Reflections on the disastrous foreign policy of this administration:
Khadafy can be forgiven, but there are transgressions that can’t. One such sin was perpetrated by Israel after the nation’s decision to allow a new housing project to be built in Jerusalem.
The White House became so agitated with the new housing project — and the ill-advised timing of the announcement, which came during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit — that the casual onlooker might have been led to believe the Jerusalem neighborhood in question was part of some unfinished negotiation with Palestinians, or even that it was one of those “settlements.” It was neither.
Still, according to The Jerusalem Post, Hillary Clinton telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who, along with many other Israeli officials, apologized for the poor timing of the project’s announcement — to “berate,” “rebuke,” “warn” and “condemn” Israel. White House senior adviser David Axelrod used NBC’s “Meet the Press” to call the incident an “affront,” an “insult” and “very, very destructive.”
As the administration was manufacturing this anger, the Palestinian Authority was preparing the newly minted Dalal Mughrabi square. You know, just a place for folks to gather and commemorate the 32nd anniversary of 1978’s Coastal Road Massacre, in which 37 Israelis — 13 of them children — were murdered in a bus hijacking.
An American named Gail Rubin, who happened to be snapping some nature pictures in the area, was also gunned down.
No worries. No affront taken. That’s not “very, very destructive” to the process. We are above the fray. Above frivolous notions of “allies” or “friends.” History only matters when our enemies deem it important. We don’t want to tweak the fragile mood of the Arab street.
They had better start to worry about the American street. Especially if they continue to push health-care deform on us.
[Update a while later]
Some related thoughts from Michael Ledeen:
As he pushes Israel away from the American embrace, Obama has undertaken to make peace with Iran, whose genocidal hatred of America and Israel and bloody war against both requires a very different policy. Sensible Middle East experts understand that there cannot be peace between Israel and the Arabs as long as Iran exercises a decisive influence over the key terrorist organizations. But Obama has willfully ignored this connection in designing his Mideast plans.
You can’t even begin to address the Arab-Israeli thing until and unless you’ve defeated Iran.
Unfortunately, they don’t believe in winning wars, only in “ending” them.