Olmert Slams Condi... Advanced Classes in Chutzpah
Speaking in southern Israel today, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert revealed details of a call he apparently placed to President Bush which led to the US changing its vote on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1860 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and boasting how he had "shamed" the US secretary of state and laid down the law with the president (full report below). AIPAC has also slammed the Bush administration for not vetoing U.N. SCR 1860, as MJ noted earlier.
The first thing to say is that a ceasefire is vital and the
U.N. resolution if it helps deliver an end to the violence, rocket-fire and the
human suffering, the opening of the blockade on Gaza, and the prevention of
weapon smuggling, then it is an important contribution worthy of support.
Secondly, Secretary Rice would do best to respond to this act of chutzpah by
using her remaining week in office to actually get that resolution implemented
and deliver a meaningful ceasefire package - she can still do it and go out on
a higher note than having been "Colin Powell"-ed by her own president at the U.N.
and dissed by a foreign leader. But the real point is this: what Olmert said is
more than just mind-boggling chutzpah - it is deeply irresponsible, insulting
and will be a boomerang for
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice was left shamefaced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain
in a key U.N. vote on the
"She was left shamed...a
resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in
favor," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of
"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favor," Olmert said.
"I said 'get me President Bush
on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in
"I told him the
I have been outspokenly supportive of many of the things
Olmert has courageously said as PM of
- This
episode will play out for a very long time in the Arab world and its media,
and it will be used to confirm every conspiracy and stereotype about the
tail wagging the dog when it comes to
- This
is not a way to publicly treat your friends. What example does this set
for
- How is
this likely to affect the hand-over of power in the
- When world leaders take phone calls from their Israeli counterparts and are convinced to take on-board an Israeli position and act on it, should they now always expect to be similarly publicly humiliated?
"This is not a way to publicly treat your friends."
I hope that my country has at least enough self-respect left in our "special relationship" with Israel to hack Olmert's balls off on this one (in public or behind the scenes.)
As an American, his words offend me to the core. Honestly, after all these decades of support, THIS is the kind of thing that Israeli PM's talk about behind closed doors?! God, if I could get my own hands around that doucebag's throat....
Note to Israelis: The only reason you have an ounce of swagger is because WE give it to you.
January 12, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who said they were "friends"?
January 13, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is beyond belief and utterly believable.
As BBpdx says, Israel gets it swagger because it gets it from the US. And its chutzpah.
If we had public financing of campaigns, both the swagger and the chutzpah would be gone.
But, with even Al Franken, going all supine at AIPAC's feet, you have to know that only public financing will solve this problem.
As for Condi, she had to contend with people in her own administration who put our country second. That must have been....strange.
January 12, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Silly me, I thought that Dubya was "The Decider."
January 13, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
When is some American president finally going to stand up for the dignity of the American government against that presumptuous little state on the Mediterranean, and reassert the natural order of things?
January 12, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"When is some American president finally going to stand up for the dignity of the American government against that presumptuous little state on the Mediterranean, and reassert the natural order of things"?
Fair question Dan (although I might pose it a tad differently ;)), and one I have pondered for years. The answer, I think, is when there is a coalition of Americans who have credibility with the American people in terms of how they cast their challenge to that pesty little blip on the map half way around the world. Until then, there will be little change in American foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel, unless someone like PE Obama paves the way for the emergence of the type of coalition about which I speak. For now, Israel's best friends in America and throughout the world remain those who love her most and those who loathe her most. The remaining great swath of Americans, like most Israelis, remain ambivalent. (h/t to Jeffrey Goldberg into h/t to Bradley Burston).
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/can_people_die_from_ambivalenc.php
January 12, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read this and at the same time keep in mind Olmert's brave speech about the need for Israel to make the necessary concessions in order to edge towards a two state solution.
I guess that on balance I still place more emphasis on that speech. This chest thumping is pathetic but the speech is still out there.
January 12, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This time bush fried the rice.
January 12, 2009 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
....after olmert burned the bush
January 12, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Outstanding!
January 12, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Splendid!
January 12, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for continuing to post here when you have the time. I look forward to your posts, as not once have you failed to deliver useful analysis for grown-ups on the I-P issue, and not once have I seen you pander to the inflammatory response audience segment, though doing so might make you a more "popular" um "blogger."
January 12, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Levy is a teacher, indeed.
January 12, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, this gives 'A Clean Break' a twist, indeed.
January 12, 2009 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If only it could spur the ongoing administration..."
to, as the saying goes, "not let friends drive drunk".
I'm fascinated to note the word 'shame' appears twice attributed to Olmert about Rice. Shame is exactly what Israel is lacking, and being shamed by its friends could be what it truly wants beneath the swagger. Perhaps Obama will speak up more clearly against the immorality of nation states.
