Romney's Down Home Truths about Obama's Israel Policy

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney bearded the lion in its den, so to speak, this weekend in Israel.
But, the lion was not Israel. It was President Obama.
Governor Romney went to Jerusalem, prayed at the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, where he left a prayer note in a crack in the wall as he marked the fasting holiday of Tisha B’av. Wearing a black Jewish skullcap and surrounded by a throng of security personnel clearing his way, Romney carefully navigated through hundreds of worshippers, some of whom shouted cries of support.
He met with the Israeli president and prime minister Netanyahu. He gave a very firm warning to Iran in a speech from the terrace overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, talked to the media and held a fundraiser.
The bombshell, if one wants to call it that, is that Romney said that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem, something no other world leader is willing to admit, even though the historical truth of the fact speaks for itself.
The United States, along with the rest of the western world, does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital because it is claimed by both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Israel occupied East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, in the 1967 War and then annexed it, an act not recognized internationally.
The United States Embassy is in Tel Aviv, as is that of many other nations, so that Romney’s remarks were a tacit criticism of White House press secretary Jay Carney, who last week told a pair of journalists who asked him to name Israel’s capital that they already knew the answer, declining further comment.
In his Old City speech, Romney said the United States would support Israel’s efforts to defend itself, which President Obama has endorsed in principle but not so strongly. But Romney stopped short of saying that he would support a unilateral military strike by Israel against Iran to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear capability, though a top adviser said he would respect Israel’s right to take such action.
As he has done throughout the campaign, Romney cast the Iranian threat in very dire terms, using aggressive language to differentiate his view from Obama’s.
“We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option,” Romney said. “We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability. We should employ any and all measures to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so.”
“In the final analysis, of course, no option should be excluded,” Romney said. “We recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and that it is right for America to stand with you.”
“It is sometimes said that those who are the most committed to stopping the Iranian regime from securing nuclear weapons are reckless and provocative and inviting war,” Romney said. “The opposite is true. We are the true peacemakers.”
The Iranian uranium-enrichment program was the theme of Romney’s talk, and he did not mention Palestinians or the need for a peace process based on the two-state model promoted by the United States. The Palestinian leadership was incensed by Romney’s suggestion that Israel is succeeding economically in the region because of cultural differences. Palestine asserts that its failure economically is based on its “occupation” by Israel.
The Obama administration has urged the Israelis to be patient while international sanctions against Iran are given time to work but has assured Israeli prime minister Netanyahu that Israel has the right to act in its own national security interests. Some in the administration fear that an Israeli strike against Iran could ignite a regional war.
"We have to be honest that sanctions have not set back the Tehran program one iota and that a strong military threat coupled with sanctions are needed to have a chance to change the situation," Netanyahu said.
Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, has repeatedly warned that it is only a matter of time before Iran's nuclear program achieves a "zone of immunity" in which uranium enrichment facilities buried deep underground will be invulnerable to bombing.
In an effort that appeared timed to upstage Romney's visit to Israel, Obama signed a measure on Friday to strengthen US-Israeli military ties.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement Saturday thanking Obama after he signed into law the previous day an act endorsing the concept of preserving Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the region. But there was no such declaration of gratitude by Netanyahu, who is an old friend of Mitt Romney from Netanyahu’s time in the United States, during which he and Romney were business consultants.
Obama’s step was widely seen as an attempt to parry Romney’s visit to Israel.
On Sunday morning, a senior Israeli official denied a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, had briefed Netanyahu during a recent visit on U.S. plans for a possible attack on Iran, something apparently leaked by the presidential staff during Romney’s visit to Israel.
The report, which cited an unnamed senior American official, coincided with the start of Romney’s meetings and appeared to underline Obama’s readiness to use military force.
“Nothing in the article is correct,” said the Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The report came at the start of a full day of official meetings designed for Romney to deepen ties with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.
Romney met with Netanyahu on Sunday morning at the prime minister’s Jerusalem offices. After sundown, their families shared a private meal at Netanyahu’s home to break the holiday fast.
So, dear readers, we have the spectacle of a presidential candidate forcing the American President’s hand on a subject in which no “forcing” ought to be needed.
If there is any country in the world that America has engaged itself to defend, it is Israel. Many times, the US has stood alone against efforts in the United Nations to force Israel to back down on its own defense, to agree to be nibbled at by hostile regional counter-parties, to be left defenseless in a situation in which some of its neighboring countries have vowed to destroy it.
If the President had taken the high road from the beginning of his administration, there would have been no need to try to counter Romney’s obviously successful visit to Israel. And certainly no need to lie about what the Obama presidency has or has not done with reference to the US- Israel relationship. A relationship that has been trashed on several occasions by the President himself.
Home truths are sometimes hard to swallow. They often speak for a situation in which nothing is going right, nothing is as it should be, and the blame is only too easy to place.
It is too late for President Obama to try to “buy” the American Jewish vote with late half-measures about Israel’s security. It is too late to try to recover four years of disdain and indifference.
I only hope American Jews, who are not a “block” of voters but who have often voted Democratic, will see the folly of continuing along this path in November 2012.