In an unusually public rebuke, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.
“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ †Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ †Mr. Olmert continued. “He got off the podium and spoke to me.â€
Putting aside the merits or flaws of the UN resolution — how is it the Prime Minister of Israel issues orders to the U.S. Secretary of State? And when did Israel put a dog leash on the POTUS? What happened to “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people“?
Unrelated: Don’t miss the Big Buddhas.
Israel calls, W moves fast. The only time he moves faster is when Big Oil calls. Or Dick.
One week left of corruption, incompetence, greed, arrogance; ah, the list is too long, you get the idea!
To be fair to the Shrub, we only have Olmert’s word that he came like a puppy when Olmert called. I can see that it might be in Olmert’s interest to have people believe he had that power, even if he didn’t.
On the other hand, it appears that the US abstained from the UN vote after the phone call, on a resolution that Condi personally crafted and worked for. Sadly suspicious.
Which one of us is supposed to be the client state, again?
I’d almost say that Olmert was making it up, except for the U.S. abstention that biggerbox points out; then it seems perfectly plausible. God, how disgusting.
One week left, people.
I wonder if Condi still thinks George is her husband. He doesn’t even act like a friend let alone a responsible boss. He sure made a fool out of her on this.
Can you say “lap dog”? Knew you could.
Dave S, channeling Mr. Rogers
Juan Cole has more details. Condi was humiliated; but, she should know by now that working with Bush has it’s surprises.
It goes far beyond George Bush. The Israeli right wing calls the shots here in America. I read Glenn Greenwald regularly, and he reports on this kind of thing all the time. Just he today he provided examples of how Congress routinely bows before powerful, organized lobbies, such as the NRA and AIPAC.
Greenwald has been writing a lot about the conflict in Gaza. He showed how elite opinion in the US (the media and politicians) is uniformly behind Israel, which is at odds with the majority of people in this country, who are more even minded about it. Even in Israel, you can find opposition opinion expressed in major papers against the Israeli position. Not so in America.
Israel is one of those third rail subjects in American politics, that can’t even be rationally discussed. This results is some serious, sick codependency, where our country’s aims are confused and conflated with those of Israel, to the point where politicians can’t even talk about it or publicly hold an opposing view. Greenwald does a great job of following and expressing the major elements in this story.
This dynamic has been going on before George Bush, whose far right policies intensified it, but will continue after he’s gone. I haven’t heard any Democrat stand up against this undue influence. Witness Hillary Clinton’s hawkish stances about the Middle East, no doubt due to her large Jewish consituency. Ironically, polls of Jews here in America are more even minded about Israel’s behavior than what is expressed in the political and media arenas.
Thank you , moonbat for pointing out that the opinions of the elites are at odds with the opinions of the majority of American people. Too often these distinctions are lost in the morass.
When you have walking piles of feces like the Senator from Israel, Joe Lieberman, in the Senate, what do you fucking expect? We should surround and blockade Israel and shoot down anything that flies out of that shithole, until they learn to play nice in the sandbox.
From what I’ve read ’round the web, Olmert almost certainly just madeup that bit about calling W away from a speech, but he also almost certainly did at SOME point talk to W, and W subsequently ordered Condi to abstain from the vote on the measure she helped build.
Possibly Condi will eventually write one of the bitter tell-all books that will inevitably come out in the years to come? One can but hope…
-me
Sadly, nothing will change with Obama in office. He has already been vetted and approved by AIPAC. It’s simply not possible to run for public office in this country if you don’t toe the most extremist pro-zionist party line. AIPAC will spend millions to defeat you and shut you out. See “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” by Mearsheimer and Walt for copious examples.
11 something will change….
We won’t have to hear about the press
mis-under estimating him. Is that even a word?
I like to think a lot will change.
The attitude for one!
Ray – I’ve heard that too that without AIPAC behind you financially you don’t have a chance in hell of even getting nominated for a federal office. But I don’t believe it. Unless, of course, AIPAC can generate hundreds-of-billions of bucks to finance a candidate – which I don’t think possible.
I think Israel, not hard to do considering our inability to understand or practice the art of diplomacy, has convinced us that if we don’t do their bidding they’ll stop doing ours as American fire power in the ME. Obviously this is of mutual benefit – not obvious to the numbskulls running Washington, however.
I think it is self-evidently true that you can’t get elected without making all the right noises about Israel. Obama made those right noises. As for what he’s actually going to DO when he gets into office? Impossible to say yet.
For instance, if I were to run for office I could legitimately say that I believe Israel has the right to exist and the right to self-defence, and that I plan on being the best friend to Israel that they ever had.
It’s just that I firmly believe that what Israel truly needs, the one thing the US can do that would demonstrate true friendship, would be to apply as much political pressure as we can bring to bear to force Israel to abandon all illegal settlements in the West Bank, and give Palestinians back autonomy over the land they have left. It’s the only chance Israel has of ever achieving real, lasting peace, but it is a political impossibility for Israeli politicians to ever do it … UNLESS they were FORCED into it by the one power that could do the forcing…
See what I mean? Could be Obama will just be more of the same, could be he’ll be radically different. Impossible to know yet.
-me