At a recent G20 summit in Cannes, US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were overheard ridiculing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. According to reports, Sarkozy described Netanyahu as a “liar,” to which Obama replied, “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.”
Once reported, both Presidents were forced into “damage control” mode. In a White House briefing, US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes reasserted Obama’s “commitment to Israel,” claiming the US President “has a very close working relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu.” President Sarkozy wrote a letter to Netanyahu stating “You have my friendship [and] the interpretations appearing in the media have no effect on it.”
Notwithstanding, the incident raises important questions, the most obvious being: “What exactly has Netanyahu done to warrant the wrath of both Obama and Sarkozy?” After all, Netanyahu has, if anything, over-accommodated both leaders, particularly in regards to the “peace process.” At their behest, Netanyahu in 2009 broke with his Party’s ideological lines by accepting in principle the “two state solution,” paving the way for the creation of a Palestinian state. He also implemented an unprecedented 10-month construction moratorium in Israeli “settlements,” before acquiescing to the Obama-Sarkozy-Palestinian demand that Israel accept the “1967 borders” as a precondition to jump-starting negotiations. Furthermore, the release last week of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear program vindicated Netanyahu’s long-held and truthful assessment of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
In light of this, one could not be faulted for believing that more appropriate targets for Obama and Sarkozy’s disdain would be PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who remains steadfast in his refusal to negotiate with the Jewish state, or Iran’s Mullahs, who destabilize the region, pursue “the bomb” unabated, and even plot direct terrorist attacks on US soil.
Nevertheless, one would—as the Sarkozy-Obama exchange indicates—be mistaken. Today’s Briefing explores “Why?”
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, November 10, 2011
The slurs against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama after last week’s G20 summit were revealing as well as repugnant.
Thinking no one other than Obama could hear him, Sarkozy attacked Netanyahu, saying, “I can’t stand to see him anymore, he’s a liar.” Obama responded by whining, “You’re fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.” These statements are interesting both for what they say about the two presidents’ characters and for what they say about the way that Israel is perceived by the West more generally.
To understand why this is the case it is necessary to first ask, when has Netanyahu ever lied to Sarkozy and Obama? [Last] week the UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s report about Iran’s nuclear weapons program made clear that Israel—Netanyahu included—has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along. In contrast, world leaders have been lying and burying their heads in the sand.
Since Iran’s nuclear weapons program was first revealed to the public in 2004, Israel has provided in-depth intelligence information proving Iran’s malign intentions to the likes of Sarkozy, Obama and the UN. And for seven years, the US government—Obama included—has claimed that it lacked definitive proof of Iran’s intentions.
Obama wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He stubbornly ignored the piles of evidence presented to him by Israel that Iran was not interested in cutting a deal.… Israel, including Netanyahu, was telling the truth.
So if Netanyahu never lied about Iran, what might these two major world leaders think he lies about?… Could it be they don’t like the way he is managing their beloved “peace process” with the Palestinians? The fact is that the only times Netanyahu has spoken less than truthfully about the Palestinians were those instances when he sought to appease the likes of Obama and Sarkozy. Only when Netanyahu embraced the false claims of the likes of Obama and Sarkozy that it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River could it be said that he made false statements.
Because the truth is that Israel never had a chance of achieving peace with the Palestinians. And the reason this has always been the case has nothing to do with Netanyahu or Israel.
There was never any chance for peace because the Palestinians have no interest in making peace with Israel. As the West’s favorite Palestinian “moderate,” Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said [in Arabic—Ed.] in an interview with Egypt’s Dream TV on October 23, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I will never recognize the ‘Jewishness’ of the State [of Israel] or a ‘Jewish state.’” That is, Abbas will never make peace with Israel.
Acknowledging this, [last week] Netanyahu reportedly told his colleagues that through their recent actions, the Palestinians have abrogated the foundations of the peace process. As he put it, “By boycotting negotiations and by going instead to the United Nations [to achieve independent statehood], they [the Palestinians] have reneged on a central tenet of Oslo.” That tenet, which formed the basis of the Oslo peace process, was “land for peace.”
As Netanyahu explained, Israel gave up land within the framework of the Oslo Accords. In exchange the Palestinians committed to resolve their conflict with Israel through direct negotiations that would lead to peace. Their UN gambit, like Abbas’s statement to Egyptian television, shows that the Palestinians—not Israel—have been lying all along. They pocketed Israel’s territorial concessions and refused to make peace.
So why do the likes of Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he “a liar?” Why don’t they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis? The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel rather than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.
