“Cursing the [Israeli] prime minister and calling him names is an insult not just to him but to the millions of Israeli citizens and Jews across the globe. The leader of Syria who slaughtered 150,000 people was not awarded the name ‘chickenshit.’ Neither was the leader of Saudi Arabia who stones women and homosexuals or the leader of Iran who murders freedom protestors.”
Those are the words of Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister and a rising star on the right, who posted them on Facebook shortly after “The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here” appeared in The Atlantic on Oct. 28.
The piece — in which the above slur, attributed to an unnamed senior White House official, was reported by writer Jeffrey Goldberg — sent Washington and Israel into a whirl. If the headline wasn’t true when it was crafted, it certainly seems to be now.
The piece explained how the Obama administration is angry over Israel’s settlement policies, and how the Netanyahu government openly expresses contempt for President Obama’s understanding of the Middle East. It included comments by a second Obama official expressing contempt for Israeli policies and Netanyahu.
By expressing their views, were these “senior U.S. officials” being appropriate, productive? Shouldn’t they be encouraging tough diplomacy and back-channel wrangling, rather than pronouncing Netanyahu “a chickenshit prime minister” who only cares about his political survival?
While a lot of words can be used to describe Benjamin Netanyahu unfavorably, “chicken-whatever” is not one of them. In fact, he is seen by many in the international community as a bully who doesn’t back down. Moreover, the slur is backfiring, as the prime minister’s reputation has been bolstered at home as someone who stands up to Obama, a leader who holds precious little currency among Israelis.
Is it dangerous to read too much into the comments? Are they a window into Obama administration consensus that Israel alone is responsible for the stalemate with the Palestinians? That Netanyahu is all talk and no action when it comes to Iran, and is actually reluctant to attack the nuclear-bound country? Does the slur in any way portend that the U.S. might pull its support from Israel at the United Nations because of its policy on building housing units in eastern Jerusalem?
The Goldberg piece included a litany of other choice words he has heard Obama administration officials use over the years to describe Netanyahu, such as “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering and pompous.”
High-level U.S. officials need to keep it zipped when it comes to expressing anger at our allies, especially one as important as Israel.
One gets the feeling that Israel’s leaders, acutely aware that Obama’s peace efforts seem to be leading nowhere, are simply biding their time until the next president is in the Oval Office.