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Israel-Palestine-Jordan | ||||||
Israel shocked by Obama's "betrayal" of Mubarak | ||||||
2011-02-01 | ||||||
"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak," he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East." Newspaper columnists were far more blunt. One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks. Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?" "The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."
"Jordan and Saudi Arabia see the reactions in the West, how everyone is abandoning Mubarak, and this will have very serious implications," Haaretz daily quoted one official as saying. Egypt, Israel's most powerful neighbor, was the first Arab country to make peace with the Jewish state, in 1979. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed the treaty, was assassinated two years later by an Egyptian fanatic. It took another 13 years before King Hussein of Jordan broke Arab ranks to made a second peace with the Israelis. That treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated one year later, in 1995, by an Israeli fanatic. There have been no peace treaties since. Lebanon and Syria are still technically at war with Israel. Conservative Gulf Arab regimes have failed to advance their peace ideas. A hostile Iran has greatly increased its influence in the Middle East conflict. "The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named. "Right now it doesn't look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel."
"Throughout Asia, Africa and South America, leaders are now looking at what is going on between Washington and Cairo. Everyone grasps the message: "America's word is worthless ... America has lost it." | ||||||
Posted by:Steve White |
#6 Rjschwarz, how about a world war within 5 years? It's a slo-mo trainwreck. One can see it coming, but because of the sheer mass of its kinetic energy, nothing anyone can do. |
Posted by: twobyfour 2011-02-01 15:56 |
#5 During Carter it wasn't just Iran. The Soviets smelled weakness and supported trouble in Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, Ethipia, Somalia, Afganistan, Nicaragua and El Salvidor. 79 was a big year. Let's hope things are better this go around. |
Posted by: Rjschwarz 2011-02-01 15:33 |
#4 Hit in the head by a clueX4. Doh. |
Posted by: Martini 2011-02-01 11:38 |
#3 As a bus driver, BO sucks. |
Posted by: JohnQC 2011-02-01 11:31 |
#2 About the only entity not thrown under the bus yet are his union connections and power base. However, in the end, even Mao had to turn on his Red Guard. |
Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-02-01 08:45 |
#1 "The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named. "Right now it doesn't look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel." A "resonating question" ....? Cluebats? |
Posted by: Besoeker 2011-02-01 03:01 |