It’s no secret that President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu dislike each other. Obama’s disdain for Netanyahu comes from his inability to control Netanyahu and force him into agreements with the Palestinians which would harm Israel’s security interests. Giving up settlements, land, security measures and restrictions that prevent terrorists from infiltrating Israel are things that Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to do. Obama’s handling of the nuclear situation with Iran also has harmed relations with Netanyahu. I suspect it is only because of secret threats from Obama that Israel hasn’t attacked Iran and destroyed their nuclear program, as so many of Israel’s military leaders have said needs to happen. Obama’s extended ‘negotiations’ with Iran have done nothing but allow them to continue their nuclear program unabated, with everyone knowing their goal is an eventual nuclear weapon. Netanyahu clearly knows the risks, not only to Israel, but to the United States, were Iran to acquire one or more nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has said that Iran already has missiles capable of reaching Israel and that what they are working toward is missiles capable of reaching the United States.
Clearly, Obama and Netanyahu have differing ideas on how to achieve security for Israel. Obama seems more intent on being friendly to terrorist organizations than he does on insuring security for Israel. Obama’s disasters in Libya, the Ukraine, Syria and Yemen, among others, make it clear that his foreign policy decisions spell doom. Were Netanyahu to accede to Obama’s demands, Israel would likely find itself mired in terrorist attacks and possibly even a military conflict.
With Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress the animosity between the two seems to have reached a boiling point. The Obama administration made it clear that Boehner’s invitation was a “breach of protocol” and that Obama would not be meeting with Netanyahu while he was in the country. Doing so, the White House said, would be “inappropriate” two weeks before an election in Israel. White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said that due to “long-standing practice and principle” that Obama would not meet with candidates or heads of state in close proximity to their elections.
But now it has been reported that what Obama will do is dispatch a campaign team to Israel to defeat Netanyahu’s bid for reelection. The Independent Media Review Analysis in Israel has reported on the team of Americans who have flown in to work on the anti-Netanyahu campaign.
IMRA – Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections.
One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign’s national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.
V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party – rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws.
So, to be clear, Obama will not meet with Netanyahu since it is close to his election, but he will send a campaign team to Israel to defeat him.
File this under news you won’t see on CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, in the New York Times or Washington Post. However, if Netanyahu had dispatched campaign operatives to the United States to defeat Obama’s reelection in 2012, all those ‘news’ outlets would have made it their lead story.
At the same time Obama is dispatching his campaign staff to defeat Netanyahu he is freeing more terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. I’d say he’s making it pretty clear who he consider his friends and enemies to be.
Isn’t this ironic? President Obama has ranted about foreign money influencing our elections since the decision on Citizens United came down, even though there is no evidence that it was happening. Now we have our foreign money trying to influence the elections in Israel. Just like a liberal to be guilty of the very thing they are accusing someone else of. I would expect nothing less.
To liberals, the ends always justifies the means. Any tactic is acceptable if it gets them what they want, and in this case Obama wants Netanyahu gone. The election in Israel is certainly one that will be interesting to watch.