After failing in a not very covert effort to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu at the ballot box, President Obama and his ideologically likeminded cohorts change strategy.

Every policy advisor in the White House has the same outlook toward Israel; they view our relationship with the Jewish state as the basis for our needed mid-East interventions.  According to U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power’s belief Israel is an occupying force which should be viewed as adversarial to U.S. policy. 

Power’s opinion is shared by the overall White House foreign policy team.  Now that Benjamin Netanyahu has won re-election, the most damaging thing the administration can do is to threaten removal of our protective relationship – which would signal to Hamas and other terror groups that it’s open season to attack.

obama-mad-550x330(Via Politico) In the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election, the Obama administration is revisiting longtime assumptions about America’s role as a shield for Israel against international pressure.

Angered by Netanyahu’s hard-line platform towards the Palestinians, top Obama officials would not rule out the possibility of a change in American posture at the United Nations, where the U.S. has historically fended off resolutions hostile to Israel.

[…] While saying it was “premature” to discuss Washington’s policy response, the official wouldn’t rule out a modified American posture at the United Nations, where the U.S. has long fended off resolutions critical of Israeli settlement activity and demanding its withdrawal from Palestinian territories.

“We are signaling that if the Israeli government’s position is no longer to pursue a Palestinian state, we’re going to have to broaden the spectrum of options we pursue going forward,” the official said.

[…]  Obama officials must now decide whether more international pressure on Israel can help bring a conservative Netanyahu-led government back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians — or whether such pressure would simply provoke a defiant reaction, as some fear.

Obama has other diplomatic options. He could expend less political capital to oppose growing momentum within the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel for its settlement activity.

More provocative to Israel would be any softening of Obama’s opposition to Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority will formally join on April 1. Under a law passed by Congress, any Palestinian bid to bring war crimes charges against Israel at the court will automatically sever America’s $400 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some experts suggested Obama could find indirect ways to continue some funding — even if only to prevent a dangerous collapse of the Palestinian governing body. (read more)

Samantha Power - Susan Rice - President Obama

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