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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Mr. Lieberman goes to Washington -- and everybody hides

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is reportedly scheduled to visit Washington next week. But no one in the Obama administration seems particularly excited about meeting him.


What made Israel's top diplomat so unpopular in Washington? Perhaps it was his nasty habit of calling for the execution of Arab members of Knesset; his plan for the forced transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel; his threats to arm Kurdish rebels and bomb Egypt's Aswan dam; his call to drown thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea; his possible indictment for illicit foreign business transactions with mafia-linked sources; or his full-throated defense of Vladimir Putin's election rigging that made him so unpopular with Obama's inner circle.

It is understood that while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not made any specific plans to avoid Lieberman, she would be happy to keep as far away from him as possible. Jerusalem Post Managing Editor Caroline Glick suggested that Clinton is hiding from Lieberman not because of anything he said or did, but because Clinton is actually an anti-Semite.

A report last week by Israel's Channel 2 news claimed that Lieberman is being treated by Washington as though he were the member of a terrorist organization. According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may file a complaint with the White House about a violation of protocol. If all else fails, Channel 2 stated that Jerusalem may turn to former Senator Joseph Lieberman (no relation to Avigdor) to mend relations.

Israel Matsav, an Israeli religious nationalist English language blog, dared the Republican presidential candidates to meet with Lieberman and attack the President for not doing so. For anyone interested in accelerating the ongoing campaign to consolidate the pro-Israel cause as a right-wing wedge issue in American political campaigns, thereby shattering the bipartisan consensus around America's special relationship with Israel, this should be welcomed as a brilliant idea.


http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/gadfly/mr-lieberman-goes-washington-and-everybody-hides?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

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