Israel's Leftist media slams Netanyahu
You may have the impression from reading my blog that most Israelis are behind Prime Minister Netanyahu. And as I told the radio station in South Africa on Monday morning, I believe that most of them are. However, Israel's mostly Leftist Hebrew media has been slamming Netanyahu, blaming him for the shabby treatment he received from President Obama last week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vehemently denied Sunday morning that an aide commented, "We've got a real problem. You could say that Obama is the greatest disaster for Israel -- a strategic disaster.”
The alleged comment was headlined by Israel's largest daily, Yediot Acharonot, which also operates the Ynet website and has been a long-time foe of the Prime Minister while championing parties that favor eliminating a Jewish presence in most of Judea and Samaria. The daily is threatened by the freebie Israel Today that supports Netanyahu and is causing Yediot Acharonot to lose much of its circulation. Yediot also published the Shepard House acquisition as Obama and Netanyahu were about to meet last week, although it had been authorized in July 2009.
Along with the left-wing Haaretz newspaper, the two publications have published an onslaught of articles against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s refusal to follow U.S. President Barack Obama’s demand for a total building freeze for Jews in areas of Jerusalem that the United States State Department calls “occupied.”
The Prime Minister’s office rejected the comment as the Cabinet met for its weekly meeting, but the story had already hit the headlines in American media. A statement issued by Netanyahu's office said, "The Prime Minister emphatically rejects the anonymous quotes about President Obama that a newspaper attributed to one of his confidantes, and he condemns them."
Is it possible that had Tzipi Livni been Prime Minister, the Obama administration would not have overzealously insisted on a 'settlement freeze'? Maybe and maybe not. But she's not Prime Minister because Israelis have decided that we've had it with the 'peace process.' That's the real divide between Israel and Obama - and it's a divide between Israel (including Netanyahu and Ehud Barak - whose Left wing credentials should not be in question) and Obama. As David Horovitz pointed out over the weekend:
The Israel-US dispute may have exploded over 1,600 homes in Ramat Shlomo, it may be rumbling on viciously around the incendiary wider issue of any and all Israeli building in east Jerusalem, but it is essentially rooted in this stark difference of perception between Jerusalem and Washington as to the Palestinian Authority’s peace-making readiness and intentions.
Succinctly put, the thrust of Clinton’s speech, and of the succession of Netanyahu’s meetings with the secretary, with Vice President Joe Biden and, most crucially and problematically with President Barack Obama, reflected Washington’s contention that Abbas wants a deal, that he is ready to make the compromises necessary to forge one, and that Israel’s vital interests mandate that it does all that it possibly can to ensure the deal is done. Ironically, for an administration so starkly hostile to most everything it inherited from the Bush administration, one of the very few channels of continuity is the insistent belief that an accord with the Palestinian Authority beckons.
For the Israeli leadership – encompassing not just Netanyahu but Defense Minister Ehud Barak as well – this assessment is unfathomable.
The picture at the top is former Haaretz editor David Landau, who once told Condi Clueless that his 'wet dream' was for the US to rape Israel. Most of Israel's Hebrew-speaking media (but not its general population) probably agreed with Landau.
Israel Matzav: Israel's Leftist media slams Netanyahu
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