Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that he will not be agreeing to a freeze in building Jerusalem. Let the next round begin.
The Mimouna celebrations, a traditional North African Jewish holiday held a day after Passover has long become a chance for politicians to promote themselves amidst traditional cakes and sweets.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took part in the celebrations at the Fahima Family in Or Akiva, said, “We’ll continue to build in the north, south and Jerusalem.”
One thing I absolutely don’t ascribe to is the notion that Obama is distancing America from Israel so that Israel won’t attack the Iranian nuclear reactors. There’s really no need to do that, as it seems the Obama administration is absolutely feckless in its Iran policy and has been pretty much from the get-go, when he declared in a presidential debate that he would sit down with Ahmadinejad with no preconditions.
So the question now will be: What is Obama going to do now? Passover is over and he hasn’t gotten the response he requested from the Netanyahu administration. Obama is doing damage control among Jewish organizations, which happen to be one of the biggest financial contributors to the Democratic party and candidates—and which have been cutting off the funds since the Obama full-court press on Israel began. (Special note to the Obama administration: Americans really aren’t as stupid as you think we are. When you say there was no crisis, that the media reports are wrong—after David Axelrod went on the Sunday talk shows to huff about the “insult” Netanyahu gave—we don’t believe you.)
I think that given the pushback of the last few weeks, the Obama administration will not be publicly calling out Netanyahu. It’s all going to be behind the scenes now. And I don’t think Obama is going to succeed in getting Israel to stop building apartments in Ramat Shlomo. Nor do I think that Israel will be agreeing to final status issues up front.
Obama may want to count an Israel-Palestinian peace deal among the accomplishments of his administration, but I don’t think he can bully Israel into it. He has far too much trouble right here at home right now. The Tea Party movement is more popular than the president.
IMHO, Obama’s handlers are starting to get nervous about Jewish support for the upcoming 2010 mid term elections, and his 2012 re-election chances. If however, he wins in 2012, the gloves will really come off in his attitude towards Israel. What we witnessed a few short weeks ago, will be mild compared to his future directed state department negative actions towards Israel. Some of the sheep are beginning to wake up, and many more will do so soon. I, and many in my family have been lifelong democrats and voted 100% that way previously, but now that the donkeys have been taken over by the left wing haters of Israel, we support the true friends of Israel and the Jewish people, the Republican candidates!