Who's Pressuring Bibi?

By Moshe Feiglin

19 Kislev, 5770
Dec. 6, '09

Translated from the NRG website

If Obama didn't exist, Bibi would have had to invent him.

My schedule during my current trip to the US is tight. From my visit to Pollard I run to meetings in states throughout America. The televisions in the airport are broadcasting Obama's address to the nation. Obama squirms as he explains why he is sending another 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. In Viet Nam the Americans had one clear enemy; in Afghanistan it is hard to understand who is against whom. The Afghan mud is sucking the US deeper and deeper into a war that Obama promised to end.

On the domestic front, the White House is attempting to explain to the citizens how the miniscule sum of 1.2 trillion (yes, that's one thousand, two hundred billion!) dollars that Obama has decided to spend on his grandiose health plan will heal the failing American economy. Fortunately for Obama, the Tiger Woods scandal broke and stole the limelight from America's pressing military and economic issues. As opposed to my previous visits to the US, I haven't even heard the word "Israel" once on the news.

There is no doubt about it. If Netanyahu would want to stand his ground, he could easily deflect the American pressure. Obama has his own troubles and is not interested in a head-on battle with the many Israel supporters in the US and particularly in Congress. But Bibi needs Obama to create the illusion of American pressure. Sharon destroyed Gush Katif despite the fact the President Bush was opposed to the scheme. Sharon was a bulldozer and did not attempt to use Uncle Sam as an excuse for his exploits. This is not to say that Obama is an Israel-lover. He does want Israel to retreat, and he is happy to provide Bibi with the excuse that Sharon did not need.
Will Obama act where his determined predecessor did not and attack Iran? Of course not. Our short history shows that every time that Israel has faced an existential threat, America abandoned it. The Iranian threat is no different. What we will not do for ourselves, nobody will do for us.

During the ten month building freeze - that will naturally continue indefinitely - Iran's defense capabilities will continue to improve. We are giving up our right to our Land in exchange for the resuscitation of an old principle that we thought had been relegated to mothballs 65 years ago; that for the right to live, the Jew has to pay in hard currency. After all of this, we will still be forced to act alone against Iran - just under more difficult conditions.

Will Netanyahu's regain his backbone then? I doubt it. Netanyahu's decrees in Judea and Samaria are not only immoral; they are also illogical. In order to try to understand the rationale behind them, we must return to the days of Sharon and the Expulsion. It is not Obama, but rather the Israeli left that Netanyahu is so anxious to please. As the existential Iranian threat closes in, we can only hope that Israeli society will elect authentically Jewish leadership that fears only G-d.