Dreyfuss: Netanyahu's Boorish Performance

Robert Dreyfuss

The Nation - Say what you want about President Barack Obama’s Middle East speech last week—that he didn’t address Jerusalem and the Palestinians’ right to return, and that he merely restated what has long been US policy in regard to Israel’s 1967 borders—at the very least the president has changed the subject, and in a positive way. Since 2009, in US-Israeli relations, most of the talk swirled around Iran. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, rather than address the core issue of what a peace deal with the Arabs might look like, constantly fought to shift the discourse to Iran. In 2009 when Netanyahu visited Washington, Bibi and Barack clashed openly on that topic, too, but Netanyahu succeeded for the most part, in making Iran, not Palestine, the central issue, by making hyperbolic, alarmist comments about Iran’s nuclear program and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. And since, whenever “Palestine” emerged as a subject, Netanyahu crossed it out and replaced it with “Iran.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

Dreyfuss: Netanyahu's Boorish Performance