{"id":2179204,"date":"2024-02-18T05:27:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T10:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/when-obamas-dreams-became-bibis-nightmares\/"},"modified":"2024-02-18T05:36:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T10:36:00","slug":"when-obamas-dreams-became-bibis-nightmares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/when-obamas-dreams-became-bibis-nightmares\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama&#8217;s dreams turned into Bibi&#8217;s nightmares"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhen-obamas-dreams-became-bibis-nightmares%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2179204&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>The \u2062United States and Israel: A Complex Relationship<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The United\u200d States and Israel have a special relationship\u200c predicated \u200con shared values \u200cand similar democratic principles. As Ari Harow documents in <i>My Brother\u2019s Keeper<\/i>, that relationship \u2063was\u2062 sorely tested during the Obama administration. Harow, a\u2063 former chief of staff and adviser\u200d to Israeli\u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/uk-govt-lockdown-to-last-12-months-expect-repeated-vaccinations\/\" title=\"UK Govt: Lockdown to Last 12+ Months, Expect Repeated Vaccinations\">prime minister<\/a> Benjamin Netanyahu, offers an insider\u2019s account of a transformational period for both \u200dnations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Barack Obama was sworn in as the\u2063 44th \u200dU.S. president on Jan.\u200b 20, 2009.\u2064 Less than three months later, Benjamin Netanyahu assumed the \u2063office of prime minister. The two men had some things in common: Both \u2063are media savvy and renowned orators with keen political instincts. Both had experienced rapid \u2063political ascents. Both \u2064were, in \u2062their own ways, titanic figures capable of inspiring both admiration and animosity. But here \u200bthe similarities end.<\/p>\n<p>Long before he entered politics, Netanyahu\u200c was a soldier, a combat veteran of Sayeret Matkal, an elite special forces\u200d unit. By \u2064the time he took\u200b office, Netanyahu already\u200d had\u2062 a long political \u2064career, including\u200d serving as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/progressive-house-lawmaker-apologizes-for-racist-state-comment-targeting-israel\/\" title=\"Progressive lawmaker apologizes for offensive remark about Israel\">prime\u2064 minister<\/a> from 1996\u2062 to 1999, and had held a variety of cabinet posts. He\u200c had nearly three decades of political experience.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Obama had\u200c never been\u200d in the\u200d military and had served a mere four years in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, both leaders\u200b were \u200cproducts of very different \u200csystems. The representative nature of American politics meant that Obama had to be \u2063a master\u200d at campaigning. Netanyahu, however, had to answer\u200b to the Likud \u200bmembership. As Harow notes, Netanyahu was a &#8220;soldier, someone who spent years being groomed for\u2062 his higher calling and who \u200bhad learned survival in the\u2063 unforgiving trenches of the Israeli political system.&#8221; The Israeli premier \u200b&#8221;wasn\u2019t stiff or \u200cremoved, but he \u200cwasn\u2019t \u200bObama.&#8221; Indeed, &#8220;in the \u2062internal scheme of things, he didn\u2019t have\u200d to be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet,\u2063 these different backgrounds were not\u200b what drove tensions\u200d during the Obama years. In fact, the history of U.S.-Israel relations is characterized by leaders who \u200dare \u2064often \u200dmore dissimilar than alike. For example, Yitzhak\u200d Rabin and Bill Clinton enjoyed a good relationship and one would be hard-pressed to think of men as different as the tight-lipped \u200dsoldier-statesman\u200c and \u200dthe famously gregarious, glad-handing former \u200cgovernor of \u200cArkansas.<\/p>\n<p>As Harow makes clear, the root of the divide that emerged\u200d had less to do with relations between \u2063the leaders\u2062 themselves and more to \u200cdo \u200dwith their differing\u200d aims \u2062and\u200b objectives.