What folks are saying about Obama and Sarkozy’s ‘Liar’-gate
In a slightly embarrassing episode, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama were caught on a live mic dissing Benjamin Netanyahu. The French president called the Israeli prime minister “a liar,” and the American president reportedly commiserated: “I have to deal with him every day."
Although the context was Obama pushing Sarkozy to halt the Palestinian bid at the U.N., that didn't temper the criticism. The ADL slammed the exchange as "unpresidential."
Meanwhile, Republicans are making hay.
Mitt Romney was quick to take a whack at Obama over “liar"-gate.
“Overheard conversation at G-20 another sign of Obama's low regard for Israel and its leader...I will stand by our allies, not tear them down,” the Republican presidential candidate tweeted.
Sen. John McCain called the exchange “indicative of the attitude and policies that this administration has had towards Israel.”
The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl argued that world leaders don’t give Netanyahu enough credit for the accommodations he’s made. “But are their feelings justified?" he asked. Diehl doesn't think so: "Though Netanyahu has never been an easy partner for Western leaders, it’s hard to see why he would inspire so much animus from the two presidents now.”
Citing the late Irving Kristol, Diana Furchtgott-Roth bemoaned in the Daily Mail that American Jews are so liberal that Obama’s words won’t translate into a mass exodus from the President: “What else will Obama have to say to get Jews to change their votes?”
Also in The Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen notes that this isn’t the first time that the “L” word has been used in reference to Bibi:
When it comes to Netanyahu, Obama is part of a throng of people — Israelis much more than Americans — who finds the man overbearing and duplicitous. Now we know Sarkozy feels the same way. If the peace process is affected by all this, then the fault is not Obama’s or Sarkozy’s, but Netanyahu’s. In the fractious Middle East, he is about the only thing world leaders can agree on.
Meanwhile, Media Matters points out that the president’s attackers are ignoring that the conversation took place while Obama was plugging for pro-Israel policies.
And Adam Kredo over at Washington Jewish Week tries to see both sides:
By talking smack about Bibi, Obama could be saying that he's simply fed-up with what he views as an obstructionist Israeli government. However, I don't see that in Obama's pithy comments. In all likelihood, Obama is expressing his frustration with Netanyahu himself -- a leader who's been known to be quite difficult to handle.
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Netanyahu addressed the UN and called it a dark place filled with lies - which is the truth. He stated plainly to Obama in a press conference that Israel would never return to the 67 borders and that those borders were indefensible, and rehearsed the real history behind Israel’s struggle simply to survive in a genocidally oriented Middle East - which is the truth. He said that Israel has tried time and again to sit down to serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and it is they who refuse, and even try to impose conditions that require Israel’s self-destruction - which is the truth. He said that Obama tried to force on Israel a freeze on “settlements” within Jerusalem that no previous administration had done, breaking previous commitments - which is the truth. All of these are truths that Obama, Sarkozy, the EU and the UN routinely deny, in Orwellian fashion. For some pointed further comment on the “Liar!” claim from Europeans who are systematically lying themselves into social and economic collapse, see David Spengler’s amusing post “What does Sarkozy mean by the term ‘liar’?” at http://pjmedia.com/spengler.
In short, if you fearlessly tell the inconvenient truth to power, the powerful call you “Liar!” Netanyahu has shown up both Obama and Sarkozy too many times simply by standing up for Israel and telling it like it is. He becomes hard to bear for them: he is right, and they are wrong. We see it again in regard both to the Palestinian attempts to declare themselves a state unilaterally at the UN, which Netanyahu says directly and grossly violates and invalidates the Oslo Accords—which is the truth—and in regard to the need for Obama and Europe to end the palaver and actually to stop Iran’s extremely dangerous nuclear program —which is the truth. Obviously that rubs many leaders the wrong way. It is easier to blame Netanyahu than to face the truths he refuses to shut up about.
One last comment: why is it that we never hear about Mahmud Abbas (or for that matter Yasser Arafat) being called a “liar” by American and European leaders? Why is it, if those leaders think that Abbas and Erekat, etc., are in fact constantly lying (as they are), we never get “leaks” to the media of private conversations by political figures and diplomats that say so?
For example, Abbas has said (echoing of course Yasser Arafat’s claim, which is the official Palestinian position) that the Temple Mount was never a Jewish holy site, and the Temple never existed in Jerusalem—it was always a mosque, even before the rise of Islam. Even the Western Wall, according to Abbas and co., is not an authentic Jewish holy site, and under Palestinian administration might well be made a Muslim shrine from which Jews would be permanently excluded, as has been Muslim policy on the Temple Mount itself, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron, and all other Jewish holy sites in “Palestine.” Why do not Western leaders make “private comments” about that, that end up merely accidentally leaked to the media? Food for thought.
My take at the BJPA blog: this is only a gaffe in tone, not in substance. What it really shows is that President Obama is working behind the scenes for Israel’s interests. http://www.bjpa.org/blog/index.cfm/2011/11/8/The-ObamaSarkozy-Gaffe-Proves-Obama-Strong-For-Israel
What we have lacked in the reports of this “private exchange of views” between Obama and Sarkozy is precisely the larger context and other comments overheard, in media reports. It is a matter of course that reporters with their own well-established agendas will edit the remarks to suit their own preferences. We still do not know just what Sarkozy was commenting on with his “liar” accusation, but Seth’s blog article begins to fill in the gaps, and it is reassuring. His “take” does help to redeem Obama a bit, and is a welcome corrective. (I don’t think Seth is correct, though, to allege that “right-wing” supporters of Israel are pleased with the anti-Netanyahu comment of Obama. They are not so partisan as to wish ill for US-Israel relations. They deplore Obama’s too often inept and unsympathetic initiatives and views, now shown up again despite Seth’s persuasive caveats.) Any more information about the actual conversation and Sarkozy’s own responses?
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Geoffrey Dennis
11/09/11 03:12 PM
What both men said there olitically awkward, but epistomolically true. Whether I support a given policy or not, Bibi’s a two-faced, pompous humbug.