And they are not alone. The Western preference for fantasy over reality was given explicit expression by former US president Bill Clinton in September. In an ugly diatribe against Netanyahu at his Clinton Global Initiative Conference, Clinton insisted that the PA under Abbas was “pro-peace” and that the only real obstacle to a deal was Netanyahu. Ironically, at the same time Clinton was attacking Israel’s leader for killing the peace process, Abbas was at the UN asking the Security Council to accept as a full member an independent Palestine in a de facto state of war with Israel. So, too, while Clinton was blaming him for the failure of the peace process, Netanyahu was at the UN using his speech to the General Assembly to issue yet another plea to Abbas to renew peace talks with Israel.…
Clinton was acting in line with what has emerged as standard operating practice of Israel’s “friends” in places such as Europe and the US.… [Recently], we saw this practice put into play by British Ambassador Matthew Gould, [as] the Knesset began deliberations on a bill that would prohibit foreign governments and international agencies from contributing more than NIS 20,000 to Israeli nongovernmental organizations. The bill was introduced by Likud MK Ofir Okunis with Netanyahu’s support. According to Haaretz, Gould issued a thinly veiled threat to Okunis related to the bill. Gould reportedly said that if the bill is passed, it would reflect badly on Israel in the international community.
Last month, Makor Rishon published a British government document titled, “NGOs in the Middle East Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.” The document showed that in 2010, outside of Iraq, the British government gave a total of £100,000 to pro-democracy NGOs throughout the Arab world. In contrast to Britain’s miserly attitude towards Arab civil society organizations, Her Majesty’s Government gave more than £600,000 pounds to far-leftist Israeli NGOs. These Israeli groups included the Economic Cooperation Foundation, Yesh Din, Peace Now, Ir Amim and Gisha. All of these groups are far beyond Israeli mainstream opinion. All seek to use international pressure on Israel to force the government to adopt policies rejected by the vast majority of the public.
So for every pound Britain forked out to cultivate democracy in 20 Arab non-democracies, it spent £6 to undermine democracy in Israel—the region’s only democracy.… As far as Britain is concerned, “strengthening democracy” in Israel means tipping the scales in favor of marginal groups with no noticeable domestic constituency.
This shockingly hostile [behaviour was encapsulated in a statement] made by then-presidential candidate Obama from the campaign trail in February 2008. At the time Obama said, “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a[n] unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”
Scarcely a day goes by when some foreign leader, commentator or activist doesn’t say that being pro-Israel doesn’t mean being pro-Israeli government. And like Obama’s campaign-trail statement, Clinton’s diatribe, Sarkozy and Obama’s vile gossip about Netanyahu and Britain’s self-congratulatory declarations and veiled threats, those who make a distinction between the Israeli people and the Israeli government ignore two important facts.
First, Israel is a democracy. Its governments reflect the will of the Israeli people and therefore, are inseparable from the people. If you harbor contempt for Israel’s elected leaders, then by definition you harbor contempt for the Israeli public. And this makes you anti-Israel. The second fact these statements ignore is that Israel is the US’s and Europe’s stalwart ally. If Sarkozy and Obama had said what they said about Netanyahu in a conversation about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or if Netanyahu had made similar statements about Obama or Sarkozy, the revelation of the statements would have sparked international outcries of indignation and been roundly condemned from all quarters.
And this brings us to the other troubling aspect of Sarkozy and Obama’s nasty exchange about Netanyahu. Their views reflect a wider anti-Israel climate. Outside the Jewish world, Sarkozy’s and Obama’s hateful, false statements about their ally provoked no outrage. Indeed, it took the media three days to even report their conversation. This indicates that Obama and Sarkozy aren’t alone in holding Israel to a double standard.…
And that is the real message of the Obama-Sarkozy exchange last week. Through it we learn that blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies’ behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today.
WHY DO SARKOZY AND OBAMA HATE NETANYAHU?
Jackson Diehl
Washington Post, November 8, 2011
Binyamin Netanyahu seems to have been the target of some ugly—if off the record—barbs from President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.…
Are their feelings justified? Though Netanyahu has never been an easy partner for Western leaders, it’s hard to see why he would inspire so much animus from the two presidents now.
