American president’s worldview premised on questionable assertions
Yoram Ettinger
Opinion/Ynet
30 June '10
Tell me who initiates the meeting and who wants a photo opportunity, and I’ll tell you who has the inferior position. The upcoming meeting between Israel’s prime minister and the US president was initiated by Obama, who is concerned about the outcome of the November election and his declining support by Democrats and Independents. He hopes that a jovial photograph with Netanyahu would obscure severe disagreements, while enhancing his image among Israel’s friends in the US. He presumes that Netanyahu will not leverage his (Obama’s) political predicament and the significant support for Israel among constituents and legislators, and will once again commit Israel to concessions.
Obama is an ideologue, determined to change the US and the world, irrespective of his declining fortunes internally and externally. Obama’s reaction to Netanyahu’s about-face on the “two-state solution” and the de-facto freeze of construction in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, demonstrates that concessions do not improve Obama’s attitude toward Israel; they intensify pressure. Netanyahu’s concessions have not diverted Obama from the following “10 Commandments” of his worldview:
1. End of American Exceptionalism. Obama does not believe in America’s moral, economic or military exceptionalism. He perceives the US as a power in retreat, which sometimes abused its super-power role. His appointed legal advisor at the Department of State, Harold Koh, contends that the US Constitution should be interpreted, also, on the basis of foreign legal precedents and that even the Shariah (Muslim) law could find a home in the US. Koh stated that some US actions classify it as a member of the “Axis of Disobedience.”
2. Not Confrontation but Engagement. Obama is convinced that the globe is not an arena of confrontation, but a platform of engagement with enemies/rivals, including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Hence, strategic partners such as Israel are less relevant. Moreover, he has cut the budget for the development of new military systems and of missile defense, canceled the deployment of missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and initiated nuclear arms reduction agreements, which erode America’s posture of deterrence.
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