Ths morning's Jerusalem Post reports that the Israeli public now views the Obama administration as pro-palestinian by a 51% to 6% margin. Six weeks ago, before the Obama speech in Cairo and his calls for settlement freezes, among other thing, the view of the Israeli public on the same question was nearly split with a slight majority viewing Obama as pro-Israeli. It is hard to imagine that Obama could manage in just a month to alienate the closest ally of the USA in the Middle East, but he has done it. And what has Obama gained? He has managed to have the Iranians thumb their collective noses at the USA by rigging the election and them blaming the USA for meddling in their internal affairs -- even as Obama has done everything but endorse the theft of the election by the regime. The Palestinians have, not surprisingly, rejected the Israeli call to resume negotiations and they have instead called upon Obama to force the Israelis into concessions before any negotiations can resume. After all, the Palestinians also know that Obama is pro-Palestinian, so they want him to produce concessions from Israel without any cost to them.
In short, Obama has screwed up the US position in the middle east by alienating our friends and getting nothing in return from anyone. This is certainly change, but rather than believing in it, I find it hard to believe that Obama could actually have done it. Maybe the slogan for the next election should be "Change you can hardly believe (or how could he be that dumb?)"
No comments:
Post a Comment