LOTL..
19 February '13..
On the recent 60 Minutes segment Will Israel's "Iron Dome" help bring peace? aired on February 17th, Bob Simons exercises what might be charitably described as a snarky approach in his interchange with Ehud Barak, attempting to create a self- imagined linkage between American Iron Dome support and Israel's continued housing construction in communities lacking his approval.
Bob Simon: While the Americans are helping you so much in your defense. Israel goes on building settlements, which is exactly what the Americans don't want. How does that work, when you're asking America for help and doing exactly what the Americans don't want you to do?
Ehud Barak: You know, Bob, I prefer not to answer this question right now. You know, we are in the height of the election period. I basically think that the relationship, especially between our intelligence communities and our defense establishment, is extreme-- are extremely close.
Bob Simon: You mean, between the Israelis and the Americans?
Ehud Barak: Yeah. Extremely close. And of course, we have certain differences.
Bob Simon: But how does it work? I mean, right now, Israel has just announced the building of a gigantic settlement project. This is at the same time that the Americans are providing the money for Israel's most important defense system.
Ehud Barak: You know, we are highly grateful to the administration, to American people as a whole for this support. I don't think that it's relevant to the issue of Iron Dome.
While Ehud Barak's reasoned and polite response did bring this to an end, Amb. Michael Oren took a moment via his Facebook site yesterday to add a comment of his own to this interchange.
Ambassador Michael Oren
60 Minutes was right: The Iron Dome missile defense system does not take lives, it saves lives. But 60 Minutes missed the true connection between Iron Dome and settlements: Israel was compelled to build Iron Dome after it uprooted 21 Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and Hamas took over Gaza and used it to launch thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians....
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.
.
Posts
Thank you Michael Oren for your honest and straightforward statement of facts.
ReplyDeleteWhat was Bob Simon suggesting - that by helping us get the dome, the US is buying control and management of our country? - that Israel's not building houses for Jews in Israel (and, no matter what people want to think, Jerusalem and its environs are still part of the Jewish state) will bring an end to the Israel Arab tension in the Middle East? - as though the Arabs never openly declared their desire to rid Israel of the Jews in '48, '56, and'67?
Shame on Simon. As always, he prefers sensationalism and thoughtlessness to honest reporting - being his usual short-sighted, mean-spirited self with regard to Israel.