Gardiner - Barack Obama’s Israel-bashing is an embarrassment for the leader of the free world

Niles Gardiner
The Telegraph
08 November '11

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100115203/barack-obama%E2%80%99s-israel-bashing-is-an-embarrassment-for-the-leader-of-the-free-world/

The White House likes to portray President Obama as a staunch supporter of Israel, and is always quick to defend him against the charge that he has weakened US support for America’s closest ally in the Middle East. The reality, however, is very different from the Pennsylvania Avenue spin. As I’ve noted in previous pieces, the Obama administration has a striking track record of insulting Israel, and the relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his US counterpart has been unremittingly tense. And after his latest bout of foreign folly, the image of Barack Obama as an Israel-basher will be even further entrenched.

Thanks to an article by French news site Arrêt sur Images, Obama’s distinctly unflattering impression of Israel’s leader is plain for all to see. According to the French piece, reported here by Israeli media outlet Ynetnews, the French and US presidents both sneered at Mr. Netanyahu in a private meeting at the G-20, while their microphones were still on, audible to journalists:

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!" The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders' microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.

The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elyse for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

"By the time the (media) services at the Elysée realize it, it was on for at least three minutes," one journalist told the website.

You expect this kind of double talk from the Elysée Palace. Witness the brutal knifing in the back of the United States by Jacques Chirac’s administration over the Iraq War as a prime example. But you expect a far higher standard from the US president when he is describing the leader of a close American partner. It demonstrates not only a lack of judgment, but also a disregard for traditional American alliances, something we have seen on numerous occasions with his administration’s treatment of Great Britain. While the Obama presidency has moved with the speed of a tortoise in condemning the beating and killing of political protesters in places like Iran and Syria, it has pounced with panther-like agility in condemning every move Israel makes to build more settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank, as though Israel’s desire to build more homes for its own people is an affront to civilisation. The White House’s rapid condemnation of the Israelis last week was a case in point.

In the meantime, Iran, a rogue state that threatens to wipe Israel off the map, is now agonosingly close to building a nuclear bomb, less than three years after President Obama extended the hand of friendship to Tehran. There is something monumentally rotten about a Carter-esque foreign policy that rewards enemies while giving allies a boot in the face. The president’s shameless mocking of a major friend of the United States whose nation faces the biggest threat in its history, is an embarrassment for the leader of the free world and hardly an example of “smart power"

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