Neither left nor right, but rather real fear of the Obama administration

Submitted by Allen Z. Hertz (China), Jul 9, 2013 at 00:46

Netanyahu's positions re negotiations with the Palestinians are best to be understood from the optic of Netanyahu's justified fear of the Obama administration, which he understands to be at heart deeply hostile to Israel and daily searching for a way to do really significant harm to Israel. Across the board, President Obama's political directions are normally masked by outright lies and deceptive dissimulation, mostly designed to mislead the American people which generally has no sympathy with those things that Obama cherishes and seeks to realize.

For example, more than a decade of public-opinion polling reveals that around 65% of Americans warmly support Israel, which President Obama wants to significantly weaken. Netanyahu knows that Israel gets some cover from USA public opinion and therefore he plays his hand carefully to postpone the day when there will finally have to be an outright confrontation between the Obama administration and Israel.

And why not temporize? Tomorrow, the Obama administration may be exposed and gravely weakened by some new crisis domestic or foreign. Perhaps it will be the scandal of an Iranian nuclear test? Or maybe the White House will sink into full-blown Watergate mode due to "IRS" or some other domestic crisis? In the meantime, Netanyahu needs to keep on bobbing and weaving and also to play some games with Mahmoud Abbas, just as Abbas is in a similar sense also playing some of the same sort of games with both Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

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