Netanyahu on Obama ties: Under the bus? What bus?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to take the bait on Sunday when asked if he agreed with Republican presidential candidates that President Barack Obama is not pro-Israel enough.
He was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s recent comment that the Democratic president “threw Israel under the bus.”
“You are trying to throw me under the bus of American politics and, guess what, I’m not going to be thrown there,” Netanyahu joked.
The Israeli leader has had a strained relationship with Obama and in May criticized his vision of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as leaving Israel “indefensible.”
Some of the Republicans hoping to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election, including front-runners Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry, have pounced on the issue and raced to proclaim their allegiance to the Jewish state.
Netanyahu, who called Obama’s speech on the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations last week a “badge of honor,” did not cede an inch to partisanship.
“I think the important thing to understand is this and this is the truth about America: Israel enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, tremendous,” he said. “And I think that bipartisan support is expressed by any person who happens to the president of the United States, including President Obama.”
Mideast peace veterans and handshake diplomacy
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly referred to them as “veterans” of the Middle East peace process.
That description is probably one thing everyone can agree on. The process to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a lasting peace agreement has been going on for decades and every U.S. president hopes he’s the one who will finally achieve what those before him tried and failed.
President Barack Obama is the latest to take up the baton. He’s already won the Nobel Peace Prize, but will he be The One to triumph on Middle East Peace?
“We are under no illusions,” Obama said on Wednesday when he met with leaders ahead of today’s talks. “Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear overnight.”
That last sentence is another thing that probably everyone can agree on.
But if the Israeli-Palestinian leaders’ handshakes over the years are any kind of indicator, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope.
Seventeen years ago in September 1993, President Bill Clinton practically forced Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to shake hands at the White House while observers held their collective breath wondering will they or won’t they?
How to ease traffic tie-ups in Washington: hold a nuclear security summit
There’s nuclear security, and then there’s street security.
High-level delegations from nearly 50 countries gathered in Washington to talk, talk, talk, and talk some more about keeping the world safe from nuclear terrorism at the Nuclear Security Summit hosted by President Barack Obama.
That in turn required Washington to cope with ensuring the safety of the world leaders gathered to mull world security.
Ripple effect: Plenty of local scare talk about street closings, traffic tie-ups and nightmare commutes that kept many people off downtown streets on Monday, the first day of the two-day summit.
Side effect: an easier commute, lighter traffic, no typical morning gridlock. (Hey maybe there’s an answer to Washington’s nightmare rush hour traffic jams).
A massive security cordon surrounded the summit site with camouflage-wearing National Guard troops and a heavy U.S. security presence.
Barricades sprung up around the Convention Center and along sidewalks near potential motorcade routes, 10-foot wire fences were erected, the closest Metro train stop was closed, buses were rerouted, and parking was forbidden on surrounding streets.
When seen from Capitol Hill, Jerusalem looks a bit different
What’s the U.S. policy toward Israel? It may depend on which branch of government you ask.
On Capitol Hill, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got a warm reception during his Washington visit this week. Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, says Congress is on “a different page” than the Obama administration over Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and the overall U.S. relationship with Israel.
Netanyahu got a less obviously effusive welcome from the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met him at a hotel on Monday and his White House meeting with the president on Tuesday took place behind closed doors, without photographers present.
But on Capitol Hill he was warmly, openly and officially received by leading lawmakers. Cameras clicked and rolled as Netanyahu was greeted in ornate reception rooms, first in the House of Representatives, then in the Senate Tuesday. In between, he lunched with lawmakers.
The Israeli prime minister got to hear his own words echo around the hallowed halls of Congress as well. At the morning meeting with Netanyahu, “Many of us said, Jerusalem is not a settlement,” Cantor told Reuters afterwards.
This had been Netanyahu’s line in a speech to the influential pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC on Monday evening, where he struck a defiant note after new criticism from Clinton of Jewish home construction in disputed territory in and around Jerusalem.
Cantor, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said he and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, are circulating for lawmakers’ signatures a letter to Clinton expressing concerns about the direction of U.S. policy. ”We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists bewteen our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension,” the letter says.
Different enough to tell them to stand on their own two feet? Cut ties and stop policing the world. We cannot afford it any longer
No “no” is final, U.S. mideast peace envoy says
President Barack Obama’s mideast peace envoy George Mitchell is an unlikely optimist.
Ten months into an assignment that has confounded generations of U.S. diplomats, Mitchell said on Wednesday he remained upbeat about bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to peace talks — thanks in part to his experience resolving another once-intractable crisis, the dispute between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Mitchell, credited with shaping the 1998 Good Friday Accord that ended that long and bloody conflict, said the key was not to lose heart.
“Over a period of five years, I chaired three separate sets of discussions. The main negotiation lasted for nearly two years. For most of that time, there was little or no progress, and our effort was branded a failure,” Mitchell told a news briefing.
“But then, after two years of saying no, both sides said yes. In a real sense, we had 700 days of failure and one day of success.”
Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader, has thus far had little success in shuttle diplomacy aimed at resuming stalled Mideast peace talks, which have seen the two sides still bitterly divided over the issue of Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian lands.
You have to give the man credit for trying. I still think there will never be a solution unless there is a clear winner. He then sets the rules and life can go on.
The First Draft: More pain ahead
Guess what? The economy is still in terrible shape.
The Dow Jones Industrial average plunged to its lowest level in six years yesterday, and all signs point to another lousy day on Wall Street today.
U.S. stock index futures are falling in early morning trading as worries about the fate of major banks mount. Shares of Citigroup were down 6.4 percent and Bank of America was down 8 percent in trading on the Frankfurt exchange.
President Obama has had a busy week. After signing the stimulus bill, unveiling his mortgage rescue plan and visiting Canada, he’ll talk up the stimulus at 10:30 a.m. today.
Every other economic indicator is in the toilet these days. How’s inflation? We’ll find out at 8:30 a.m., when the Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index figures. Analysts say the numbers are expected to be moderate, with deflation more a concern than rising prices.
Authorities have tracked down accused fraudster Allen Stanford in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The FBI served the billionaire cricket promoter with civil charges accusing him of masterminding a “massive, ongoing fraud” with a price tag of roughly $8 billion.
Hillary Clinton had some tough talk for North Korea. On her first foreign jaunt as Secretary of State, she called the isolated country a “tyranny” and said it needs to settle down and return to nuclear talks.
What else could Bibi say? There are 18 months during which Obama could do enough damage to put Israel into misery! He remembers how Clinton unseated him with the Limosine Socialist Barak, a failed Prime Minister, only to experience a replay with the Soros funded NIF and the newly purchased tents, this time a “social protest movement”, designed by the same Clinton operatives to finish him off. Bibi is a survivor, betting on Obama’s presidency disintegrating. he does not have to say a thing, Obama has switched the suicide button before he became president-he is not up to it. Time will prove me right.