After George Mitchell’s appointment as Israeli-Arab peace envoy was announced January 22, I noted (also here) that the way it had happened indicated he would be reporting to both the president and the secretary of state.
When Mitchell returned from his first “listening visit” to the region, he made his report-back primarily to the prez.
Early this morning, Laura Rozen had a blog post in which she demonstrated the degree to which the Obama White House is continuing to keep its hands firmly on the conduct of Israeli-Arab diplomacy.
She writes this, about the meeting Israeli prez Shimon Peres had at the White House yesterday:
- Clinton was not at the meeting, though as noted earlier she met with Peres separately at his hotel.
“The White House won’t let her on TV on the Sunday morning talk shows,” a plugged-in Washington Middle East hand observed. “Who is talking about foreign policy on those shows? Axelrod. Who is showing up at the meeting with Obama-Peres? Axelrod. They are controlling the message.” [Btw, this anonymous source is most likely the same Steve Cohen who is liberally quoted by name elsewhere in the post, but here speaking off the record.]
“They’ve never even had her even on Charlie Rose,” he added. “You have not really seen the secretary of state in the U.S. media; you’ve seen her in the international media. Who is their main messenger on foreign policy?”
(An aide confirmed Clinton hadn’t been on the Sunday talk shows since the campaign.)
The plugged in Washington Middle East observer noted that Clinton was not sent by the administration to address the AIPAC conference, either. Instead, Vice President Joseph Biden was dispatched, where he called for Israel to stop its settlement expansion.
“Biden is the person who is perceived as a very experienced foreign-policy hand who has a very solid relationship with Israel, but that relationship is solidly based on American strategic analysis,” Cohen said. “And not affected so much by the Clinton experience of being a [former] New York senator.”
Higher up in her post, Rozen had zeroed in on the fact that, though Clinton was not at the White House meeting, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and political adviser, David Axelrod, were.
She writes this– again, liberally quoting Steve Cohen, largely as a kind of inside-the-shtetl story:
- Emanuel and Axelrod are two high-level Jewish members of Obama’s administration; they have been increasingly enlisted in recent weeks to build support within the Jewish-American community for a two-state solution in the face of resistance from the new Netanyahu government…
I don’t see it exactly the same way. Yes, there is clearly an inside-the-shtetl aspect to it. But the importance of these two men– Emanuel and Axelrod– is far greater than just their Jewish credentials. They are the president’s two leading political advisers and operatives. If he is gearing up for a Bush(1)/Baker style of confrontation with a Likud government in Israel, he will need to be planning a strategy that covers all the domestic political bases, not just the Jewish one. (And at this point, probably a larger proportion of evangelical Christians would be prepared to fight hard for this government of Israel than the proportion of Jewish Americans who would be so inclined.)
So from this perspective, it is probably a good thing that these two very savvy (and perhaps only coincidentally Jewish) political operatives were in the room. Especially at the exact same time that AIPAC has been flooding the offices of members of congress with citizen-lobbyists arguing that the US must let Israel completely dictate the pace of any moves towards peace.
Because of the extreme permeability of the US political system– especially at the level of members of the House of Representatives– to the influence of pro-Israelis (whether Jewish or not), any US policy that affects Israel is never simply a matter of “foreign” policy. For the president to succeed, he has to be able to use his own immense powers of persuasion not just on the foreign leaders and publics concerned– but also on his own public and congress.
Over the next couple of weeks, Obama will be receiving Israel’s Netanyahu, Egypt’s Mubarak, and Ramallastan’s Abbas in the White House. Sometime soon after that, he is expected to come out with some more definitive policy initiatives. That is when we need to see Obama using his “bully pulpit” of presidential influence– and using it domestically, as well as internationally.
Ramallastan’s Abbas
More important this devlopemnt:
Perhaps you are right. It may have been a stroke of genius to make Hillary Secretary of State where she can be largely marginalized on Israel/Palestine. If she was still the Senator from New York, she would certainly be on Sunday morning shows shouting the Likud/AIPAC line and making life more difficult for Obama, if he really does plan to pressure Israel. Those who have tried in the past have paid a heavy price, but perhaps the time has come after the Lebanon and Gaza fiascoes, together with a pulling back of the Christian right from politics in general, when it may be possible to actually challenge the Israel Lobby. And Obama is nothing if not an astute politician, at least so far.
Your commenters here will be thrilled to learn that Hillary Clinton was replaced by two jewish zionists at the Peres meeting. Perhaps that why Peres said afterwards “There is no space between Israel and the US”.
Do you think they were discussing Right of Return to Israel?
Over the next couple of weeks, Obama will be receiving Israel’s Netanyahu, Egypt’s Mubarak, and Ramallastan’s Abbas in the White House. Sometime soon after that, he is expected to come out with some more definitive policy initiatives. That is when we need to see Obama using his “bully pulpit” of presidential influence– and using it domestically, as well as internationally.
This reminds me of the few weeks between 9/11 and Bush’s official reaction to it. I had hoped that he’d stand up to the plate and admit that unequivocal US support for all the crimes the Israelis had committed over the years had finally blown back to our shores and that it was time to start assessing the damages done by forty years of pay-to-play politics and “campaign contributions”. He did not say that.
I think that what Barak Obama does say will be less of an overt shock to us because he’s playing a more “precious” persona. But the results will be seamless and continuous with the Bush administration, as they have been up until now.
