By: Giles Whittell, Washington, and James Hider, JerusalemFor a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.
Left to talk among themselves Mr Netanyahu and his aides retreated to the Roosevelt Room. He spent a further half-hour with Mr Obama and extended his stay for a day of emergency talks to try to restart peace negotiations. However, he left last night with no official statement from either side. He returned to Israel yesterday isolated after what Israeli media have called a White House ambush for which he is largely to blame.
Sources said that Mr Netanyahu failed to impress Mr Obama with a flow chart purporting to show that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama was said to be livid when such an announcement derailed the visit to Israel by Joe Biden, the Vice-President, this month and his anger towards Israel does not appear to have cooled.Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, cast doubt on minor details in Israeli accounts of the meeting but did not deny claims that it amounted to a dressing down for the Prime Minister, whose refusal to freeze settlements is seen in Washington as the main barrier to resuming peace talks.
The Likud leader has to try to square the rigorous demands of the Obama Administration with his nationalist, ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, who want him to stand up to Washington even though Israel needs US backing in confronting the threat of a nuclear Iran.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/
article7076431.ece
If a “breach” in perceived protocol is all it takes to humiliate him and get him off point, maybe it was worth it. The usual yada yada is costing lives on both sides and I for one, am glad this president is demanding more of the Israel in restarting the peace process. It would be nice for the US to present a united front on this issue, but of course we will make this about Obama having bad intentions toward Israel. This is getting so boring and predictable.
Diane,
How many times do we have to force Israel to “restart” the peace process!!?? If the US were in their shoes we’d have already killed millions of Palestinians an would have been on the offensive a long time ago. How foolish and ignorant you are to assume “restarting” these peace talks will make things better for Israel. Israel gave up the Gaza strip for crying out loud and they still have rockets coming into their lands from the ungrateful Palestinians who could receive the world from Israel and still want to cut off their heads!
Pull your head out of your Obama loving, non-reality, hope talking rear end and see the light! Come off of your high horse and throne and put yourself in Israel’s shoes. Again, the US would NEVER allow themselves to put up with what Israel has. We are attacked and we launch an all out war on terrorism and we expect Israel to sit their, shut up and take the beating??!!
Diane, why don’t you go live in Jerusalem for 10 years, as close to the Palestinian border and let’s see how much different your views are when you come back.
By the way Diane, you think this talk about Obama’s failure at Foreign Policy is getting boring? Then why don’t you go vote in this new poll that CBS has conducted for rating the President’s job his first year in office: http://thecompetentconservative.com/cbs-poll-64-29-polled-say-obama-has-failed/
These are not just Republicans voting in this poll, many of them are Democrats. As you can see, the only area he is doing OK is Afghanistan.