by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 20, 2015
All Rights Reserved.

                When President Barack Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline for the second time Feb. 25, he chose to go down swinging for the remainder of his presidency.  Signing Keystone XL would have thrown the GOP an olive branch, less than two years before leaving office.  Vetoing Keystone XL signaled that the same gridlock during his first six years in office promises to continue to the end.  Losing the Nov. 4, 2014 Midterm Election, handing the Senate back to the GOP, was bound for repercussions, including a changing-of-the-guard in key Senate committees.  With Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) heading the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) heading the Foreign Relations Committee, the GOP has moved ahead to bypass the State Department to impact U.S. foreign policy.  When House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress March 3, the gloves came off.

             Republicans soured on Obama early in his first term when he signed March 23, 2010 the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act into law.  Without one Republican vote, Obama abandoned his campaign promise to serve as a post-partisan president, becoming more partisan than former President George W. Bush.  All the hopes of ending partisan gridlock crashed-and-burned signing the ACA.  Now the chickens have come back to roost with Boehner ignoring the State Department and meeting with new reelected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  GOP officials capitalized on Obama’s foreign policy inexperience, pitting the White House Mideast policy against Netanyahu and the GOP.  Since Sept. 11, Israel became a seamless U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic extremism.  Obama’s State Department no longer calls Islamic terrorism by its name, preferring to avoid the Islamic label.

             Obama’s actions on Israel present serious problems for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, closing in on her announcement to run for president in 2016.  If she adopts Obama’s bad relationship with Israel, she’ll make a solid case for electing a Republican.  Obama acts like it’s Netanyahu’s fault that Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization joined a State Department and Egyptian Foreign Ministry-branded terror group.  Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry blame Netanyahu for saying a two-state solution is no longer feasible.  White House officials expect Israel to sign a deal with Hamas, a recognized terror group.  Boehner’s decision to meet in Tel Aviv with Netanyahu further embarrasses the White House because it’s clear the State Department can’t get its act together.  Instead of siding with U.S. enemies at the U.N., the White has taken an untenable position.

             Obama hinted yesterday that the State Department might reconsider its position of vetoing anti-Israel measure in the U.N. Security Council.  While that won’t happen, even talking publicly about it makes Hillary’s foreign policy impossible without repudiating the Obama policy.  White House officials can’t admit that when Abbas joined Hamas April 23, 2014, they lost all hope for a two-state solution.  Blaming Netanyahu for Abbas joining a State Department terror group makes no sense.  With Boehner’s entourage visiting Netanyahu, it shows that the Republican-dominated Congress has zero faith in Obama’s Mideast policy.  “What has now changed is that our ally in those conversations, Israel, has indicated that they are not committed to that approach anymore,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, referring to Netanyahu—and Congress’s—belief you can’t negotiate with a terror group.

             White House officials have turned U.S-Israeli relations into a partisan issue.  If Hillary were to adopt the Obama policy, she’d pit the State Department against Israel.  Earnest knows that the day Abbas joined Hamas, the White House no longer had a Palestinian peace partner.  “The Obama administration . . . has gone off the deep end and let their personal bitterness toward the Israeli prime minister drive their public foreign policy toward our closest ally,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), putting the White House on notice that Congress no longer accepts Obama’s policy.  White House officials have played into Republican hands, demonstrating that Democrats are no longer friends of Israel, unless they’re willing to force Israel to make a peace deal with a State Department-branded terror group.  At some point it becomes obvious the White House is sabotaging Hillary’s chances of becoming president.

             White House officials completely ignore the question of how they expect Israel to sign a two-state peace deal with a recognized terror group.  Instead of working with Abbas to get Hamas to recognize Israel or separate itself again from Hamas, the White House blames Netanyahu, agreeing with the Israeli-bashers at the U.N. “This is outrageous.  It is irresponsible. It is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation made to the rights of the Jewish state of exist in peace,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate.  Creating a mess with Israel causes problems for Hillary fashioning a more coherent Mideast policy.  White House officials have no one to blame but themselves for the current rift with Netanyahu.  Instead of agreeing with the Israel-hating community, the White House should get its two-state policy right, not pressuring Israel into a deal with a terror group.

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