U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to chew him out for Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s remarks that the Obama administration’s foreign policy is so weak that Israel cannot depend on it to stop Iran from gaining access to a nuclear weapon.
“Secretary Kerry spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning and protested to him his concerns about these comments,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at the daily press briefing in Foggy Bottom.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has said that the breadth of our security cooperation is unprecedented,” Psaki said.
“So it is certainly confusing to us why Defense Minister Ya’alon would continue his pattern of making comments that don’t accurately represent the scope of our close partnership on a range of security issues and on the enduring partnership between the United States and Israel.”
Ya’alon stated in a speech at Tel Aviv University Monday night, “If we wished others would do the work for us, it wouldn’t be done soon, and therefore in this matter, we have to behave as if we can only rely on ourselves. Weakness certainly does not pay in the world. No one can replace the U.S. as the world’s policeman. I hope the U.S. will come to its senses.”
The White House was furious at an ally such as Israel publicly stating the fact that the United States of America is not what it used to be, as The Jewish Press reported here this morning.
White House Jay Carney said Ya’alon’s comments were “clearly not constructive” and, of course, the United States “maintains an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security.”
Since Carney was so upset, it follows that his boss, Barack Obama, would complain to Netanyahu and not to leave it to Kerry, who has as much respect by most Israeli government ministers as Obama has in the Tea party. Even the Israeli public, usually enthralled at anything American, is fed up with Kerry.
Sixty-four percent of Israelis do not trust Kerry to take Israel’s security into account as a “crucial factor” in the framework peace proposal he is trying to shove down the throats of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, according to a recent “Peace Index: poll by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University.
Obama may be a failure in foreign policy, but he is not an idiot. He has no self-defense, so why should he feign punches with Netanyahu when he can let Kerry be the fall guy?