Since taking office in early 2009, around the same time as Obama, Netanyahu has been mostly responsive to the U.S. president’s initiatives despite heading a rightwing coalition that views concessions to the Palestinians with distaste, to say the least. Early on he announced his acceptance of Palestinian statehood, something he has never done; he responded to Obama’s misguided demand for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem by imposing a ten-month moratorium. Earlier this year Netanyahu reacted angrily when Obama blindsided him with a speech publicly calling on Israel to accept a territorial formula for a Palestinian state based on its pre-1967 borders, with swaps of territory. Less noticed is the fact that the Israeli prime minister has since accepted those terms.…
In other words, Netanyahu has been an occasionally difficult but ultimately cooperative partner. He can be accused of moving too slowly and offering too little, but not of failing to heed American initiatives. And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas? For nine of the ten months of the Israeli settlement moratorium he refused Obama’s appeals to begin negotiations; after two meetings, he returned to his intransigence. Rejecting a personal appeal from Obama, he took his bid for statehood to the United Nations, where he may yet force the United States to use its Security Council veto.
France last month joined an appeal from the Mideast diplomatic “Quartet”—the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations—for Israel and the Palestinians to return unconditionally to negotiations. Netanyahu accepted. Abbas said no.
Abbas, it’s fair to say, has gone from resisting U.S. and French diplomacy to actively seeking to undermine it. Yet it is Netanyahu whom Sarkozy finds “unbearable,” and whom Obama groans at having to “deal with every day.…” In substance, it makes little sense.
OBAMA’S SECRET REMARKS ABOUT NETANYAHU
Shmuley Boteach
Jerusalem Magazine, November 13, 2011
Apparently unaware that his microphone was on, French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his contempt for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by calling him a liar. US President Barack Obama was only too happy to commiserate, and taking things one step further than his French counterpart, the president lamented his misfortune in having to deal with Netanyahu.
Ho hum. As Ecclesiastes would say, is there anything new under the sun? Surely, there can be nothing surprising about a French leader condemning an Israeli leader. Like gravity or the Earth’s orbit around the sun, it’s accepted as part of the laws of nature.…
As for Obama? For the first two years of his presidency, he acted with condescension toward the democratically elected leader of the Israeli people. This year, however, after experiencing his self-confessed “shellacking” during the 2010 mid-term elections, he decided to make nice with Bibi as a result of his perceived unfriendliness to the Jewish State. Albeit without the warmth of the two-armed embrace he reserved for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, or the bow he accorded King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Obama made efforts to treat Netanyahu with some degree of respect.
A few weeks ago I published a column that made the claim that even amid Obama’s new posture toward Israel, he still could not be trusted with Israel’s security. The reason for this is that Obama believes that Israeli intransigence, and not Islamist terror, is the principal obstacle to peace in the Middle East.… The fact remains that Obama is following in the footsteps of former US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton with the mutual sentiment that Israeli toughness, rather than Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist, is the reason for the continuation of the conflict.…
Obama continues to be a disappointment. If he despises Netanyahu, let him not play games with the American-Jewish community and feign friendship in return for votes. After all, Obama came to the White House as the anti-politician, a man who was going to change the ways of Washington. A leader who was going to say what he means and mean what he says.
How disappointing to discover he is guilty of the same beltway double-speak he once condemned. How disappointing to discover that our president is simply yet another politician.
SARKOZY, C’EST FINI
Emmanuel Navon
Jerusalem Magazine, November 10, 2011
French songwriter Hervé Villard became famous overnight in 1965 with his love song “Capri, c’est fini” (Capri, it’s over). The song truly sounds like a broken record but Villard made a fortune out of it, selling 2.5 million records. Could disappointment be such a universal feeling that it speaks to our hearts, even when accompanied by the dullest melody? And would I get 2.5 million downloads on iTunes if I were to write a song entitled “Sarkozy, c’est fini?” After all, there must be more than 2.5 million people who are disappointed in the French president. Seeing as I’m not a musician I’ll have to settle for words only.
Since immigrating to Israel eighteen years ago, I forewent my right to vote in French elections. With my voluntary expatriation, I no longer share in France’s destiny.
In 2007, however, I made an exception. French President Nicolas Sarkozy impressed me, and twice I made the trip to the French consulate to cast my vote. Sarkozy was an outsider. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, he was raised by a Jewish grandfather and grew up as the ugly duckling in a posh Parisian suburb. As opposed to the rest of France’s political leadership, he was not an intellectual clone of the National School of Administration (ENA), the French elite school for government. But, mostly, he sounded sincere when he said that he intended to replace French economic dirigisme with pro-market policies and when he spoke fondly of Israel and of America. Indeed, it seemed too good to be true—and it was.
