Obama's Grudge against Netanyahu Cannot Camouflage His Lack of a Middle East Policy

As members of Congress continue to muster opposition to a potential Obama - Iran nuclear deal, the Wall Street Journal reports that soon after the P5+1 powers entered negotiations last year on Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned that Israel was spying on the secret talks. According to the WSJ, the spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations in order to build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former US officials said. The WSJ allegation comes in a period of increasing tensions between the US and Israel, and just weeks after Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress at Speaker John Boehner's invitation, in which Netanyahu warned against the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. ~~~~~ Before the speech, the Speaker privately met with Netanyahu, but Boehner said Israeli officials had never shared intelligence about the Iran talks with him : "I read that story this morning, and frankly, I was a bit shocked," Boehner told reporters. "There was no information revealed to me whatsoever." Asked to clarify his reaction to the story, Boehner replied : "I'm shocked by the fact that there were reports in this press article that information was being passed on by the Israelis to members of Congress. I'm not aware of that at all. I'm baffled by it," Boehner added. The WSJ reported that the spying on the closed-door nuclear negotiations didn't anger the White House as much as revelations that Israel was sharing the information with US lawmakers in an effort to derail the agreement. “It is one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other," a senior US official told the newspaper. "It is another thing for Israel to steal US secrets and play them back to US legislators to undermine US diplomacy." ~~~~~ In a comment that supports Boehner's position and casts doubt on the WSJ article, both the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee told CNN's Wolf Blitzer today that while they hold briefings and have conversations with Israeli officials regularly, neither of the House members, among the most likely to receive such information, has ever received information about the Iran negotiations from their Israeli contacts. ~~~~~ Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has confirmed that Israel didn't spy on the US, but obtained information through other participants : "All the information we obtained is from a different side and not through the United States." Lieberman said Israel decided years ago not to spy on the United States, directly or indirectly. "I have never encountered anyone who breached this directive in the past two decades," he said. ~~~~~ Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said "there is no way" that Israel spied on its closest and most important ally. Yaalon, a former military chief and head of military intelligence, added that Israel has received no complaints from the US, which he said would be expected if Israel had been spying on the US. According to Yaalon : "There's no such thing that Israel spies on the Americans. It has been strictly forbidden by all of the political leadership that I have known, already for two decades, especially the current one, and no Israeli intelligence organization spies on the Americans....but apparently someone has an interest in sparking a dispute, or creating a bad atmosphere in our relations.~~~~~ And it seems that Israel would have had little reason to resort to spying. Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a congressional hearing whether the US has kept Israel fully abreast of the negotiations. "Yes, we have," Kerry answered. But Kerry also has complained that details about the negotiations that have leaked have not been helpful in the sensitive talks meant to curb Iran's suspect nuclear program. Kerry did not single out Israel. ~~~~~ Prime Minister Netanyahu's office has called the spying report "utterly false," saying Israel "does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel's other allies." ~~~~~ So, it appears that nobody except the 'US officials" cited by the Wall Street Journal believes that Israel has been spying on the Iran nuclear negotiations. Who could these US officials be? Usually a reference to officials means high-ranking bureaucrats or administration appointees. Well, yesterday White House chief of staff Denis McDonough spoke at the annual J Street conference. Founded in 2008, J Street has positioned itself as an anti-Netanyahu liberal alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, a pro-Israel group that has opposed Obama over Iran’s nuclear program : “We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made or that they don’t raise questions about the Prime Minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” McDonough told the J Street conference, to a standing ovation. McDonough was clear that the Obama administration stands behind a two-state solution : “We continue to believe that the best way to safeguard Israel’s long-term security is to bring about a comprehensive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. That’s why the Prime Minister’s comments on the eve of the election in which he first intimated and then made very clear in response to a follow up question that a Palestinian state will not be established while he is prime minister were so very troubling.” ~~~~~ The White House is keeping the pressure on Netanyahu by saying it is weighing whether to change the United States’ longstanding policy of providing unconditional support for Israel at the United Nations. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has expanded on his comments since winning reelection, telling MSNBC that he backs a “sustainable peaceful two-state solution” under the right circumstances. Those comments have done little to pacify the White House. President Obama has suggested that Netanyahu’s comments since reelection are not enough to prove that he backs the creation of a Palestinian state : “We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership.” Obama's anger at Netanyahu was called a "temper tantrum" by Senator McCain. The administration has sent representatives to every J Street conference since taking office in 2009. Officials appearing have included Vice President Biden and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Recently, the administration sent national security adviser Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Power to the conference held by AIPAC. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said there was no “message that is trying to be sent” by dispatching a higher-ranking official to the J Street conference. ~~~~~ Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is expected to formally task Netanyahu with forming a coalition on Wednesday. But, Rivlin has made national unity a priority and has called for "as wide a coalition as possible to ensure the representation of all groups in Israeli society." For now, both Netanyahu and his chief leftist adversaries are saying a "unity government" is out of the question. ~~~~~ Dear readers, we must ask if Obama's public pounding of Netanyahu could in fact be directed at President Rivlin and the fears in Israel that without US support, the Jewish state could be destroyed. Indeed, with Obama's policies, the Iranians already control Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, and much of Bahrain, and have surrounded the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. And, US embassies in three Arab countries - Syria Libya and Yemen - have been forced to close. Arabs, and even Palestinians, recognize that, under the current circumstances, a Palestinian state would sooner or later be controlled by jihadists and Islamic terrorists. Netanyahu sees this, too. Obama should embrace Netanyahu, as his Arab neighbors have done, and seriously examine the potential fallout of an independent Palestinian state, for both regional and international security. The last thing the Middle East, Americans and Europeans need is another Islamic extremist country that exports terrorism. The real enemy is not Netanyahu. President Obama and his advisors need to understand that the real enemy is Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS and the Islamic State of Iran. Unfortunately, Obama seems to want to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state that would pose an existential threat to it and become the source of instability and tensions in the region. Obama refuses to face the fact that because of his withdrawals and neglect, the situation in the Middle East today, with the rise of ISIS, the Houthis and other terror groups, is much worse than it was even five years ago. Israel, Arab states, the Middle East, Europe, America and the world do not have time for the childish antics of an American President who mistakes his personal grudge for foreign policy.