Dems to Obama: Stifle Yourself

Source: Photobucket

Jewish House Democrats to White House: Stop Attacking Netanyahu
- Edward-Isaac Dovere

A dozen Jewish House Democrats laid it out for deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes last week: Enough. 

Obama and his aides, they said, had to stop acting as if the Israeli prime minister's comments are the only thing holding up a peace process that's been abandoned for a year while not expressing a word of disappointment about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - and openly toying with allowing the Palestinians their provocative recognition bid at the UN. The swipes at Netanyahu felt vindictive, and gratuitous.
     
At the tense Rhodes meeting, the Jewish members of Congress told him the aggressive approach to Netanyahu was a problem, since the White House will be looking for their support in convincing people that the deal they're hoping to get with Iran doesn't put Israel in danger. "You want us to go out and say the administration's got Israel's back. How are you going to get us to say that when our constituents believe that the administration is stabbing Israel in the back?" one member of Congress said later. Rhodes left the meeting agreeing to relay a message of tamping down the rhetoric.
(Politico)


Bipartisan Letter to Obama: Stop Threatening Israel - Jennifer Rubin

It is extraordinary that such a letter is even necessary, but this president has gone into a realm of threats and recriminations no other president has ever attempted. This is no longer a conservative or Republican backlash. Liberal stalwarts in Congress and in the foreign policy community, many of whom harbor no affection for the current Israeli prime minister, are dumbstruck.
(Washington Post)
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Will the U.S. Stop Backing Israel at the UN? - Raphael Ahren

• Officials say that President Barack Obama is strongly considering backing Palestinian moves at the UN Security Council. This could mean that Washington will hold back from vetoing a French or Jordanian resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, or even propose its own resolution seeking to enshrine the parameters of a future peace deal. 
• "[A] UN Security Council resolution that explicitly delineated Israel's future borders would first and foremost undermine Israel's bilateral agreement with the Palestinians, that made the future of borders an issue for negotiations and not something that would be imposed from the outside," said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and close Netanyahu adviser.

(Times of Israel)
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