Obama In CNN Interview: Benjamin Netanyahu Only Foreign Leader ‘I Can Recall’ Forcibly Interfering In US Policy

President Barack Obama charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the only foreign leader he could recall who had forcibly interfered in a foreign policy debate in Washington.

He spoke about Netanyahu in an interview that he gave to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Thursday about the Iran deal, which will be aired in full on Sunday night.

In a clip released ahead of the interview, Zakaria asked Obama a question about Netanyahu’s stiff opposition to the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program that was worked out between Tehran and the six world powers; the US, Russia, China, France, Great Britain and Germany.

Congress is expected to vote on the deal by September 17. Netanyahu has mounted a public campaign against the deal which he believes is a historic mistake because it legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program and leaves it with the ability to produce atomic weapons.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has injected himself forcefully into this debate on American foreign policy in Washington. Can you recall a time when a foreign head of government has done that. Is it appropriate for a foreign head of government to inject himself into an American debate,” Zakaria asked.

Obama responded, “I do not recall a similar example.”

He added: “Obviously the relationship between the US and Israel is deep. It is profound. It is reflected in my policies. But as I said in the speech yesterday on the substance, the prime minister is wrong on this. 

“I can show that basic assumptions he has made are incorrect. If in fact my argument is right, that this is the best way for Iran not to get a nuclear weapon, that is not just good for the United States, that is very good for Israel.”

In a major speech Obama delivered on the Iran deal he singled out Netanyahu, when he spoke about opposition to the deal.

“I recognize that prime minister Netanyahu disagrees, disagrees strongly. I do not doubt his sincerity, but I believe he is wrong. I believe the facts support this deal. I believe they are in America’s interests and Israel’s interests, and as president of the United States it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally,” Obama said.

“I do not believe that would be the right thing to do for the United States, I do not believe it would be the right thing to do for Israel,” he said.

Obama ignites a backlash

By Jennifer Rubin

On Thursday, the White House, despite clarification about election comments from the reelected Israeli prime minister, kept up its war of words on the Jewish state. In a read-out of the president’s belated call with the prime minister the White House said Benjamin Netanyahu had won only a “plurality,” which might suggest there is ever a majority winner in Israel’s parliamentary system. There is not; this was another dig at Netanyahu, one more sign the president has essentially lost it, allowing his personal animus to govern his actions. Even after Netanyahu clarified in an interview that he had never retracted his embrace of a two-state solution, although current circumstances did not allow it (would any reasonable observer differ?), the administration refused to be mollified.

The president’s behavior seems to have induced a backlash.

I spoke by phone with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who seemed incredulous that the president would behave this way. But he suggested the president is alienating Democrats and convincing Congress he is irrational and untrustworthy when it comes to Israel and Iran. “It’s been unnerving seeing the president show his open hostility,” Graham said. “It’s immature and over the top and has made people suspicious.” He observed, “He makes it hard for Democrats to trust him.” The timing could not be more inopportune for the president who faces votes in Congress to require an up-or-down vote on the Iran deal and potentially to impose more sanctions. The Corker-Graham-Menendez bill will be marked up in April (with new Democratic co-sponsors, according to a Senate source) and Graham says, partly due to the president, Congress will have enough votes to override a veto. With the White House now suggesting it might not make the deal public, Graham says, the entire endeavor has become “absurd.”

Moreover, Graham hinted at another avenue to stop the president from going to the United Nations in lieu of the Senate. In deliberate fashion he added, “As for using the U.N. to avoid coming to the Congress, well that will create a real crisis between Congress and the U.N.” He notes that the United States pays for 22 percent of the U.N. budget and that the subcommittee he controls oversees State Department funding. Without directly threatening to cut off U.N. funding he says, “I am not going to ask American taxpayers to spend money on the U.N. that would [confirm a deal and undercut the Congress].” He added, “If the U.N. is used to going around Congress it would create a tremendous backlash.”

In addition, in a highly unusual statement AIPAC (whose members are overwhelmingly Democratic) chastised the president:

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly and clearly reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition, he sought to reassure that his government will be dedicated to serving and representing all the people of Israel – both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Unfortunately, administration spokespersons rebuffed the prime minister’s efforts to improve the understandings between Israel and the U.S. In contrast to their comments, we urge the administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only truly democratic ally in the Middle East. A solid and unwavering relationship between the U.S. and Israel is in the national security interests of both countries and reflects the values that we both cherish.

Former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block told Right Turn, “It is quite rare for AIPAC to directly and publicly criticize the White House, and clearly there is a feeling that the president’s staff is acting in an irresponsible way that undermines America’s interests and vital relationship with our only reliable democratic ally in the region.” He explained, “That would be bad White House policy at any time, but especially as the president has so badly alienated our Arab allies as well, and is, despite repeated promises to the contrary, in the midst of giving Iran a nuclear deal that provides the Islamic Republic with the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons at any time of its choosing.”