“So from this perspective, it is probably a good thing that these two very savvy (and perhaps only coincidentally Jewish) political operatives were in the room.”
LOL! Compare this to when Helena was demanding that Emanuel renounce his (non-existing) Israeli citizenship.
A guide for the perplexed readers of this blog:
1) If a Jewish politician/official does something that Helena thinks is against the interest of Israel, then they are “coincidentally Jewish.”
2) If a Jewish politician/official does something that Helena thinks is in the interest of Israel, then they are a mole, harbor dual loyalty, and/or are a “hasbarista.”
We now return to Helena’s latest installment of “Two Minutes Hate.”
Joshua: you really live a very sheltered life if you consider Helena’s contributions to be hateful. She simply disagrees with your positions.
That is not hatred, though it is evidently frustrating for you.
Perhaps now you can understand how frustrating it must be for Palestinians to be driven out of their own country, to be massacred as the people of Gaza were, to be imprisoned, tortured, assassinated, reduced to poverty, besieged, policed by Quislings and hectored by Europeans and Americans impertinent enough to claim the lands your ancestors have worked for generations as their heaven sent heritage.
to be driven out of their own country, to be massacred as the people of Gaza were, to be imprisoned, tortured, assassinated, reduced to poverty, besieged, policed
blablablabla…..
When we are relying on Rahm Emanuel to be the modifying influence, we are in a very bad place. Very bad. It appears that the Israeli leadership has once again played the American Political world, by creating such an extremist surge in Israel, that the Obama Administration can claim to be curbing Israel like never before, when in fact it continues to pursue an extremist policy that marginalizes Hamas. Let us see Obama actually force Israel to stop expanding settlements – that alone would mean a lot. Does anyone think we will really see this? Let Obama actually sustain the demand that Israel join the NPT. If he did that, his harsh demands on Iran would make more sense. But does anyone think he will sustain that demand?
Our expectations for sanity in American Foreign Policy have become so low that we now accept CrazyWorld policies as routine, even as major improvement. Excluding Hamas is simply not a defensible policy. Nor is continuing to countenance the threats against Iran, or the continued expansion of the settlements.
When we are relying on Rahm Emanuel to be the modifying influence, we are in a very bad place. Very bad. It appears that the Israeli leadership has once again played the American Political world, by creating such an extremist surge in Israel, that the Obama Administration can claim to be curbing Israel like never before, when in fact it continues to pursue an extremist policy that marginalizes Hamas. Let us see Obama actually force Israel to stop expanding settlements – that alone would mean a lot. Does anyone think we will really see this? Let Obama actually sustain the demand that Israel join the NPT. If he did that, his harsh demands on Iran would make more sense. But does anyone think he will sustain that demand?
Our expectations for sanity in American Foreign Policy have become so low that we now accept CrazyWorld policies as routine, even as major improvement. Excluding Hamas is simply not a defensible policy. Nor is continuing to countenance the threats against Iran, or the continued expansion of the settlements.
This is very interesting Helena — just got back from a presentation in Lund where I made much of Hillary’s comments on the hill two weeks ago, where in two separate “testimonies” in the Q&A she went wildly off the Obama script on the subject of Iran. (e.g., her emphasis on more threats, sanctions, etc., even as the Obama speeches suggested that the hoped for US-Iran dialogue of “mutual respect” would not be driven by “threats.”)
Yet still on the subject of Hillary — and Dennis Ross (whom she spoke of on the Hill as if HE was her main Iran adviser) — I am startled to see that none other than Ray Takeyh has been hired by Dennis Ross. Takeyh’s new book on Iran is worth a read — (and Dennis Ross provides one of the book’s cover endorsements — underneath, ironically, RK Ramazani)
And oh one other tidbit, I’m also very interested in the new NSC chair for Iran/Persian Gulf matters — who apparently worked for Biden for the past eight years. I gather he had quite a hand in writing that Nowruz speech. Scott wants to know more.
Ruth, do you honestly think your response to bevin counts as “gentle and courteous”, as the guidelines require?
Actually, it doesn’t even count as adult.
I would be interested in any serious response you might to what Bevin wrote. If ‘blablablabla’ is the best you can manage, that tells us a lot more about you and your wilful (and childishly expressed) determination to ignore the humanity and suffering of these fellow-members of the human race than it tells us about anything else.
While Ms. Cobban’s studied review of what is “happening” in the US/AIPAC/Israel “tango at trois” is underway reports out of Turkey suggest that the Turkey/NATO/Israel tango version is being replaced with a Russia/Iran/Turkey threesome.
The upcoming conference in Moscow next June on the Palestenian -Israeli seems to have attracted very little coverage in the US media.
Wonder if Ms. Cobban will be covering same since it seems very much like there is the beginning of a “tug of war” between the US/Israel duo and an emerging block of Russia/Turkey/Iran and possibly Syria and other Arab nations in the region.
Helana,White House (still) guiding Middle East policy
Of course WH keep doing so as ME is the most vital region spatially for US and in general to the Western world.
What really Obama doing showing he is softer than the previous administration in different ways with his recent overseas trip.
Many singes tells that US or White House (still) guiding Middle East policy working toward more control of this irrupting region.
The Daily Telegraph reported the Cold war Worrier H. Kissinger went on secret mission to Russia to set “new world order”….