Obama wants Israel to go back to the pre-1967 borders, and he’s squarely placed the blame on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not being willing to go along.
I addressed this the other day in my post, Obama’s interference in Israel’s election.
Now Netanyahu is speaking up more forcefully, Netanyahu hits back at Obama: I won’t capitulate:
Days after President Barack Obama was quoted as castigating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for ostensibly turning Israel into a pariah nation and threatening its long-term survival, Netanyahu hit back Saturday night, declaring that if he were to capitulate to demands for a retreat to the pre-1967 lines, “we’d get Hamas 400 meters from my house.”According to a report Tuesday by Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama has begun repeating the mantra that Israel under Netanyahu “doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”Israelis can and will decide for themselves who best represents their interests, Netanyahu retorted in a Channel 2 interview. Alluding to Obama’s calls for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on the pre-1967 lines with land swaps, and a halt to building over the pre-67 lines in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “When they say, ‘Go back to the ’67 lines,’ I stand against. When they say, ‘Don’t build in Jerusalem,’ I stand against.”He added: “It’s very easy to capitulate. I could go back to the impossible to defend ’67 lines, and divide Jerusalem, and we’d get Hamas 400 meters from my home.” That would not happen under his leadership, he said.“It’s easy to do, and they’d applaud,” he went on, presumably referring to the US-led international community. “They’d applaud just like they applauded the parties (in the 2005 Israeli government) that pulled out of Gaza. Those parties got applause, and we got a rain of rockets.”
Obama unrestrained in a second term will bring this to a head. And Netanyahu will get the blame from Jeffrey Goldberg and others, with absurd overreactions similar to what took place when Netanyahu said he expected Obama to live up to the commitments made by prior presidents.
Adam Kredo and others warned about what is about to unfold:
“There are grave concerns that during his second term, when he no longer has to worry about mundane matters of electoral politics, that the real Barack Obama will come forward,” said the source. “Bibi Netanyahu better watch out.”
Update — thanks to a commenter linking to this video, which we have posted before:
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