No Holds Barred: Obama couldn't stop Bibi
01/24/2013 19:35
No PM has so successfully resisted the pressure from the leader of a country he loves so much for a country he loves even more.
Netanyahu and Obama shake hands Photo: REUTERS
I’m sure Jeffrey Goldberg got it right. Whatever the
reason the President leaked his unhappiness with Bibi to Goldberg just a
few days before the Israeli election – whether in an effort to
influence the vote against Bibi, serve payback to Bibi for a perceived
preference for Romney, or because the President could simply no longer
suppress his dissatisfaction – it must indeed be unnerving to be the
most powerful man on earth and have the elected leader of a tiny Middle
Eastern country defy you. Especially when that country, in your opinion,
owes you so much! You are their only reliable friend who watches
helplessly as that little nation continues to isolate itself through its
self-destructive policies. According to Goldberg, Obama has “become
inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli
counterpart… Obama said privately and repeatedly, “Israel doesn’t know
what its own best interests are… Netanyahu is moving his country down a
path toward near-total isolation.”
If only Israel would
recognize the President’s genius. If only it would stop building in
Jerusalem and E1 and allow the President to sprinkle his magic peace
dust, then Hamas would beat its rockets into ploughshares and Hezbollah
would turn its bombs into pruning hooks. But no. Ungrateful to the last,
Bibi insists on disobeying the President and claiming all of Jerusalem
as Israel’s undivided capitol.
No doubt the President is
likewise mystified at the Israeli people as well. How could the Israeli
people have re-elected the intransigent Prime Minister who is doing so
much to harm their country? The most powerful man on earth is reduced to
watching from the sidelines and complaining to journalists that he
knows how to protect Israel far better than the Israelis themselves.
Such an ungrateful nation.
And
yet, perhaps the Israelis have finally figured out that they are a
sovereign people whom, while immensely grateful to America for its
friendship and support, are still best qualified to judge their security
needs better than anyone else. Perhaps they have come to understand
that another Democratic president named Bill Clinton, whom noone would
argue has a sincere love of the Jewish people and a Jewish son-in-law,
still pushed Israel into the Oslo agreements that left a thousand
Israeli civilians blown to bits. Perhaps they have come to understand
that if Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense,
was correct that, as a legislator from Nebraska he was “not an Israeli
senator. I'm a United States senator," then the Prime Minister of Israel
is the likewise the leader of the Jewish state who must put the
security of the Israeli people even before a nod of approval from the
President of the United States.
Over the past four years Bibi
has grown into one of Israel’s truly great leaders. Yes, he lost seats
in the election and the country may be insisting on a more centrist
course. But that does not change the fact under Bibi the country is
booming economically and in terms of security. Cranes dot the skyline of
expanding Israeli cities, terror incidents are negligible compared to
the Clinton era, and unlike the anemic American economy, Israel is
humming along at about four percent annual growth. And if President
Obama is right that, in spite of this prosperity, Israel is isolated in
world opinion, then it is arguably no more so than it has been in the
past, and, besides, what is better, a popular Israel riddled with dead
Jews or an unpopular Israel filled with living ones?
But what
President Obama does not understand about Netanyahu is that the
inflexibility he accuses him of is born not of a narrow-minded obstinacy
but rather of a confident Jewish pride and deep-seated conviction that
has been Bibi’s lifelong hallmark.
In my desire in 1990 to
launch a robust response to anti-Israel speeches at the Oxford Union, I
booked Netanyahu to lecture at the University. Bibi, just 41 years old,
had already electrified the world as Israel’s most capable defender at
the UN. Bibi agreed to come with a single stipulation: “If I’m already
making the trip, then work me like a horse.”
We obliged.
We
picked him up in a special branch police car and as we drove through
the grandeur of Oxford’s ancient center, he commented on the majesty of
British academia and its incongruence with some of the petty anti-Israel
sentiment that is often expressed within its halls. Arriving at St.
Antony’s College for a private forum with Oxford Middle East experts,
Bibi put one foot on a chair and for the next 90 minutes held forth on
the justice of Israel’s cause, surrounded as it was by nation’s sworn to
its destruction. As he finished, the attacks came in fast and furious
in what had to be one of the most hostile audiences he ever addressed.
He did not blink, he did not flinch, he did not bend. When the last
question ended, he turned to me to ask what next. After two more
speeches, we took him to my home where we had arranged a dinner with
Rhodes Scholars, many of them Jewish, most critical of Israeli policy.
This time Bibi was softer in presentation but just as firm in
conviction. Israel was a righteous nation, focused on maintaining
democracy and human rights while facing existential threats on nearly
every border. He spoke to the students of their responsibility to be
proud defenders of their people and never bend in the face of
opposition. The climax of the day was a lecture at the Union itself.
Palestinian and Jewish protesters rallied outside in their hundreds with
the rallying cry: “Net-an-ya-hu you should know, we support the P-L-O.”
Bibi left his security bubble and walked over to the protesters. “Come
inside and listen. Then you can protest. I’ll answer every question you
ask.”
Many left their barricades and joined the large crowd
inside. What followed was one of the great speeches I have heard, a
mesmerizing presentation of the need for democracy across the Middle
East and the liberalization of Arab governments that deny their citizens
their God-given human rights. At its high point Bibi said, “Many of us
in Israel have buried children and lost brothers, in fulfillment of a
simple dream for Jews to finally live and prosper in a country of their
own in peace.” He did not have to mention whom he was referring to as
even his detractors knew of Entebbe and the hero-brother he had lost.
Again
he was bombarded with hostile questions. He responded patiently but
forcefully. When he finished he was given a standing ovation by most of
the students in the hall. It was a night few of us would forget.
No
Israeli Prime Minister has ever been as American as Bibi. And yet no
Prime Minister has so successfully resisted the pressure from the leader
of a country he loves so much for a country he loves even more. And the
Israeli people, in reelecting Bibi, presumably amid the consternation
of President Obama, are finally realizing that Israel cannot ultimately
be protected from Washington but Jerusalem, especially when the current
American Administration is not in step with the strong sympathy of the
American people for a tiny and just nation fighting for its life.
Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom The Washington Post
calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” has just published his newest best-seller, “The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering.”http://www.2911webdesign.com/#!cleos-page/c1582
