powerful finance minister, the claim does fuel the perception of Obama administration tentacles working surreptitiously to change the political order in the Jewish state.
Israelis are less and less trusting of Obama’s intentions. This intrusion of unprecedented proportions can only further damage relations between America and her staunchest ally in the middle-east, indeed the only democracy with full civil rights in the region. Let’s hope that the damage is not permanent.
This is the legacy of Obama’s failed and septic leadership.