On Saturday, March 21, M.J. Rosenberg asked in his TPM blog whether Israel had intentionally subverted Obama's message.
 

Yesterday when the New York Times inexplicably gave Shimon Peres' threatening and insulting message to Iran equal play with President Obama;s, I thought it might be no coincidence.

Peres, who is an uberhawk on Iran, suddenly sends "greetings" to the Iran people urging them to rise up against their government at the same moment that Obama respectfully addressed the "Islamic Republic of Iran" with the most conciliatory US message in decades. Coincidence? Maybe.

And in an expanded version written shortly afterward for his Israel Policy Forum blog, writes that, while Israel was given advance notice of President Obama's Nowruz greeting, the White House was "furious" that Peres had interjected Israel into Obama's overture to Iran.  According to one story on the NY Times website yesterday by Helene Cooper and David Sanger:

"The Israeli government also sent a New Year's message to the Iranian people on Friday, although administration officials and Israeli officials insisted that the gestures were not part of a coordinated plan. "I know we notified allies about our message last evening," the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said, but he added that he did not know if Israel had also notified the United States ahead of time. Some experts said the fact that the American message was sent on the same day as Israel's had the potential to dilute the effect of Mr. Obama's message, by linking it to Israel, whose government has been much more hostile toward Iran."

Gibbs does not sound particularly furious to me. I wish he did, and I also wish I knew the experts who dared to actual suggest the "potential to dilute the effect" of Peres' message and why they are not being quoted in their own names.  The chilling effect of the Chas Freeman brouhaha perhaps?  If only Dennis Ross would have been subject to the same scrutiny! 

I've been monitoring this saga as it unfolds, and have very little doubt that Shimon Peres' subversion of Obama's Nowruz message was as deliberate as it was destructive.  It is also obvious that Peres' surprise address to Iranians to overthrow their elected leaders while blessing them for the new year was no sooner done than said. 

It's remarkable how fast AP (which seems to have its own hawkish foreign policy towards Iran--its version of the Obama Nowruz video was interspersed with footage of ground to air missiles taking off and scenes of Khamenei and Ahmadinjad) got the Peres story, and how quickly so many US news sources, including the NY Times, Forbes, were both able and all too willing to lump Obama's video message with that  of Peres!   Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency actually made Peres' Nowruz broadcast the main subject of the article and Obama's video greeting the also-ran.

This morning's Haaretz has an article by Barak Ravid touting the close coordination of Israeli and U.S. policymakers.  Headlined "U.S. plan for Iran: Talks alongside sanctions," it opening (verbatim!) is truly bizarre, breathtaking in its audacity, and very disturbing.  It may also help to explain the recent Nowruz battle of messages:
 

Senior U.S. officials are preparing to present President Barack Obama with a plan for dialogue with Iran on its nuclear program, including increased international sanctions against Tehran alongside dialogue.

Top Israeli and U.S. officials have been holding meetings on Iran.

The unofficial dialogue between Washington and Tehran, bitter enemies since the Islamic Revolution toppled American ally Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979, will begin within two weeks, even before Obama approves the plan:

Before Obama approves the plan?  While I'm not a conspiracy theorist by nature, IMHO you don't have to be one to be deeply troubled by the idea of "top  Israeli and U.S... officials holding meetings on Iran," coming up with a "plan" to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue, and beginning a so-called "dialogue" with Iran before President Obama even approves of the plan.

Not surprisingly, Ravid writes that "The senior U.S. official leading the American rapprochement with Iran is Dennis Ross."  During a recent visit to Washington, Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, "informed the U.S. what Israel thinks about dialogue with Iran."

Like Ross didn't already know what Israel thinks about U.S. dialogue with Iran:

1.  Start so-called dialogue quickly--and don't waste the president's time getting his input.

2.  End so-called quickly--and make sure it is unsuccessful.  Iranians are preparing for elections.  Hold out the threat that success will benefit Ahmadinejad, but don't wait for the elections to take place in June because another Hiroshima/holocaust is imminent,

3. Turn every opportunity into a danger by making sure that the conditions for any talks are unacceptable to Iran, and the outcome of these efforts at rapprochement are in Israel's interest, rather than Iran's.

4.  When meretricious excuse for real rapprochement is met with Iranian indifference or outright hostility, give Israel the green light to start dropping bombs.  

Ravid also writes:

In talks with the American officials, Israel has learned that the U.S. is planning to conduct a "parallel" approach - beginning a dialogue with Iran, while working with Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain to formulate new sanctions against Iran.

Surprise! surprise!

Furthermore:

The U.S. will coordinate its efforts with Israel and with moderate Arab states as well.

Who are we talking about here--Jordan? Egypt? Saudi Arabia?  Does that mean we can expect King Abdullah or Hosni Mubarak to upstage President Obama's next moves toward Iran with contrary messages to whatever the President is saying, and then claiming his as their own?  Or is it just Israelis who get to do that? 

Finally, Ravid's concluding sentence is priceless:

Obama said in a video message that the U.S. "administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community."

President Shimon Peres also recorded a similar message that will be aired online and on Israel Radio in Farsi.

A "similar message"?  George Orwell must be rolling over in his grave, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

BTW, it is extraordinary how quickly Iranian neutral and somewhat negative responses to President Obama's Nowruz overture got aired, and yet Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki's postive response has been ignored:

Concerning US President Barack Obama's message to Iranians on the occasion of Nowroz, Mottaki said," We are glad that Nowroz has been a source for friendship and we are pleased that Nowroz message is a message for coexistence, peace and friendship for the whole world." About Iran's participation in the Hague meeting on Afghanistan, Mottaki said that Iran has played a positive and constructive role in the past meetings to help establishment of stability and security in Afghanistan adding that Iran has always been part of solution in Afghanistan.

Didn't see it?  It doesn't meet the AP story line.