On Netanyahu’s Lecturing of Obama

By Jeffrey Goldberg:

There are a number of problems, tactical and strategic, with Netanyahu’s pedantic behavior:
1) President Obama actually does understands Jewish history: he understands it well enough to know that the permanent occupation of the West Bank would be an historical anomaly;
2) Even if Obama didn’t understand Jewish history, it is still off-putting for many Americans to watch their president being lectured by a foreign leader in his own house;
3) The Prime Minister doesn’t seem to understand what President Obama is trying to tell him: That Israel cannot maintain the occupation of the West Bank without becoming a pariah state (previous LIkud-bred prime ministers, namely Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, both understood this);
4) The Prime Minister desperately needs President Obama to defend Israel in the United Nations, and even more crucially, to confront Iran’s nuclear program, which poses an existential threat to the Jewish state; angering him constantly doesn’t seem to be an effective way to marshal the President’s support;
5) Based on the mail I’ve been receiving, and conversations I’ve been having with Jewish leaders of various ideological persuasions, there is a great worry that Netanyahu, through his behavior even more than his policies, is alienating other of Israel’s friends, needlessly.