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Posted on 07/17/2012 5:04:07 AM PDT by SJackson
Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Israel Monday for her fourth visit as secretary of state; the third, however, was 22 months ago. On the other hand, Clinton’s visit came hard on the heels of one by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and it was further reported on Monday that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would be coming to Jerusalem at the end of July.
While Donilon’s visit was kept rather hushed-up, clearly part of the motive for Clinton and Panetta’s visits is political with GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney also scheduled to be here at the end of July. With President Obama himself never having stopped by the Holy Land since taking office, and his party nervous about the Jewish vote, visibly dispatching Clinton and Panetta here is intended to offset some of the political capital that Romney hopes to gain with his visit.
Undoubtedly, though, more than mere politicking is at play in this flurry of high-level contacts. Clinton’s previous stop was Egypt, where the election of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi as president has given Israel the jitters while—publicly at least—evoking mainly plaudits and encouragement from Washington.
But while Morsi’s capacity to wreak harm remains uncertain, as Egypt’s Supreme Military Council tries to curb his powers and the country remains mired in a severe economic crisis, two other Middle Eastern flashpoints pose much more imminent threats. In Syria, chaos looms with Islamist elements now spearheading the rebels and the country’s vast chemical and biological weapons stockpiles in danger of falling into radical hands. And in Iran, the race to the bomb continues unimpeded by insufficient sanctions, let alone the ludicrously hollow “negotiations” between Iran and the P5+1 countries.
With war clouds darkening the putative “Arab Spring,” then, one might have expected a much lower profile for the “peace”—that is, Palestinian—issue in Clinton’s visit on Monday compared to her earlier stopovers. A day earlier, Obama, asked by a TV interviewer where he felt he had failed as president, replied that he had “not been able to move the peace process forward in the Middle East the way I wanted.” Reports in the Israeli media on Monday night said Clinton had met only briefly at her Jerusalem hotel with Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad, without making the once-obligatory stop in Ramallah.
On the other hand, hopes that the last three and a half years have sobered the administration on this score had to be tempered by Obama’s added remark that “the truth of the matter is that the parties, they’ve got to want [peace] as well”—an equivalency that indicates an ongoing inability to distinguish between Israel, a democracy that has sometimes made desperate concessions in the hope of peace, and a Palestinian side that systematically instills hatred and rejection of Israel in its population.
Indeed, the Palestinian issue appears to have figured heavily in Clinton’s meeting Monday night with Israel’s prime minister, with the secretary of state reportedly pressuring Binyamin Netanyahu to woo the Authority back to the negotiating table with gifts of small weapons and released prisoners. Clinton was said to have further told Netanyahu that time was of the essence in “achieving peace” with Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas since it’s not known who will be replacing them. The perception, then, that Israel can do something to bribe and entice “peace” out of a Palestinian side that negates its very existence seems an implacable article of faith for the Obama administration.
And it wasn’t only the Palestinian issue. Clinton also urged Netanyahu to mend Israel’s rift with Turkey, seemingly impervious to the fact that it was—among other things—Ankara’s dispatching of the terrorist-laden Mavi Marmara vessel to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, and Islamist prime minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan’s subsequent obsessive excoriation of Israel for its commandos’ having defended themselves against a lynch attempt on the ship, that widened what was already a growing rift. Again, despite professions of commitment to Israel and an undeniable degree of security cooperation, the ability to blame the Jewish state for its troubles in a hostile and unstable Middle East appears embedded in this administration’s DNA.
On the Egyptian issue, Clinton reportedly sought to convey a calming message to Netanyahu and Defense Secretary Ehud Barak, telling them the newly crowned President Morsi is currently preoccupied with domestic issues and not with unraveling the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. And on Iran, the secretary of state told a press conference late Monday evening that the U.S. would “use all elements of American power” to stop Tehran from going nuclear.
One can conjecture that, given this administration’s difficulty grasping Middle Eastern realities and trouble distinguishing friends from foes and moderates from radicals, the Israeli leaders were not necessarily pacified by Clinton’s reassurances about Morsi. And as for Iran, how much stock to put in Obama and his lieutenants’ repeated avowals and tough words is the central and most difficult question now confronting Jerusalem.
So she enjoyed the “Monica! Monica!” and “Go Home, Hillary!” chants she heard from the Egyptians? I’d say that “Arab Spring” turned mighty chilly for Hilly.
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While Donilon’s visit was kept rather hushed-up...Oh please, he was zooming around Tel Aviv breaking traffic rules cause he doesn't like to wait in traffic. That's how the Obama administration handle hush hush meetings. Everyone knows about it. US Convoy Breaks Local Laws to Race Through Israeli Traffic Jam
‘Blames Israel’?
Why? THEY didn’t throw shoes at her or chant her the name of her husband’s MOST popular girlfriend!!!
We should all listen to the Clintons. They are the moral and ethical standard barers of America...?
Look how much they have sacrificed to make America the greatest country in the world...?
The Clintoons sold their souls to the Muzzies years ago, just like their forebear Jimmah from Georgia. They even had us in on the wrong side of the Bosnian-Serb war. They also set the bureaucratic table for Zer0. In spite of their occasional diversionary criticism of obama, they are ideological triplets . . . Bubba was just far more insidious and pretentious.
Huck Fillary and Buck Fubba.
This administration is bent on destroying Israel and America, because they despise the success of our culture’s and way of life.
Capitalism, Faith based Constitutions, and Freedom from gov’t control, are an anathema to these folks.
The administration is putting a full court press on Israel in an attempt to forestall any Israeli action against the nukes in Iran before the November elections.
Our muslim president would come down very hard on Israel and he knows his actions would lose him votes prior to the election but afterwords, all bets are off just like his dealings with Russia.
Israel, if you are going to act do it now to minimize the damage obama will inflict on your country. His attempt at re-election is your only buffer against his wrath.
It seems to me that the largest problem with Israel in the middle east is the Democrats and liberals.
“F*cking jew b@stards!!!”—Hillary Clinton circa 1994, 1995, 1997...
“Reassurance” that Egypt is concerned with domestic issues? Historically, when our dear neighbors’ domestic issues have them all tangled up, they try to cut the gordion knot by attacking Israel. Economy bad? Israel dood it. Attack. Unrest in Syria? Israel dood it. Attack. Arab Spring threatening to sproing? Israel!
Of course she blamed Israel. She doesn’t know how to blame anyone else.
Of course she blamed Israel. She doesn’t know how to blame anyone else.
Thanks for the Post
People have to start understanding that Hillary and her sidekick, Huma from the Umma, with her family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, are anti Israeli and anti-Semitic. The myths about the Clintons are dangerously poisoning American foreign policy, and aiding and abetting our enemies, and stabbing our friends in the back.
Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Israel Monday for her fourth visit as secretary of state; the third, however, was 22 months ago. On the other hand, Clinton’s visit came hard on the heels of one by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and it was further reported on Monday that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would be coming to Jerusalem at the end of July... With President Obama himself never having stopped by the Holy Land since taking office, and his party nervous about the Jewish vote, visibly dispatching Clinton and Panetta here is intended to offset some of the political capital that Romney hopes to gain with his visit... A day earlier, Obama, asked by a TV interviewer where he felt he had failed as president, replied that he had "not been able to move the peace process forward in the Middle East the way I wanted."His devotion to the peace process is perfectly described by the Four Nos of the Khartoum Declaration.
Mark
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