"It's good to be home." A crazy thing for an American to say outside America. But in the context of our relations to Israel over the past thirty years such a remark is almost par-for-the course. It shows how reckless American mainstream opinion has grown in its indulgence of all things relating to Israel. It had reached the point where a reflex avowal of false nostalgia was taken as the simplicity of good manners. An American politician in Israel is routinely expected to show more piety for Tel Aviv than for Plymouth Rock.
The sentiment of "home" dished up by the vice president and the graceless insult with which it was met by the Israeli prime minister also reflect a political background. The United States has lately assisted Israel in its attempt to suppress the facts and discredit the findings of the Goldstone Report..Barack Obama abetted the Israeli drive to bury the Goldstone report by allowing his government tosay it was "one-sided and deeply flawed" and also the subject of "grave concerns." Obama had already shown his loyalty by his silence regarding the actions of Israel in Gaza in January 2009. It all stopped, by apparent arrangement, just before inauguration day. Given that history, what reason had Netanyahu to suppose that Obama would discover the end of his patience last week? There seemed no jerk of the leash to which this American president, like so many others, would not respond obediently. Besides, as Obama knows and as Netanyahu knows he knows, American Jewish liberals who are loyal to Israel are the stamina of the Democratic Party.
