by Cheryl Rofer
Things are heating up between the United States and Israel. George Mitchell has told Israel's new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that his demand for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the "state of the Jewish people" is unacceptable. Netanyahu now seems to be backing off. Earlier, Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, sent a message to Netanyahu too.
Meanwhile, back in the US, a story about AIPAC's influence has surfaced again. It seems that Jane Harman was overheard in a tapped phone call promising a suspected Israeli agent that she would try to help a couple of AIPAC staffers accused of espionage in 2006. As Josh Marshall says, "This story is so radioactive it's hard to know which of fifty different directions to go with it." So I won't try.
The question, for those who have been following my Friday Diplomacy Blogging, is why all this seems to be happening at the same time, particularly the memories of AIPAC influence past. There is also an AIPAC meeting coming up, in which the main speaker has not yet been announced, although there have been murmurs that it will be either Netanyahu or his racist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. However, President Obama has made it known that he doesn't plan to be available for a state visit.
Could it be that Emanuel's tough talk and the Harman story were both leaked by the administration quite deliberately as part of its strategy to encourage Israel to take a more constructive position toward the Palestinians? And is Netanyahu firing back with a leak of his own?
And the New York Times thinks that Obama isn't showing enough fight. Maybe they haven't been paying attention.
There are lots of good articles on Google News if you search any combinations of the names above, and I think there will be more during the week.
H/t to Sean Paul of The Agonist for insight behind the scenes.
Update (later in the morning): If it was the administration that leaked the Harman business, it occurred to me, they are "burning" Jane Harman, a Democrat. Clearly she will be damaged by this leak, short of a miracle. So why burn one of their own?
The story was there. It had surfaced in 2006 and then disappeared again. Better to get it out at a time of the administration's choosing and a time when it can be used for larger purposes than to have it festering with the possibility that a Republican or AIPAC shill will pull it out later to damage the administration.
I'm just theorizing here, trying to make sense of who's leaking and why.