By the afternoon in eloquent fashion from the Senate floor, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blasted Obama’s hostile reaction to our closest Middle East ally. Rubio declared, “This is a historic and tragic mistake. Israel is not a Republican or Democratic issue. If this was a Republican president doing these things, I would give the exact same speech. In fact, I would be even angrier. This is outrageous. It is irresponsible. It is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation has made to the right of a Jewish state to exist in peace.”

Obama was expert in inspiring Israelis to rally around their prime minister. Now he is helping to consolidate bipartisan opposition to his policies, his unilateralism and his approach to Iran and Israel – and potentially to precipitate a bipartisan attack on the U.N. There really is no community organizer on the right who could have produced such results.

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In addition, 363 House members, a huge bipartisan show of solidarity, are reportedly signed onto a letter to be sent to the president demanding Congress have a role and that any deal “foreclose any pathway to a bomb.” If nothing else, the president’s behavior has caused Democrats to lose faith in his “trust me” approach to negotiations. And to make matters worse for the president, his new year’s greeting to Iran in fawning tones drew a comparison between “hardliners” in both countries who seek to nix a deal. This gross moral equivalence and the assumption that the Iranian people have a say in their affairs should be enough for even the most loyal Democrats to question whether the president can be trusted to make a deal, and frankly whether he is totally out to lunch.

Israel: Beware of Obama

by Michael Goodwin

First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.

He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.

Now he’s coming for Israel.

Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest. He is transforming the whole world before our eyes. Do you see it yet?

Against the backdrop of the tsunami of trouble he has unleashed, Obama’s pledge to “reassess” America’s relationship with Israel cannot be taken lightly. Already paving the way for an Iranian nuke, he is hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way. That could mean American support for punitive Security Council resolutions or for Palestinian statehood initiatives. It could mean both, or something worse.

Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim to teach Bibi Netanyahu never again to upstage him. And to teach Israeli voters never again to elect somebody Obama doesn’t like.

Apologists and wishful thinkers, including some Jews, insist Obama real­izes that the special relationship between Israel and the United States must prevail and that allowing too much daylight between friends will encourage enemies.

Those people are slow learners, or, more dangerously, deny-ists.

If Obama’s six years in office teach us anything, it is that he is impervious to appeals to good sense. Quite the contrary. Even respectful suggestions from supporters that he behave in the traditions of American presidents fill him with angry determination to do it his way.

For Israel, the consequences will be intended. Those who make excuses for Obama’s policy failures — naive, bad advice, bad luck — have not come to grips with his dark impulses and deep-seated rage.

His visceral dislike for Netanyahu is genuine, but also serves as a convenient fig leaf for his visceral dislike of Israel. The fact that it’s personal with Netanyahu doesn’t explain six years of trying to bully Israelis into signing a suicide pact with Muslims bent on destroying them. Netanyahu’s only sin is that he puts his nation’s security first and refuses to knuckle ­under to Obama’s endless demands for unilateral concessions.

That refusal is now the excuse to act against Israel. Consider that, for all the upheaval around the world, the president rarely has a cross word for, let alone an open dispute with, any other foreign leader. He calls Great Britain’s David Cameron “bro” and praised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, who had called Zionists, “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

Obama asked Vladimir Putin for patience, promising “more flexibility” after the 2012 election, a genuflection that earned him Russian aggression. His Asian pivot was a head fake, and China is exploiting the vacuum. None of those leaders has gotten the Netanyahu treatment, which included his being forced to use the White House back door on one trip, and the cold shoulder on another.

It is a clear and glaring double standard.

Most troubling is Obama’s bended-knee deference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which has been repaid with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” demonstrations in Tehran and expanded Iranian military action in other countries.

The courtship reached the height of absurdity last week, when Obama wished Iranians a happy Persian new year by equating Republican critics of his nuclear deal with the resistance of theocratic hard-liners, saying both “oppose a diplomatic solution.” That is a damnable slur given that a top American military official estimates that Iranian weapons, proxies and trainers killed 1,500 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who in their right mind would trust such an evil regime with a nuke?

Yet Netanyahu, the leader of our only reliable ally in the region, is ­repeatedly singled out for abuse. He alone is the target of an orchestrated attempt to defeat him at the polls, with Obama political operatives, funded in part by American taxpayers, working to elect his opponent.

They failed and Netanyahu prevailed because Israelis see him as their best bet to protect them. Their choice was wise, but they better buckle up because it’s Israel’s turn to face the wrath of Obama.