<\/p>\n<p>Obama sought rapprochement \u2062with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-biden-gives-up-u-s-leverage-over-iran-offers-to-restart-nuclear-deal-talks\/\" title=\"BREAKING: Biden Gives Up U.S. Leverage Over Iran, Offers To Restart Nuclear Deal Talks\">leading state sponsor<\/a> of terrorism that calls for Israel\u2019s annihilation and another genocide of Jews. The mullahs sponsored, trained, and\u200b funded terrorist groups committed\u200d to Israel\u2019s\u2063 destruction and \u200dvowed to wipe Israel &#8220;off the map.&#8221; It is hard to \u200bimagine any mainstream, electable Israeli leader quietly acceding to \u200ca\u200d longtime partner and\u2062 ally feting\u200c a nation committed to its destruction.<\/p>\n<p>As a presidential candidate, Obama had promised to &#8220;never seek in any way to compromise Israel\u2019s security,&#8221; but the policies that he \u2062pursued as\u200d president would\u200d do \u200bprecisely that. It was, in\u200b fact, \u2064clear from the beginning\u200b that\u2064 Obama sought to change the U.S.-Israel relationship.<\/p>\n<p>In their first meeting \u2064as \u2064leaders of their respective countries, Obama\u2064 asked to speak with Netanyahu privately. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes. Afterwards, Netanyahu would tell Harow: &#8220;Ari, we\u2019re in trouble.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As Harow recounts: \u200b&#8221;The president told him in \u200can emphatic\u2064 tone that he wanted a \u200dtotal building freeze in the West Bank,&#8221; using \u200dthe phrase &#8220;not one brick.&#8221; It was, he notes, \u200d&#8221;diplomatic-speak\u200b that was\u2063 just about as nuanced as a sledge-hammer blow, and it foreshadowed an impending seismic fissure \u2064in the U.S.-Israeli bilateral\u200b paradigm that had become a full-fledged operational alliance after 9\/11, with Israel assuming a leading role in the global war on terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli premier \u200chad &#8220;wanted \u200bthis trip to\u2064 launch a productive and positive new\u200c beginning for the two new administrations&#8221; only to find\u2063 that it &#8220;had not \u200dstarted as\u200b planned,&#8221; as \u200cHarow understatedly puts it.<\/p>\n<p>As his presidential memoirs would later \u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.camera.org\/article\/obamas-memoirs-malign-israel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reveal<\/a>, Obama holds several beliefs about Israel and the Middle \u2064East that simply\u2062 aren\u2019t true, including\u200b the common \u200cmisconception that &#8220;settlements&#8221;\u2014Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people\u2019s ancestral\u200d homeland\u2014are a chief source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian leaders, from the ruling Fatah movement in\u200b the West Bank to Hamas in\u2064 the Gaza Strip, consider all of Israel to\u2063 be a &#8220;settlement&#8221;\u2014and they routinely say as much \u2062in their media and\u200c educational\u2062 textbooks. It is \u200dfor this reason that Palestinian leaders\u2064 have rejected numerous <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/beset-on-all-sides\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">offers<\/a> for \u2063statehood in exchange for peace \u200cwith Israel.<\/p>\n<p>In\u2064 many \u200drespects, Obama\u2019s\u200c emphasis on &#8220;settlements&#8221; as a root cause of \u200dthe conflict was a throwback: a reversion to decades of \u2064failed approaches \u200cpushed by the U.S. State Department and presidential administrations of \u2063various political stripes.<\/p>\n<p>But by the time Obama took \u2063office, the U.S.-Israel relationship was arguably at a historic high, thanks in\u2062 large part to shared objectives during the \u200dwar on terror. From 2000 to\u2063 2008, Palestinian leaders rejected no fewer than \u200bthree \u200cformal \u2064offers for statehood\u2014a \u2062fact that wasn\u2019t\u200b lost on Obama\u2019s two\u2062 predecessors, \u200cBill Clinton\u200c and George W. \u200bBush. Clinton famously <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/ballot-box\/presidential-races\/279912-bill-clinton-i-killed-myself-to-give-palestinians-a-state\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a>, &#8220;I killed myself to\u2062 give the Palestinians a state,&#8221; and warned his successor not\u200b to trust Yasser \u2064Arafat. Obama, however, viewed himself as someone\u200d apart\u200c from historical realities. \u200cAs Harow\u2062 notes, Obama &#8220;wanted to \u200cbe the one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/red-francis-joins-the-cdc-and-the-who-in-pushing-covid-vaccinations\/\" title=\"Red Francis Joins the CDC and the WHO in Pushing COVID Vaccinations\">world leader<\/a> to finally settle the Israeli-Palestinian issue.