In an entry at the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy blog yesterday, George Mason University School of Law Professor David Bernstein asked, "Did the Obama Administration lie about Netanyahu?"
The issue is whether, when and how the Obama White House learned of the Israeli Prime Minister's plans to deliver a speech to the U.S. Congress. The New York Times got dragged into the discussion, and deservedly so. Additionally, Bernstein went back to 2011 to note that Netanyahu had appeared before Congress before without Team Obama howling about it. But Bernstein, and apparently others, haven't focused on what Netanyahu said in that 2011 address, and how its content almost certainly infuriated President Barack Obama, who just days earlier had declared that Israel's 1967 borders should be the starting point for any territorial negotiations in a two-state solution with a Palestinian state.
As I noted in a January 31 NewsBusters post (bolds are mine throughout this post):
... a Thursday (January 29) piece by Carl Hulse and Jeremy W. Peters ... (claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to make amends with congressional Democrats and having to explain why "the White House had been circumvented before he was invited to speak before Congress."
The use of the passive "had been circumvented" is worth flagging, as the Times pair's report never specifically identified who committed the circumvention.
The Times corrected itself the next day (the correction is at the bottom of the Times story), but still didn't say who informed the White House of Netanyahu's speech plans:
An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.
Here's where Bernstein comes in (italics are his; links are in original):
When John Boehner announced that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had accepted his invitation to address Congress, the Obama Administration reacted strongly. The criticism was not directed primarily at Boehner, who apparently did not inform the White House of the invitation until shortly before it was formally delivered, and may have acted unconstitutionally in delivering it, but against Netanyahu, for breaching diplomatic protocol by accepting the invitation from Boehner without prior coordination with the Administration.
... The story of Netanyahu’s perfidy grew to the extent that the New York Times reported, incorrectly, that Netanyahu accepted the invitation before the White House had been informed of it. The Times then (had to) issue (a) correction.
... This correction has circulated in conservative and pro-Israel circles, but doesn’t seem to have led to any followup, or any investigation by those who initially reported the opposite. ...
... All this raises the issue of why the Obama Administration chose to turn this incident into a diplomatic brouhaha. On the one hand, a foreign leader planning a visit without prior coordination with the State Department is surely unusual. On the other hand, over at American Thinker, Ed Lasky notes that a visit like this is not exactly unprecedented: “In 2011, Boehner sent a notice to the WH stating his intention to invite Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress. The White House never responded (spite? incompetence?) and Boehner proceeded to extend the invitation to Netanyahu. Netanyahu accepted the invitation and spoke. The White House did not express any outrage in 2011.”
... When informed of Boehner’s invitation (this year — Ed.), the White House publicly took a “wait and see” attitude, rather than announcing its opposition. According to Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, once the White House knew about the invitation, the Israeli government (contra [the Washington Post's Richard] Cohen and others) was in contact with U.S. government officials, in both Washington and Jerusalem. It doesn’t appear that the White House conveyed to Netanyahu that the president expected him to decline the invitation.
... the notification issue that the White House has focused on is a bit of a red herring. The White House knew about the invitation before Netanyahu accepted it, and it hardly seems worthy of a major diplomatic incident that the Israelis relied on Boehner to convey the fact of the invitation. The problem, instead, seems to be that the Administration (a) believes that Boehner and Netanyahu’s representatives in D.C. plotted the invitation behind the White House’s back; (b) Netanyahu didn’t give the White House a chance to consider whether it wanted to veto the invitation before it was made public; (c) all against a backdrop of profound mistrust, or perhaps hostility, on the part of Obama toward Netanyahu. (Let’s recall that, speaking of diplomatic protocol, this president and his top advisors have not always extended diplomatic niceties to Netanyahu).
Was the White House really blindsided by all this (is it really possible that no one in the Administration had an inkling that an invitation to Netanyahu was in the works?) Or did the Administration take the opportunity to try to drive a wedge between Netanyahu and Congressional Democrats, and to try to make Netanyahu look bad before upcoming Israeli elections?
... Let’s hope that none of this winds up interfering with what everyone seems to agree is the ultimate goal here, which is to prevent the terrorist state of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
I'm not as sure as Bernstein that keeping Iran from having nukes is everyone's ultimate goal. Marginalizing Israel, which this administration has appeared willing to do at virtually every turn, certainly runs counter to that idea.
It seems reasonable to believe that what upsets the White far more than the alleged diplomatic breaches of protocol is what Netanyahu told Congress and America in May 2011.
On May 19, days before his appearance, Obama had declared, in what he seemed to think was a ground-shifting address, that Israel should wind the clock back 44 years:
Obama calls for Israel's return to pre-1967 borders
President Barack Obama on Thursday made official the long-held but rarely stated U.S. support for a future Palestinian state based on borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
In the past, the United States has unofficially backed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict based on the borders in place prior to the war 44 years ago in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula.
In a major speech Thursday, Obama became the first president to formally endorse the policy, but he also acknowledged the need for modifications through the negotiating process due to conditions on the ground.
... In a later interview with the BBC, Obama said that "the basis for negotiations will involve looking at that 1967 border, recognizing that conditions on the ground have changed and there are going to need to be swaps to accommodate the interests of both sides."
Five days later before Congress, Netanyahu was having none of it. The New York Times coverage of his speech, especially its comparison to addresses made by Dear Leader, likely made Obama and his minions furious:
Netanyahu Gives No Ground in Congress Speech
... (Netanyahu) also said that “Jerusalem will never again be divided,” and added that Israel’s 1967 borders were not defensible. He said new boundaries would need to incorporate large blocs of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and that any peace deal would have to include an Israeli Army presence along the Jordan River.
And, he said, Israel will not negotiate with the Palestinians until Mr. Abbas abandons the recently negotiated unity agreement between his Fatah party and Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza and has refused to accept Israel’s right to exist.
Mr. Netanyahu was granted a grand platform before a joint meeting of Congress, and his speech had many of the trappings of a presidential State of the Union address. With elections coming up next year, the lawmakers appeared eager to demonstrate their support for Israel as part of an effort to secure backing from one of the country’s most powerful constituencies, American Jews.
Netanyahu's speech basically ended all serious talk of Israel returning to its 1967 borders.
The Obama administration's current ginned-up anger and outrage are likely an attempt to prevent a repeat of Netanyahu's 2011 success — especially since, as has become obvious to those who follow New Media in recent weeks (but not to those who don't), its apparatchiks are in Israel working to have him defeated in the upcoming Israeli elections.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
