The severe retaliation employed by Prime Minster Netanyahu against UN Security Council temporary members Senegal, Ukraine and New Zealand were not an expression of blind rage by a smarting leader, as some on the left have explained it, but a last-ditch effort to warn these smaller countries against repeating their mistake should the Obama Administration drop the other shoe on Israel just before the January 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump, a political source said Sunday night, according to NRG.
Oleh Lyashko, leader of the Radical Party of Ukrainian, bewailed the great damage inflicted on his country with the cancellation of a state visit of Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman in Israel as a result of the Ukraine’s vote in the UN Security Council.
The Israeli PM also cancelled a meeting with the new Prime Minister of the UK and summoned US Ambassador Dan Shapiro for “clarification.”
One of the clues to the PM’s anxiety about the damage a vengeful retiring president can still inflict on the Jewish State is the un-delivered speech by Secretary of State John Kerry. In his Dec. 22 press briefing, Dept. Spokesperson John Kirby, referring to the Egyptian delegation last Thursday pulling its proposed anti-settlements resolution, said that “the Secretary was preparing to deliver some remarks today about a vision for the Middle East and certainly the Middle East peace process itself. And he decided that, in light of the postponement of the vote, that it would be prudent for him to postpone his remarks as well. I’m not going to preview the remarks with any specificity, beyond just saying that it certainly was going to be about the Middle East and the process.”
Kirby explained that the Kerry “vision speech” was timed “in concert with what we expected to be a vote today, […] and in light of the fact that the vote has been postponed, he’s decided to postpone his remarks.”
He then stressed that “it doesn’t mean that it has to be done on the same particular day, but that’s the timing that we chose to pursue. And if and when the Secretary delivers those remarks, we’ll certainly keep you apprised and let you know.”
Netanyahu knows that Kerry is eager to give his vision speech, because of all the failures of his four years in office, which have inflicted hundreds of thousands of deaths on the region, his failure to bestow peace on Israel and the PA wounded him the worst. The outgoing secretary invested so much time, effort, and personal prestige in forcing that peace deal down the Israeli rightwingers’ throats – his ticket to a Nobel peace prize – he hates to walk away without any permanent achievement.
President Obama, too, is smarting, as he prepares to see much of his signature achievements being reversed by the next Congress and the Republican Administration. He can’t give it to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has outplayed him everywhere, most notably in influencing the US election, establishing his control over eastern Ukraine, and ramming through Syria in support of its homicidal President Assad. But he, Obama, can punish Prime Minister Netanyahu for eight years of bad blood.
This is why Netanyahu has been lashing at those temporary UNSC members, literally cutting them off from every bit of technological advantage with which Israel has endowed them. But it isn’t just Israel –Netanyahu’s message is also a hint that by voting against Israel, should the opportunity come up again, they could raise the ire of Obama’s replacement.
That was, most likely, the message President-Elect Trump delivered last Thursday to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: Don’t get stuck being messenger boy for a departing president, do business with me, the new guy. And el-Sisi blinked and withdrew.
Netanyahu’s spokesman David Keys told CNN Israel has “ironclad information, frankly, that the Obama administration really helped this resolution and helped craft it, from sources internationally and sources in the Arab world.” Keys added that the UNSC resolution was not just “deeply anti-Israel,” but represented a “last-minute jab” at Israel by the Obama administration. This means the gloves are off in the fight between Obama and the Israeli PM. No more niceties, no more pretense. The Obama White House is the enemy and it must be stopped, or at least slowed down.