Our leaders celebrated Independence Day by singing and giving speeches. But the morning after, they awoke to discover that not a single problem had disappeared amid the smoke of the ubiquitous barbecues.
On the eve of Israel's 62nd birthday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to give an interview to a foreign media outlet, ABC-TV, and was asked once again about the demands of U.S. President Barack Obama to stop construction in East Jerusalem. And, if we can judge by what he said in that interview about construction in Jerusalem, and by what The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, Netanyahu has made his choice. He will be keeping his current coalition - with Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas and Likud. He is better off losing Labor and distributing its portfolios to defectors from Kadima than he would be disengaging from his natural allies, Avigdor Lieberman and Eli Yishai, and becoming hostage to Tzipi Livni. "I am not about to place myself in the hands of Kadima," he says, appalled, to anyone who is pressing him to take the plunge.
As of this writing - Thursday morning - Israel had not officially replied to the United States. However, a member of Netanyahu's circle this week said that Obama and his staff already have a clear idea of the direction things will take. According to this source, vigorous contacts have been underway in the past few weeks between the Prime Minister's Bureau and the White House over Washington's demands. A report on Thursday claimed that an Obama envoy is in Israel and is holding intensive talks with Netanyahu's top aides, Yitzhak Molcho and Ron Dermer.
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If so, I asked the source, perhaps this is what motivated former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, an adviser to Obama's envoy George Mitchell, to write an article critical of Israel and then to grant a quite brutal, albeit instructive, interview to Army Radio on Wednesday?
"Maybe," the source replied, "but the day before that, an official no less important than Indyk - I am referring to Rahm Emanuel - gave an interview and said exactly the opposite, in both style and substance, about the relations between the two countries and the two leaders."
remainder:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164751.html