{"id":21400,"date":"2012-08-03T10:31:03","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T06:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=21400"},"modified":"2012-08-03T10:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T06:33:52","slug":"israels-lack-of-respect-for-the-us-equals-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/middle-east-government-analysis\/israels-lack-of-respect-for-the-us-equals-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s Lack of Respect for the US Equals Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and US Defence secretary Leon Panetta at a joint press conference as they visit an Iron Dome defense system launch site on August 1, 2012 in Ashkelon, Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

There are those Israelis and other serious Middle East observers who\u00a0don\u2019t believe Israel will attack Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re far too optimistic in my view.\u00a0 It foolish to talk in such definitive terms as Larry Derfner does in the 972 Magazine post linked above.\u00a0 Leon Panetta , Tom Donilon and members of the Joint Chiefs don\u2019t flock to Tel Aviv for its sunny beaches.\u00a0 They come because they\u2019re damn scared Israel will take matters into its own hands and they want to do everything possible to avoid such a potential catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Panetta is the latest U.S. emissary to seek (probably in vain) assurances from Bibi-Barak that they won\u2019t do anything foolish, especially not before the November elections.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be the first time Panetta tried this.\u00a0 Only a few months ago, he made a similar visit and came away similarly empty-handed.\u00a0 The only difference this time is that Bibi has made the absolutely stupid move of practically endorsing Mitt Romney before a world audience in Jerusalem.\u00a0 As a result,\u00a0there were heated words spoken<\/a>\u00a0(Hebrew) behind closed doors, largely by Panetta.<\/p>\n

Maariv conveys the gist of the conversation via Israeli sources and the language used is almost unprecedented in its harshness:<\/div>\n

Panetta Expresses Frustration Behind Closed Doors: \u201cIsrael is Ungrateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

In meetings with the defense minister and prime minister, they criticize the U.S.\u2019 \u201crestrained\u201d policy toward Iran.\u00a0 Israeli sources say: Washington is talking about Israel as being \u201cpiggish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026Panetta expressed frustration with Barak and Netanyahu\u2019s expression of a lack of faith in America\u2019s commitment to stopping the Iranian nuclear program.\u00a0 The Americans talk of Israel\u2019s ungratefulness for our unceasing support for Israel\u2019s security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I were Obama I would\u2019ve told Panetta to take Bibi to the woodshed for his little romantic interlude with Mitt earlier this week.\u00a0 But this president doesn\u2019t seem to have the guts to engage in such political hardball, which is one of the reasons that Bibi will never respect or fear him.\u00a0 A political opponent who doesn\u2019t pay a price for truculence or obduracy is only encouraged to be more stubborn and more \u201cpiggish\u201d in future.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry to say that an Israeli leader who neither respects nor fears an American president is a recipe for disaster both for Israel and America.\u00a0 Obama has yet to find that out.\u00a0 But if American-made F-16s streak across the Middle Eastern skies to hit targets in Iran, he will discover this and pay the political price.<\/p>\n

Bibi\u2019s comments during his press conference with Panetta are another example: he had the\u00a0chutzpa<\/em>\u00a0to stand before the secretary of defense and warn him that the time to deal with Iran through peaceful means was growing short.\u00a0 This was a not so veiled threat: if you fail to do it your way\u2013and you will\u2013we have our own ways.\u00a0 And our way involves bullets and bombs.<\/p>\n

If you ever needed a reason to believe it\u2019s more important to read this blog than the NY Times\u2019 Jodi Rudoren\u00a0take a look at this article<\/a>\u00a0and note everything she missed that\u2019s here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN: An Israeli leader who neither respects nor fears an American president is a recipe for disaster both for Israel and America. Obama has yet to find that out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":468,"featured_media":21402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,83,135],"tags":[423,3041,18306,18311,726,14310,9894,6540,2447,191,1353,122,121,1808,5981,2904,10573,14309,18302,2020],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}