Netanyahu-Obama: Storm in a Teacup

2010-03-16
Editorial: "Netanyahu-Obama: Storm in a Teacup"]
It is a good thing when [US Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton considers the Israeli Government's announcement about building 1,600 housing units in one of its settlements north of Jerusalem an "insult" to the United States during US Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to Tel Aviv. But it is a belated admission after a long series of Israeli insults and affronts for more than 60 years, that is, since the establishment of Israel at the expense of the Arab land in Palestine.

Clinton's chiding of Netanyahu in her telephone call which lasted more than 40 minutes is not enough if punitive practical steps do not follow it on the ground because Israeli politicians are used to such angry calls and know very well they evaporate and things go back to normal in a stronger and more solid way.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who always claim he understands the United States more than anyone else and speaks English with an American slang is defying President Barack Obama and does not hesitate to mock him and his administration because he considers himself strong due to the Jewish lobby's support for him and its total control of the decision-making centres in the ruling American establishment.

The present US administration's shameful backtracking on its demand for a total freeze of settlement activity in the occupied territories, including Jerusalem, before the return to the negotiating table encouraged Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist government to provoke this administration by announcing the construction of more settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

After this slap from Netanyahu, President Obama is required to rehabilitate himself first, then his administration, and thirdly the peace process and to confront this Israeli arrogance in the same he is at present confronting Iran by seeking to have the UN Security Council issue a resolution tightening the economic sanctions on it. When Obama brings Israel, its leaders, and its settlers down from their present status as being above international laws and norms and lift the US military and diplomatic immunity off its crimes then his administration will gain much credibility in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and even the whole world.

We do not believe that President Obama, who wasted a whole year of his administration turning a blind eye to the Israeli crimes in the occupied territories and switching his pressures to the weak Palestinian side to force it to return to indirect negotiations doomed to failure beforehand, will do more than protest and reproach his Israeli allies. His Vice President Biden announced he is a true Zionist and responded to Netanyahu's provocation of him and ensuring the failure of his tour by underlining the depth of the Israeli-American relationship and Washington's commitment without reservations to Israeli security.

President Obama is weak before the Jewish lobby and it is the same with most European officials. In our view, this artificial weakness reflects the duality in viewing moral standards and the double standards in dealing with the Arab region's issues which ultimately stoke up the tension between the West and the Arabs and lead to the rise of the waves of extremism and the build-up of the growing phenomenon of hatred.

Arab weakness and the impotence of most Arab leaders, if not all of them, are regrettably encouraging them not to challenge the pro-Israeli Jewish lobby as well as encouraging Netanyahu and the extremist Jews to press ahead with looting the land, Judaizing the holy places, demolishing Al-Aqsa Mosque, and building Solomon's Temple over its debris.