Well, if there was any doubt, which only the most cloud-cuckoo-land Israeli optimist might have entertained, that the Obama regime has washed its hands of Israel in general and its Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular then they need only read Jeffrey Goldberg's article in The Atlantic. Mr. Goldberg is obviously well-connected at the highest levels in White House circles and his direct quote from a senior but anonymous official to the effect that "Netanyahu is chickenshit" tells you all you need to know about the volte face in American policy towards Israel. That Netanyahu has allowed (encouraged?) this American withdrawal of support indicates to me that he is prepared to sit tight and wait for Obama's replacement perhaps confident that Arab excesses will swing support back to him and his beleaguered nation. It's a dangerous line to take. He can no longer rely on a huge American-Jewish population to put pressure on a president. Most of them are now second, third or even older generations and a majority no longer practice their religion, preferring instead to follow the false promise of liberal socialism as espoused by the Democrat party. Also, my feeling is that the vast majority of Americans would dearly love to wash their hands of the entire middle east and all of its intractable problems.
Hanging over all of this is the surprising - well, it has surprised me! - fact that Netanyahu has failed (so far!) to attack the Iranian nuclear sites. According to Goldberg, the administration believes the moment has passed and the Iranian capabilities are now well on their way and long past the point of no return. In other words, the Israeli bluff has been called and that is why Netanyahu is "chickenshit":
“The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” the official said, expanding the definition of what a chickenshit Israeli prime minister looks like. “The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”
I ran this notion by another senior official who deals with the Israel file regularly. This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chickenshit” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal. “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”
Jacob Heilbrunn at The National Interest sums up the situation thus:
So in the next two years, Netanyahu can continue to do what he has done for the past six—attempt to perform an end-run around Obama. From the outset, he seems to have decided to outwait Obama. Maybe his strategy will be more successful than Goldberg would appear to believe, and Netanyahu is hedgehog to Obama’s fox. Goldberg says that Netanyahu’s approach is leading in the direction of Israel as a garrison state, a state of affairs that for Israelis, until now largely passive witnesses to the internecine warfare on their borders, “has its charms. But for Israel’s future as an ally of the United States, this formula is a disaster.” For now, this conclusion deserves what’s known as a Scottish verdict—not proven.
Perhaps, as so often in the past, Israel's Arab neighbours will prove to be their best 'support' by continuing with their non-stop internecine warfare with each other which leaves them little time to attack Israel.
