And The One was stewing. You could almost see the steam coming out of those Dumbo ears of his when Prime Minister Netanyahu turned the tables on the president and began to lecture HIM. From ABC News:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to think he needed to educate President Obama on some issues today, so in the Oval Office he described in some detail to the president a history of the refugee problem in the region dating back 63 years, as well as his view on the need for Israel to be able to defend itself in the context of thousands of years of Jewish suffering."We don't have a lot of margin for error," Netanyahu said to the president. "Because, Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance."
Netanyahu, whose father is a retired academic, offered the president repeated history lessons, saying Jews have "been around for almost 4,000 years. We have experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We've gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions. But I can say that even at the dearth of -- even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of reestablishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel."
[...]
Netanyahu said that "while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines, because these lines are indefensible, because they don't take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years."In 1967, Netanyahu said, "Israel was all of 9 miles wide -- half the width of the Washington Beltway... So we can't go back to those indefensible lines, and we're going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan."
The topper came when Bibi told the president, "Hamas has just attacked you, Mr. President, and the United States for ridding the world of bin Laden. So Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaida."
It will be fascinating to watch the dueling speeches at AIPAC - Obama on Sunday and Netanyahu on Monday - as well as listening to Bibi's Joint Session of Congress speech on Tuesday. Expect more war of words from both men as Netanyahu exposes Obama's pandering to the Arabs as the naive maneuverings of a rank amateur.
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