Olmert’s Boast of ‘Shaming’ Rice Provokes Diplomatic Furor

http://www.forward.com/articles/14957/

‘The Mistake Was To Talk About It In Public,’ One Critic Says

By Nathan Guttman
Thu. Jan 15, 2009


Washington — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert didn’t do anything wrong — but he should have kept his mouth shut.

That was the reaction of several Jewish leaders to Olmert’s public boast January 11. He said he left Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “shamed” by getting President Bush to block her at the last moment from voting for a Gaza cease-fire resolution that she herself had hammered out over several days with Arab and European diplomats at the United Nations.

Olmert bragged of having pulled Bush off a stage during a speech when he called on the phone and demanded the president’s intervention. Administration officials, however, have sharply challenged Olmert’s account.

“I have no problem with what Olmert did,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “I think the mistake was to talk about it in public.

Can any decent human being seriously argue that the U.S. had to give the IDF a total green light for whatever it wanted to do to Gaza?

If bush does what he's told 99.9% of the time and we trash him on the way out the door for getting out of line once...

It's not like they could use anything he did against Jeb.

Maybe he likes wiretaps because he knows their effectiveness is a personal way.

...that's all this has been about, to shock the world into respecting it; with the Great Depression upon us the US cannot justify spending billions on Israel every year, even if this war never happened. We don't have the money to spend on the world, and Israel is not a United States Territory, International Alliances don't fall under that kind of care when the bread is this tight.

I don't care for what Israel does but it is not my place to tell they can't try to do it.

It is my place to tell my government to stop giving them my taxes to do it with.

Homeless American children out in the cold tonight while displaced Israeli settlers averaged almost $250,00.00 per household to relocate, above and beyond the normal aid.

Hospitals dropping indigent patients on skid row while Israelis have universal health care.

60 years is too damn long to suck tit.

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"No one could have suspected the Israeli prime minister would call the president at the last minute".

lest someone thinks the process is honest or above board.

Yeah that was a bad mistake. Now maybe 2 or 3 other people in America will get a clue as to how much control the Israeli's can assert on this administration.

Fortunately, I may be able to talk about that in the past tense in the next few days.

It's not like the boob tube or even most US papers will dare speak of it.

It might piss of Abe.

-- but what do they care? there are never any consequences, so they can be blatant about it.

Why do all of our politicians kiss Likud ass like Israel is the most powerful nation on Earth? We're the ones sending them aid, keeping them afloat, not the other way around. Sure there are voting blocs to appease in this country, but Neocon Jews and Left-Behind evangelicals are not large enough groups to warrant the scale of pandering. And yes, Israel serves as a useful foothold from which America can exert its will in the ME, but the military has other bases and allies in the region.

Could someone explain the political calculus that is driving this? It bothers me that I don't understand it.

Ask Cynthia McKinney, she will never make it back to Congress so she might just return an E-mail inquiring into that.

"Israel controls the United States Senate. Around 80 percent are completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants it gets. Jewish influence in the House of Representatives is even greater.”
-- Sen. J. William Fulbright, on CBS Face the Nation, April 15, 1973

please, President Obama, tell then to kiss your butt and PLEASE stop sending my hard-earned tax dollars to them.

Interesting.

and wholesale slaughter--and that funding occurs because of the unexplained and indefensible "aid" that is approved by "DC," who are disproportionately influenced by lobbyists to provide that "aid."

Those dollars COULD be spent to assist people in the world who truly need it.

And who ordered our "president" just the other day to tell his SoS how to vote in the UN? but that's not "influence," I guess, any more than the atrocities now occurring "aren't" genocide.

yes, Congress is influenced by "the Jewish lobby" to a disproportionate degree. Israel receives more US financial aid than any other country in the world, by a huge amount. And that has to stop. I am gratified to notice that the world is starting to boycott Israel, a solution that worked in the case of So. Africa. Thankfully, the rest of the world is not so influenced and will sanction these barbarians, since the US won't.

NOT

all I see is a lot of hedging around the issue and dismissing of comments as not up to your standards linguistically.

Please explain how Bush was NOT "influenced" by Olmert and willingly did his bidding. He is such a puppet that he actually took a phone call while giving a presentation.

"Please explain how Bush was NOT "influenced" by Olmert and willingly did his bidding."

Better yet, why not prove your own claim, as I didn't make a claim; you did. So, back it up!

"He is such a puppet that he actually took a phone call while giving a presentation."

So sayeth you, a paragon of truth. :eyes:

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Fulbright also opposed most civil rights bills, I believe.

Oh well, at least we should be grateful to him for establishing the excellent grant-giving foundation. I know a number of people who've benefited from it.

to do for Tzipi and why? We have amorphous helping stop smuggling but just what does that entail