&#8221; Yet, &#8220;there was a lot \u200cof \u2064bloodshed in the wake of men who dreamed\u200d of reshaping the Middle East.&#8221; To \u2064many \u200bin the region, Obama\u2019s dreams looked \u200cmore like nightmares.<\/p>\n<p>Obama\u2019s policies toward Iran would lead to real tensions\u2014and not \u200djust with Israel. The Islamic Republic is a revisionist power, committed to \u200cexporting its \u200dtwisted\u200c ideology and overthrowing the established regional\u2063 order. By reaching out to Tehran, Obama was unwittingly pushing Gulf Arab monarchies and the Jewish state closer together.\u200b This \u200bprocess would eventually culminate in the Abraham Accords under the Trump administration. Harow highlights its origins, correctly noting that Israel gained regional \u200crespect when it flexed its muscles and Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress to oppose the emerging Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Israel had recently emerged from a bloody 50-day war against Hamas, the Iranian proxy that controls the Gaza Strip. That conflict began after Hamas operatives kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers.\u200d And its characteristics\u2014bloody urban combat, extensive use of human shields, and lengthy terrorist tunnels\u2014were a harbinger of the\u2062 war that Israel fights\u200b today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Middle East,&#8221; Harow observes, &#8220;has \u200ca funny way of unraveling the dreams and best intentions of American presidents \u2026 the \u2062na\u00efve aspirations of the\u2063 blessed-are-the-peacemakers \u2062have inadvertently produced byproducts of bloodshed and\u200c anguish.&#8221; In <i>My Brother\u2019s Keeper<\/i>, Harow ably and fairly chronicles that unraveling, depicting an American presidency whose \u2062ambitions in the Middle East ran counter to the \u200cdaily realities of many of\u200d America\u2019s allies.<\/p>\n<p><em>My Brother\u2019s Keeper: Netanyahu, Obama, &#038; the Year \u2064of Terror &#038; Conflict that Changed the \u2063Middle East\u2062 Forever<\/em><br \/>  by Ari Harow<br \/> Post Hill Press, 298 pp., $30<\/p>\n<p><em>Sean Durns \u2062is a\u200b <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/anti-israel-activists-defend-biden-state-dept-nominee\/\" title=\"Anti-Israel Activists Defend Biden State Dept. Nominee\">senior research analyst<\/a> for the Committee \u2063for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> Unfortunately, this article is incomplete and there is not enough information available to further develop it. Please \u200bprovide more details or request a new topic.<\/p>\n<h2> \u200cWhat specific information is \u200cmissing from the article that \u2062prevents its further development?<\/h2>\n<p><span>  \u200d There is no specific article \u200bmentioned in\u2062 the question, so I cannot identify the missing information. Could you \u2062please provide the\u200c article or topic you are referring to<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US and Israel share values and democratic principles, forming a unique bond. Ari Harow&#8217;s book, My Brother&#8217;s Keeper, reveals how this relationship was strained under Obama&#8217;s leadership. Harow, a former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu, provides an insider&#8217;s perspective on a significant period of change<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1936,"featured_media":2179205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/president-obama-holds-bilateral-meeting-with-isreali-prime-minister-be-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/president-obama-holds-bilateral-meeting-with-isreali-prime-minister-be-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2179205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}