Netanyahu’s damage, Clinton’s response

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s job has been doubly difficult recently in the wake of the unnecessarily insulting posturing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Clinton was right when she said Israel (meaning its leader) was undermining U.S. credibility at a time of critical peace talks. She made her comments during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington on Monday.

Israel announced new housing plans recently for east Jerusalem, a decision that has been strongly criticized by the Obama administration. It only serves to underscore the icy relationship between Netanyahu and Obama.

With right-wingers in Israel painting a portrait of Obama as a stooge and agent of the Muslim world, it’s hard to imagine that relationship thawing in any realistic way. Clinton this week called Israel’s development policies on land in dispute with the Palestinians not in the country’s long-term interests.

Clinton: "Our credibility in this process depends, in part, on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don't agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally.” She was also critical of what AP called “Palestinian incitements to violence.”  She added, "We objected to this announcement because we are committed to Israel and its security, which we believe depends on a comprehensive peace.”

If such were his intention, Netanyahu could help in the future by not calling top Obama’s aides Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod “self-hating Jews,” as he did several months back.

As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently observed, “The president and his inner circle are appalled at Israel’s self-absorption and its failure to notice that America is not only protecting Israel from Iran, fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also dealing with a miasma of horrible problems at home. And Israel insults the Obama administration over a domestic zoning issue that has nothing to do with its security?”

That’s not what friends are for. Netanyahu and his American support group can vilify Obama and Clinton all they want, of course. But on the world stage that kind of rhetoric is insulting and irresponsible.

And, most importantly, none of it makes Israel any safer, a Palestinian state closer to reality, or peace any more likely to be realized.