"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Thursday, June 11, 2015

MICHAEL OREN'S NEW ACCOUNT OF OBAMA'S IRE ON ISRAEL

John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post about former ambassador Michael Oren's new book, which gives some telling insight to Obama's negative relationships with Israel:
It’s not that there’s lots of breaking news in “Ally” that will startle people. Rather, it makes news on almost every page with its incredibly detailed account of the root hostility of the Obama administration toward the Jewish state.

What makes the details especially credible is that Oren is no flame-breathing Israeli right-winger but very much (and at times distressingly) an Establishment creature and one, moreover, who makes it clear he drank the Obama hope-and-change Kool-Aid in 2008. (Indeed, he now serves in Israel’s Knesset not as a member of Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud but of the new centrist Kulanu party.)

On major matters, the administration seemed to hold Israel accountable for problems it had nothing to do with.

Example: The Palestinian Authority made moves toward seeking a declaration of statehood at the United Nations in 2011, which would’ve triggered a law shutting down their US mission and suspending all aid to the PA and to UN agencies that recognized Palestine.

In response, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides called Oren into his fancy Foggy Bottom office and screamed at him: “You don’t want the f - - - ing UN to collapse because of your f - - - ing conflict with the Palestinians, and you don’t want the f - - - ing Palestinian Authority to fall apart either.”

To which Oren replied that Israel didn’t want the United Nations to collapse, “but there are plenty of Tea Party types who would, and no shortage of Congress members who are wondering why they have to keep paying Palestinians who spit in the president’s eye.” He reports that Nides “slumped into his Louis XVth chair.”
I wonder if the deputy secretary's profane tirade is the most jaw-dropping example given in the book? It goes to show we have thin-skinned politicians running around today who're out-of-control and flying off the handle. It's not great Oren appears to be a product of establishment, but his book still does seem to give some interesting insight all the same, and should be read.

No comments: