Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who is visiting Washington, was denied an opportunity to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell. It appears the administration responded harshly to his requests in retaliation to his sharp criticism of the White House and the current administration.
In a Wednesday interview with MSNBC, Barkat questioned the US’ policy regarding the Mideast, discounting American policy decision as futile, going on to explain how the White House embarrassed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his recent visit to the White House.
Seeking to implement damage control, in Jerusalem, a message was released to the media that the mayor did indeed inform the Israeli Embassy in Washington of his planned visit, but all meetings with elected officials were organized by the mayor and his staff, emphasizing he is not acting as a representative of the national government.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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8 Responses
What does that say about the State Department’s love for Israel?
Halevai all democratically empowered leaders of Israel should face the dilemma of being refused a meeting with the likes of Mitchell and Clinton. Nothing good for Israel comes out of meetings with members of that clique.
It would be comical were it not so sick that the Obama camp is literally trying to shape an anti-Israel Israeli policy by lending official American prestige to unrepresentative Israel representatives. Yishai, who has no power over Jerusalem, is invited to the White House; Barkat, who does wield legitimate control over Israeli policy, is persona non grata. Mainstream American Zionists are unwelcome at Obama’s Jewish outreach events, but counterculture, fringe J Street the President embraces. Obama has chosen to actually override democracy in his bid to undermine the Jewish state. This is a radical departure from President Bush’s conduct of much warmer and respectful Israel relations, in spite of the ridiculously false claims by some in the press that Obama is really just continuing Bush’s Israel policies.
This is entirely in accordance with Isaac Newton’s “Third Law of Motion” which – as every student of physics will remember – states:
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
Hamayvin yavin!
Just to clarify: I obviously am not overjoyed with the situation that an Israeli official is rebuffed by the White House over his position that Israel has the unassailable right to Jerusalem. I do recognize that it will remain a challenge for Israel to navigate the remainder of Obama’s frosty tenure while defending her citizens and maintaining sovereignty over her borders.
My only point is that, given the Obama administration’s stated Mideast priorities of [A] permitting Iran and its proxies to secure ever more dangerous weaponry with which to annihilate Israel and [B] stopping Jews from building within the historic boundaries of their country, there seems to be little room left for positive interaction and cooperation with Obama’s daylight-seeking team. Under these circumstances, it would seem to be in Israel’s best interests to minimize contacts with Obama’s envoys and remember that his reign reflects a deviation from a normalcy in Washington that is set to return in 2012. By that time, Israel will have pre-empted Iran’s WMD program and weathered the nastiest relations Obama could muster (which she would have had to deal with even if she hadn’t headed off disaster).
any one that Obama won’t speak to must be a kosher person.
Ata takum, t’rah’chaiym Tziyon, kee ayt l’chen’na, kee va MO”ED!!
Kabtzainu yachad mehayra may’arba kanfot ha’aretz le’Artzeinu!
#5 lazerc, Very well said. Short, sweet and to the point.
That just about sums up what this administration is doing = everything wrong: they talk to the wrong people, wrong governments, etc. They think they’re playing some type of game called “Politics in Washington”, and they can just say game over when they’re tired. They are wrong. When everything they’re doing comes back to bite them they’ll say “it’s Bush’s fault…”
This reminds me of the guy whispering to his wife as the boat sinks, “See!! I told you so!!”
What good does it do all these posters to be ‘right’ about Obama?
Shouldn’t we instead figure out how to still yes get what we want by dealing with reality?
Naw, better to just dig in our heels and let the country go to pot. How stupid.