Obama Writes That As “Defender Of Jews,” Netanyahu Justified Almost Anything

Former President Barack Obama, in a new memoir, details what The Times Of Israel (Nov. 13, 2020) calls “fresh details of his often tense relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and AIPAC and complains that any criticism of Jerusalem makes one suspect of anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic sentiments.”

In his memoir, Obama criticizes both Netanyahu and AIPAC for working to rally domestic opposition to his policies concerning Israel as well as his efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program. In the book, “A Promised Land,” Obama describes Netanyahu as “smart, canny, tough and a gifted communicator” who used his knowledge of American politics and the media to resist administration policies with which he disagreed.

He writes: “Netanyahu’s vision of himself as the chief defender of the Jewish people against calamity allowed him to justify almost anything that would keep him in power.” He recalls being told by Rahm Emanuel, his first chief of staff as he took office, “You don’t get progress on peace when the American president and the Israeli prime minister come from different political backgrounds.”

Regarding AIPAC, Obama charges that its positions moved to the right in accordance with the political shift in Israel, “even when Israel took actions that were contrary to U.S. policy.” He laments that politicians who “criticized Israel policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly ‘anti-Semitic) and were confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.”

Obama says that he was the subject of a “whisper campaign” that sought to portray him as “insufficiently supportive —-or even hostile toward—-Israel” during the 2008 presidential race. He recalls that, “On Election Day, I’d end up getting more than 70 per cent of the Jewish vote, but as far as many AIPAC board members were concerned, I remained suspect, a man of divided loyalties., someone whose support for Israel, as one of campaign manager David Axelrod’s friends colorfully put it, wasn’t ‘felt in his kishkes,’ ‘guts’ in Yiddish.”

When it comes to the question of establishing a Palestinian state, he notes that many members of Congress were reticent to publicly address this question, out of concern that they would lose support from AIPAC supporters or donors. He also addresses his push for Israel to freeze settlement construction as part of his efforts to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Negotiations resumed briefly at the end of the ten-month freeze, which began in 2010, but was aborted and the moratorium was not extended. Obama says it was “reasonable” to ask Israel to take such a step “as it was the stronger party.” However, “as expected, Netanyahu’s reaction was sharply negative.” During this time, he says, he came under pressure from Netanyahu’s American allies. He writes that, “The White House phones started ringing off the hook with supporters and Jewish leaders wondering why we were picking on Israel.”

Netanyahu, writes Obama, was guilty of “an orchestrated push” against his administration which, he says, underscored that normal policy differences with an Israeli prime minister exacted a domestic political cost. **