A view from Israel
Caroline Glick says that Vice President Biden’s speech at Tel Aviv University to sell the policies of the Obama administration will be a failure, unlike the efforts of the Clinton administration a decade and a half ago:
First, Obama himself is far weaker than Clinton was. His obsequious attempts to curry favor with the Arabs and Iran have been even more disturbing to Israelis than his refusal to visit the country. Moreover, unlike Clinton, who was popular with Israelis even before he was elected, Obama has never been popular in Israel…it is hard to see how he can convince the Israeli public that he will be capable of protecting the country from a nuclear-armed Iran or that he can force the Palestinians and the Syrians to end their support of terror in the event of an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria or the Golan Heights.
Second, the Netanyahu Obama faces is not the Netanyahu Clinton faced in the 1990s. Today, the premier leads a far broader coalition than he did in his previous government. It is also more stable. Labor Party chief Defense Minister Ehud Barak knows he cannot unseat Netanyahu. Indeed, he knows he can’t even trust his party to continue supporting him if he leaves Netanyahu’s government. As for opposition leader Tzipi Livni, the latest polls show her trailing far behind Netanyahu as the people’s choice for prime minister. Her party’s popularity rates are decreasing, Likud’s are growing.
Third, there is the fact that today the Left does not control public opinion to the degree it did the last time Netanyahu was in power. During his first government, due in large part to the media’s delegitimization of the Right in the wake of Rabin’s assassination, the media was able to market the PLO as a credible peace partner. Yasser Arafat himself was portrayed by a popular television show as a sweet, peace loving sock puppet who only wanted to make peace with the craven, war mongering Netanyahu…
the fourth reason that Biden will fail in his mission. In the 11 years since Netanyahu was forced from office, the Left’s political platform has been discredited by events. Since 1999 the Palestinians -– as well as the Lebanese -– have demonstrated that the Left’s appeasement policies are disastrous. The 1,500 Israelis who have been killed since then by the Palestinians and Hizbullah, the transformation of post-Israeli-withdrawal southern Lebanon and Gaza into jihadist enclaves, the rise of Iran, and Fatah’s open rejection of Israel’s right to exist have all made the Left’s policies unacceptable to a wide majority of Israelis.
Apparently Obama’s cringe-making outreach to the Iranian Supreme Leader apparently didn’t go over too well in Israel. HT: Powerline
March 6th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
First, you continue your long record of quoting right-wing sources, who will favor your positions with their biases and distortions (Jerusalem Post and Powerline here, Wall Street Journal editorials and Rasmussen often). Keep your echo chamber ringing until its cacophony makes even you deaf.
Second, contrast the current administration’s efforts to help Israel on a road to peace against the totally useless Republican flailings of the previous 8 years. Biden is a refreshing change from Cheney, who was far more crooked than his smile. George Mitchell should make anyone have greater confidence in potential success.
March 6th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Annnnd… Steve continues his string of perfectly content-free comments. Bravo!
March 8th, 2010 at 3:48 am
Steve has a rant, not a point. Steve evidently feels those with differing views do not deserve a voice. It is too much to ask for a reason why those opinions and facts are not correct.
Second, contrast the failures of all Mideast peace initiatives with each other. What’s the common thread? At least one side that doesn’t want to give up enough to have peace hasn’t changed its position. In my opinion, it’s the Palestinians, but that is irrelevant. If you focus on results, they have all failed.
Steve is unable to comprehend that agreements are not always possible. I want a new BMW, but BMW doesn’t want to sell the car at a price I want to pay, which is about $15K. No mutually agreeable compromise is possible. Life’s full of trade-offs. The difference here is that the BMW dealer isn’t trying to kill me, and I’m not trying to steal his car lot.