January 12, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In unguarded moments, even top
AIPAC figures have confirmed such claims. The New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg
quoted Steven Rosen, AIPAC's former foreign-policy director who is now
awaiting trial on charges of passing top-secret Pentagon information to Israel,
as saying, "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the
signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.""
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/16/aipac/
January 13, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not go overboard. M. d'Olmert must have demanded a veto, not a mere abstention.
Happy days.
January 13, 2009 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
In 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign after he was tape recorded boasting about his political influence in obtaining aid for Israel. Steiner also claimed to be "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration over who Clinton would appoint as Secretary of State and Director of the National Security Agency. [19]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC#Controversies
Nancy Pelosi similarly stated that "America and Israel share an unbreakable bond: in peace and war; and in prosperity and in hardship."
January 13, 2009 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
And so AIPAC still continues to run the US and the world looks on in astonishment as 303 million Americans meekly accept instructions from this counter democratic pressure group the (original) American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. Not only do they accept instructions on how to run their country but they allow their valuable tax dollars to be used to support the AIPAC agenda. As Bush and Rice jump so do ordinary Americans in what is claimed to be a democracy. I guess my concept of democracy is a little different from the American model.
January 13, 2009 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Incidents like this, coupled with Bush's strange, unreality-based "exit interview" yesterday, explain a lot of quirkiness of the past eight years. Bush is kind of a... fanatic without a cause, a thoughtlessly violent but thoroughly empty shell into which any forceful personality can pour policy and directives that may be counterproductive to this country - or just plain unhinged. His administration has bounced pinball-like around the bloody landscape of the Mideast, following illogic and superstitious intuition, disaster and deceit. Crazy! In the last week of this atrocious jackass' presidency, we can catch our breath and fantasize about a tell-all book eventually produced by Ms. Rice. If she isn't embittered about being kicked around by AIPAC, the Pentagon psychotics and Bush's White House cabal, she has the patient durability of Gandhi (if not his moral clarity). And, wow, the bodies she could dig up, the skeletons she could rattle!
January 13, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is such a fascinating speech, revealing so much about Olmert, about American-Israeli relations and about blind hubris. Wonder if I'll see it covered in the MSM?
January 13, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Poor Israel. Now it's emerging that Olmert's arrogance is a result of a fight over who gets to take credit for wagging the dog, and he's not even running for PM:
"Anger at Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for taking credit for forcing Rice to change her intention to back the resolution was behind the Prime Minister's boast, according to Channel 1 television newswoman Ayala Hasson.
However, White House spokesman Gordon Johndore said, "I have seen these press reports, they are inaccurate."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Tuesday that the Prime Minister's comments "are wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation, just 100 percent, totally, completely not true." He suggested that the Israeli government clarify the remarks.
McCormack, who was with Rice at the U.N., added, "She was not at all embarrassed or ashamed of the actions that we took. Secretary Rice's recommendation and inclination — the entire time — was to abstain.... This idea that somehow she was turned around on this issue is 100-percent completely untrue." However, she cancelled a press conference before the vote and hurriedly spoke with President Bush, delaying the vote until she returned and abstained.
All media reports agree that Bush trumped Rice's intentions, but Livni and Olmert, who never have been the closest of friends, each tried to take the credit.
At this week's Cabinet meeting, she complained to Prime Minister Olmert after Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) criticized her for failing to convince the U.S. to veto the U.N. motion. Hasson reported that Prime Minister Olmert ordered the minister not to deal with politics while a war is going on.
The following morning, Livni told Voice of Israel government radio that she spoke with Rice last Friday night and secured a promise that she would abstain in the vote.
Hasson said that when Prime Minister Olmert heard of her comments, he took the opportunity in a speech in Ashkelon to brag about how he personally interrupted President Bush with a phone call.
"I said, 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" he explained. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I did not care: 'I need to talk to him now.' He got off the podium and spoke to me."
He later told the Associated Press, "She was left pretty embarrassed."
McCormack's comments were challenged by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki, who said that he was told that the U.S. would back the resolution."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129412
Yeah, let's all get behind these fools and support their fucking genocidal war of self-defense. Let's excuse their warcrimes and send them more of our lethal weaponry to test on the citizens of Gaza.
Let's have some more resolutions in Congress expressing our deep sympathy and support for the plucky lil' pesky country and it's courageous leadership and while we're at it, approve of a couple of billion more US tax dollars to pay for this abomination.
After all, Israel has sworn to pay for the veterinary care for pets injured by Hamas rockets among other costs incurred by the Chanukah War.
January 13, 2009 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink