Netanyahu Is Not Our Friend

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I haven’t said anything about the Netanyahu addressing Congress flap, even after John Boehner admitted he deliberately kept the White House out of the loop when he extended the invitation. I can’t say I entirely understand the Republican Party’s fawning obsequiousness to Bibi. I assume they think making nice with Bibi hurts the President somehow.

But this sheds a different light on things —

U.S. officials suspect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized leaking details of U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran to Israeli journalists, according to The Washington Post’s David Ignatius.

Concerns that Israeli officials had leaked key details about those negotiations, including that the U.S. offered to let Iran enrich uranium with “6,500 or more centrifuges as part of a final deal,” has prompted the U.S. to limit the amount of sensitive information it exchanges with Israel about the Iran nuclear negotiations, Ignatius reported.

The White House is not confirming this, and it’s possible Ignatius is wrong. But there’s a leak somewhere. Ignatius writes,

This latest breach in the U.S.-Israeli relationship began around Jan. 12 with a phone call from Netanyahu. Obama asked the Israeli leader to hold fire diplomatically for several more months while U.S. negotiators explored whether Iran might agree to a deal that, through its technical limits on centrifuges and stockpiles, extended the breakout period that Iran would need to build a bomb to more than a year. But Netanyahu is said to have responded that a year wasn’t enough and to have reverted to Israel’s hard-line insistence that Iran shouldn’t be allowed any centrifuges or enrichment.

Obama was concerned because the United States had shared with Israel its goal of a one-year breakout period since the beginning of the talks. The White House saw Netanyahu’s comment as a change, one that could potentially scuttle the negotiations. The Israeli response is that Netanyahu has always argued for “zero enrichment.”

Relations began to unravel quickly after the phone call. On Jan. 21, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Netanyahu to address Congress and share his concerns about the talks. The invitation hadn’t been pre-negotiated with the White House, as is usually the case when foreign leaders are invited to address Congress.

Then came the alleged leaks about the nuclear talks. On Jan. 31, the Times of Israel reported that an unnamed senior Israeli official had told Channel 10 TV news that the United States was ready to allow more than 7,000 centrifuges and had “agreed to 80 percent of Iran’s demands.” Channel 2 reported that the U.S. offer was 6,500 centrifuges. U.S. officials believed that Netanyahu’s office was the source of these reports and concluded that they couldn’t be as transparent as before with the Israel leader about the secret talks.

There may have been another time in U.S. history when someone strongly suspected of undermining U.S. foreign policy was invited to address Congress without even notifying the White House, but I wouldn’t know when that might have been.

12 thoughts on “Netanyahu Is Not Our Friend”

  2. There may have been another time in U.S. history when someone strongly suspected of undermining U.S. foreign policy was invited to address Congress without even notifying the White House, but I wouldn’t know when that might have been.

    Pretty much any time John McCain talks in Congress about foreign policy while there’s a Democratic president fits that description. For that matter, make that almost any and every GOP member of Congress.

  4. Diplomacy prohibits bald statements of fact, but if Bibi is determined to pick a fight, the USA should let Bibi know he will have to finish that fight on his own. We’re trying to defuse the situation in the mid-east and Bibi insists on peeing kerosine into the fire certain that the USA will extinguish the fire before he gets his privates singed. We need to let him know there are no guarantees that we will back his play when he’s undermining OUR play.

  5. Just imagine, if the roles were reversed. What if a democratic house Speaker did this while a republican President and administration were in the process of negotiating a deal. The press would be in high dudgeon, and the impeachment drumbeat would have started and would only have built from there. Republicans would be screaming “treason” and every over the top charge they made would be given “equal time” as “opposing opinions” and treated as valid.

    If a democratic House speaker had done what Boehner has done, he/she would not be the Speaker by now.

  6. We need to let him know there are no guarantees that we will back his play when he’s undermining OUR play.

    Unfortunately that’s not going to be the reality. Boehner is salivating at the thought that he can lick Bibi’s boots or parts undetermined in an effort to woo praises from the religious right and other anti-Obama partisans. It’s crystal clear that Bibi can offer nothing beneficial to American interests. He serves his own agenda and he is only leveraging the stupidity that abounds in the halls of Congress.
    Boehner should get a kick in the pants for his political antics. I would assume that any correct thinking American would place the interests of their country above that of gaining some cheap political points.
    So let the clowns in Congress have their little love fest with Bibi. They can swoon for Bibi for all I care..I for one consider myself wise enough to see that Bibi isn’t looking out for my best interests and he certainly does qualify as a friend of America.

  8. Bibi is in this for Bibi, and the Republicans are in it for blood.
    Obama’s.

    Treasonous and traitorous dogs – one and all!

    Party over people!
    Party over country!!
    PARTY UBER ALLES!!!

  9. Is the “unconditional” love affair unravelling ?
    Naw, too much money at stake.
    Money can’t buy you love, but netanyahu needs prostitutes in congress, no love required.

  11. “I can’t say I entirely understand the Republican Party’s fawning obsequiousness to Bibi”

    Well they are both war pimps, they love them some military selling stuff. If President Obama is successful in negotiating and end or at least a halt to Iran’s nuclear program how the hell is Bibi gonna hold onto power? Hell he might have to dismantle the Iron Dome so at least Hama’s can lob a few rockets to respond to? The right in Israel are no different than the dimwitted teabaggers here, they need the big scary mooslim boogie man!

  12. “Anyone planning an event for Bibi’s” visit” ”
    Yeah, I’ll have a pulled pork sandwich in his honor.

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