POLITICS-The title of this piece probably would make a lot of you presume a reference to last November's elections...and you would be wrong--for the most part.
I'm not talking about the November 2014 elections where the GOP took a commanding hold over Congress, and then the President started using executive power in ways heretofore not seen in recent memory (if ever) on immigration and foreign policy.
I'm talking about the elections in what is often referred to as "America's 51st state": Israel.
Things are often said during elections by politicians that do whatever it takes to win by getting out their most favorable portions of the electorate, and most voters know this--but when someone apologizes and tries to make nice after the elections to reach out to all parties (including to those who lost), that should mean something.
Depending on what was said, an apology need not be accepted by the losers...but it is a gesture of conciliation.
One of our President Obama's best moments was when he won the election in 2008 he would also remember to represent those who didn't vote for him. Another one of his best moments was when (at his last State of the Union address) he encouraged and end to politicking, and promised not to do anymore of it himself.
Unfortunately, despite the dogged opinion of those who still cling to him in desperation, the President has continued to unapologetically play politics, choose one side over the other, and encourage demonization and belittling of anyone who disagrees with him...including the recent Israeli elections, which was not in the U.S. and which was treated as if it was President Obama's own election (which it was decidedly not).
It's cute to hear the same folks who (arguably not without some justification) excoriated and trash-talked and tried to undermine former President George W. Bush call the current Iran/Nuclear Deal naysayers among the Republicans as treasonous...but--like it or not--those who hate the aforementioned Iran negotiations cite one big problem:
We're dealing with...wait for it...Iran!
Oh, yeah--THAT Iran, the one that supports terrorism all over the world, the one that has its hands all over Hezbollah (the lovelies who kidnap and kill Israelis, and the lovelies who blew up the American and French peacekeepers in Lebanon back during the Reagan Administration), the one that supports the Syrian government (think the lovely nerve gas-using Assad), the one that sponsors Hamas (yeah, THOSE guys who like to hide their weapons behind women, children and hospitals as they fire on Israel), the one that just took over Yemen (which used to be run by loyal pro-American leaders but a few weeks ago before the Iranian-supported militias there took it over), etc.
The very same Iran run by the wonderful mullah Ayatollah Khameini who keeps going with "Death to America!" for...um..."domestic consumption".
So perhaps when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks before the American Congress, the screaming about how it's up to the American President to make such an invitation should be countered by the fact that BOTH parties in Congress supported him, and BOTH parties think that the Iran deal is a really, really, REALLY bad deal.
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And when President Obama (who shows as much unveiled contempt to Netanyahu as he does to the GOP, all the while proclaiming they "need to work with him and stop being political") plays as aggressive a role as any American President has ever done in an Israeli election, perhaps he can and should understand that Netanyahu will say and do anything to get out HIS base just like Obama got out HIS own base during the 2012 re-election campaign:
1) Should anyone be happy that Netanyahu denied any two-state solution with Palestine and Israel? No.
That said, he reversed his statements right away and made it clear what BOTH major American political parties know: so long as Hamas plays a role in the Palestinian Authority, and so long as they keep trying to find new ways to tunnel and kidnaps civilians, and so long as they keep training and glorifying children to grow up and become suicide bombers, and so long as they keep talking about how Jews eat Muslim children as part of their religious practices...
There will NEVER be a Palestine, despite the fact that most Jews (certainly myself included) want a peaceful Palestine coexisting with Israel and its other neighbors (including Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, which have all kicked out the more troublesome elements of the Palestinian people over the past several decades, much to the chagrin of those Palestinians who are as civilized and worthy of a homeland as any other people).
2) Should anyone be happy that Netanyahu warned about Israeli Arabs coming out en masse to the polls? No.
That said, Netanyahu also apologized immediately thereafter--which is a heckuva lot more than President Obama did to Israel after he sent so many of his own affiliated political operatives to rile up those same Israeli Arabs and try to elect someone who would serve President Obama instead of the Israeli people.
No one reasonable should expect anyone opposed to Netanyahu to just accept his apologies and move on...but he did make the apologies in as quick and open a manner as he did by reaching out to President Obama when he spoke before Congress.
So perhaps while we're all talking and screaming about the politics and impolitic statements of Netanyahu we can also raise up President Obama...who is now strongly considering an unprecedented endrun around a Congress--straight to the United Nations--which has bipartisan opposition to a stupid deal with Iran that can only end up in chaos because we're dealing with...
Again, wait for it...Iran.
President Obama has never apologized and openly made nice to any of his domestic and Israeli opponents, and won't stop until he WINS in one way, shape or form. Not very nonpartisan, it appears--and for those who STILL believe the Iran deal is great, and the President is the victim...well, history will be as nice to you as it was to those who thought we should make nice with the former Soviet Union and the former Axis powers that tried to take over the world in the 1930's and 1940's.
Some ideas are just plain bad--and some elections are just plain divisive. But at least in Israel we have a Prime Minister who will open his mouth and apologize to try to do the right thing--neither this American President nor the last one ever did that, and we've suffered divisiveness in this nation for the past 15 years because of it.
Mr. President, the Israeli election is over (so is the November 2014 election, come to think of it). The people have spoken, even if it's not the way you wanted them to speak. But they spoke in November 2012, and you honored THAT decision.
Enough of the partisanship, Mr. President--please run the nation you are obligated to lead, not the nation and the world you WISH you had...because that nation and world doesn't exist.
The elections are over--let's have some leadership from the top. Please.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the MarkIsler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. (The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)-cw