Sarkozy turned out to be a temperamental control-freak whose economic reforms proved meager and whose foreign policy ended in disaster.… Worse still, Sarkozy went out of his way to rehabilitate former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in order to sell French nuclear plants and military aircrafts to Libya. Shortly after his election, Sarkozy hosted Gaddafi in Paris and then flew to Tripoli to celebrate “a strategic partnership” between France and Libya.… Subsequently, the shamed president decided to re-brand himself as Zorro, bombarding Gaddafi with the very planes he had tried to sell him.…
Sarkozy’s hot-headedness and duplicity may come across as music to Israel’s ears. Sarkozy has Jewish origins, and he started his political career as Mayor of Neuilly—an affluent Paris suburb with a powerful Jewish community. As Interior Minister under former president Jacques Chirac, he took a firm stand against anti-Semitism. He became friendly with then-chairman of Likud Binyamin Netanyahu and his speeches were full of praise for Israel. Apart from his position on Jerusalem, his address to the Knesset in June 2007 was as good as it could get in favor of the Jewish State.
Today, Sarkozy’s attitude toward Israel is undistinguishable from that of his predecessors: he is obnoxious and confrontational and France’s “Arab policy” is back in full gear. In 2009, Sarkozy granted the Légion d’Honneur (France’s equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom) to Charles Enderlin, the French journalist who falsely accused Israel of killing Muhamad Al-Dura.…
Despite Netanyahu’s gestures towards peace and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to negotiate, Sarkozy now blames Netanyahu and absolves Abbas for the current stalemate. He encouraged Abbas’ statehood bid at the UN and recently voted in favor of UNESCO’s admission of “Palestine” as a full member state. He reportedly declared Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state by the Palestinians as being “ridiculous.” And finally, in a private conversation with US President Barack Obama recently, Sarkozy badmouthed the Israeli prime minister by calling him a “liar” and saying that he couldn’t stand him.…
Most French Jews and indeed, most dual French-Israeli citizens, voted for Sarkozy in 2007. However, if Sarkozy thinks that despite his antics, he can still count on the Jewish vote today, he is very much mistaken.… Sarkozy has lost the Jewish vote and his likely defeat in the upcoming French elections will be well deserved. Sarkozy, c’est fini.
(Mr. Navon is an International Relations Lecturer at Tel Aviv University.)
FROM SARKOZY TO THE IAEA—HOW NETANYAHU GETS STRONGER
Dr. Josef Olmert
Huffington Post, November 9, 2011
According to a Jewish tradition, righteous people have their work done for them by others. Well, Benjamin Netanyahu is not a righteous person, as there are only 36 such tzadikim [righteous in Hebrews] on the list, but recent events surely seem to do him a great service.
Let’s start with Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama and the open microphones in Cannes. For many months there was a buzz in the press, that world leaders—including some who are pro-Israel—do not admire, to put it mildly, P.M. Netanyahu’s performance, particularly his alleged lack of reliability. Now the genie is out of the bottle, and we know for sure what Sarkozy thinks of Netanyahu—a liar he called him—and the limits of President Obama readiness to defend the character of one of the US’ strongest allies.
Strange are the ways of politics, none more so Israeli and Jewish politics, as this Sarkozy comment—rather than damaging Netanyahu—is helping him a lot and galvanizing support for him. No need for too much creative imagination to visualize Netanyahu speaking to his closest circle, telling them “you see, I told you so”, code words understood by many Israelis and Jews to indicate that opposition to Israel and its policies reflect a deep-seated bias, double standards and hypocrisy.…
And then comes the recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which reads like a blank confirmation of the Israeli narrative about the Iranian nuclear program and its obvious military focus. For years, successive Israeli governments have done their best…to convince world public opinion and leaders that the Iranian nuclear program is military in nature, regardless of all the denials by the Islamic Republic. This was and may still be a tough sale, as it was so easy to dismiss Israel’s claims as being “hysterical” and “war-mongering.…”
For years critics of Israel argued that so long as the IAEA reports do not substantiate Israel’s charges, the campaign against Iran has no real merits; but now with this report the question of reliability is firmly placed in the doorstep of all these critics: Is the IAEA to be believed only when it refutes Israeli charges, or also when it seems to be in sync with them?
This is not a question for Netanyahu to answer. He made his position clear from day one of his tenure as P.M. and he proved right. Others have to answer this question, for example Nicolas Sarkozy. He owes Netanyahu an apology.…
Netanyahu, backed by growing public support in Israel, is waiting to see how Israel’s allies will react. He is not lurking in the wings, he is pretty much in the forefront of the issue. This is so because the burden of the historic decision of what to do falls on him. Any action on his part will require a large measure of public support among his compatriots. He seems to have it now, and for the good of Israel he is expected to do his best not to lose it, as well as to win more international support. The clock is ticking.
