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Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

How does warm press conference mesh with Obama’s warnings yesterday?

http://youtu.be/kNHR1tcDfpU

President Obama has been meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today.

From the Washington Post:

Seeking to salvage an elusive Middle East peace plan, President Barack Obama pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday to make the “tough decisions” needed to move forward on talks with the Palestinians.But facing a U.S.-imposed April deadline, the Israeli leader declared pessimistically that, “Israel has been doing its part and, I regret to say, the Palestinians have not.”

Obama and Netanyahu spoke before an Oval Office meeting on a snowy Monday in Washington. The meeting marked a more direct foray by Obama into the peace negotiations, which he has so far largely ceded to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Barak Ravid, a correspondent with Haaretz Newspaper, posted tweets from the event – a handful are included below.  (Video added — Transcript here)

 

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Comments

What?
Say what?
Huh?
Hoo-dat?
Hows that again?
Who’s on first?
Is Second on third?
What?
Wassup?
Wassup mofo?
You be jivin’? Huh?
How’s that again?

— convo from the White House. Productive day.

Obama is desperately seeking a foreign leader he can push around.

Unfortunately, even Denzil Douglas of Saint Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean is tougher and more manly than Obama, and won’t be intimidated, either.

Perhaps we should have considered our standing in the world before electing a weak sister President.

Sammy Finkelman | March 3, 2014 at 3:46 pm

They mesh because these are not really threats to Israel.

Why does anyone persist in thinking that the Middle East is one place that Obama is competent in (although, in this view, badly intentioned) and that he knows that his talk of not being able to deal with bad consequences is nonsense, and that really means to pressure Israel.

It should be pretty clear that the excuse given by some Arab countries for not co-operating enough on Iran or Syria is the lack of a peace agreement with Israel, and that that is what is motivating all this, not animus toward Israel.

    Are you naive or malicious?

    The only people standing in the way of a peace agreement are the Palestinians. Every single time Israel gives up major concessions to get them to the table, and then the Palestinians come up with some minor excuse to walk away. Again and again and again.

    They don’t WANT peace. They want Israel destroyed.

Humphrey's Executor | March 3, 2014 at 4:39 pm

I’d love to know what Netanyahu said to Obama in private.

Anybody else get the feeling that Obama is just stalling until Iran gets the bomb?

Obama would love to do to Israel what Putin is doing to Ukraine–

Without all that cumbersome 20th century stuff. The progressive war machine consists of slogans, tweets, Jedi mind tricks, and fairy dust.

    Browndog in reply to Browndog. | March 3, 2014 at 5:34 pm

    Hmm…just ran across this tweet:

    Howard Fineman ✔ @howardfineman

    #AcademyAwards show diversity, tolerance, cultural creativity of US in Obama Era. Hard power matters, per Putin, but Oscars r as powerful.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to Browndog. | March 3, 2014 at 7:11 pm

      Fineman added another after getting roundly ridiculed over the first:

      “Before I tweeted that earlier thing out, my wife said it was the most vapid observation ever. I guess she was right!”

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to Browndog. | March 3, 2014 at 8:43 pm

      12 days a slave is a British venture . i believe the leading stars are british including the slave & the Lupito woman is African.

      that is about as diverse as Mary Poppins.

“Obama: we don’t have a closer friend and ally than Israel”

Didn’t somebody put together a video mashup a while back of him saying basically the same thing about a whole bunch of countries, depending on who he was talking to? I don’t remember where I saw it off the top of my head -maybe someone else still has a link…

JimMtnViewCaUSA | March 3, 2014 at 6:07 pm

Love the photo of the handshake, btw.
I’m sure Obama was trying to avoid looking BN in the eye, but the photo makes it look like his fist is in a painful vise ‘cos BN is more manly than he is 🙂

Democrats have run into the tent of Michael Cohen to cover their eyes to the failure that is the Obama foreign policy.

Cohen makes a great argument for the PM of Slovenia, but it really doesn’t cut it for the “Most Powerful Man on the Planet.”

Tossing aside international commitments because they make bad PR of the day isn’t going to make you friends and let you influence events.
Who in the Middle East are going to take Obama assurances as having any gravitas ?

Today the Chinese seized two islands under dispute with Japan for decades. The Most Powerful Man on the Planet” could do nothing … he was side-lined by the racist homophobe in Moscow..

Trooper York | March 3, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Israel will do what it has to do. The problem is that a bunch of other former American Allies will do the same. Get their own nuclear capacity to defend themselves. From South Korea to Poland a whole bunch of people are going to Nuke up. Can we blame them?

Henry Hawkins | March 3, 2014 at 7:16 pm

Obama is learning two important things the hard way:

1) Once you become president, foreign policy is no longer a theoretical exercise among academics to be played at in encounter groups.

2) Affirmative action does not extend past the American shoreline. No free rides overseas.

Six or seven more terms in the White House and I believe he just might have a handle on his job.

A bit out of topic but, I see you all using the word manly, and I can’t help but remember the comparison between Marlboro Guy and Pajama Boy.

It kinda scares me to think that the term manly will soon be frowned upon, then politically incorrect, and finally banned from American English.

    “Manly” is a grossly patriarchal, not to mention blatantly heteronormative, adjective. I’m pretty sure you just committed a micro-aggression, if not an outright hate-crime, there.

    :p

      Exiliado in reply to Amy in FL. | March 3, 2014 at 7:50 pm

      I knew it !!!

      😕

      Estragon in reply to Amy in FL. | March 4, 2014 at 12:53 am

      Please be assured no one used the term “manly” in reference to the President.

      He’s no tool of the Patriarchy. He’s in touch with his feminine side as well as his feminine side. A girl’s girl, that one.

        Ragspierre in reply to Estragon. | March 4, 2014 at 8:12 am

        Krauthammer used the term “flaccid”. I thought that a very apt descriptor for a “more flexible” member…

Obama’s foreign policy: Destroy Israel

Obama’s domestic policy: Destroy U.S.A.

when all roads lead to Rome, eventually you end up in Rome.

The only occasion where one can use the word ‘manly’ without being called ‘politically incorrect sexist’ is when one pairs manly with lesbian.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to mackykam. | March 3, 2014 at 8:51 pm

    i think ‘manly transgender ‘ would be fine. it has just a hint of availability on offer.

    When I set up my Transgener dating app i will definitely be including this . Some discrimination is good Macky. there are enough awkward silences on dinner dates as itis with folk eying the dor. be kind Macky.