Netanyahu Government Tells Obama What He Can Do With His Peace Plan

There can be no doubt: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not much care what President Obama thinks about negotiations with the Palestinians. He seems to be making the same mistake that Obama's opponents in the 2008 election made. He thinks Obama is a lightweight and that he can just roll him.

It's pretty incredible considering that President Obama leads the nation that is Israel's lifeline. The whole wiorld is lining up to cooperate with the new -- and incedibly popular -- President, but not the new Israeli government.

Yesterday, speaking at the White House, Obama expressed, yet again, his strong commitment to the two-state solution and added that the United States is resolved to see action now. He called on Israelis and Palestinians to take "some concrete steps all parties can take that are evidence of that resolution. The United States is going to deeply engage in this process to see if we can make progress."

The Israeli government's response: fuggetaboutit.

Today's Washington Post quotes Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as saying that "the new Israeli government will not move ahead on the core issues of peace talks with the Palestinians until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran's suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon and limit Tehran's rising influence in the region," (Post's words).

"It's a crucial condition if we want to move forward  If  we want to have a real political process with the Palestinians, then you can't have the Iranians undermining and sabotaging," Ayalon said. Israeli newspapers rreported other officials with similar rejections of Obama's entreaty.

Pretty incredible. One of the reasons Obama is so eager to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is because he understands that doing so will help the United States address the Iran issue without going to war. And here the Israeli government takes the American approach and stands it on its head. Talk about sabotaging.

I guess Netanyahu is counting on pro-Israel organizations in America to line up behind him and not Obama. He is wrong. Someone needs to tell him that Barack Obama is more important than Avigdor Lieberman and the settler bloc. Maybe it should just be Obama.