Obama Uses Bloomberg's Jeff Goldberg As His Personal Tool To Threaten Israel

President Obama used Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg yesterday as his personal tool to put public pressure on Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu as he was flying into Washington for talks with the American President.

The President said he believes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “is sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist.” A statement left unchallenged by Goldberg, who if he hasn't seen the Palestinians claim that they will never recognize Israel as the Jewish State, is not doing his job.

Goldberg goes on to explain:

President Barack Obama urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “seize the moment” to make peace, saying time is running out to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

“When I have a conversation with Bibi, that’s the essence of my conversation,” Obama said. “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who? How does this get resolved?”

If the peace talks fail, Obama said, the U.S. will have limited ability to protect Israel from what he called “international fallout.” While he wasn’t specific, the Palestinians have threatened to join international organizations, including the International Criminal Court, as the nation of “Palestine,” and Israel has expressed concern that it faces a growing divestment-and-boycott campaign.

 As is his usual practice, throughout the interview Obama seems to be trying to pressure Israel without placing similar threats and demands on the Palestinian side.  President Obama calls Israel the Jewish State while talking to Netanyahu, but not once does he say Abbas needs to recognize Israel as the Jewish State, not once does he call for the Palestinian side to stop its incitement, not once does he call on the Palestinians to compromise on its positions.  Does he call for the Palestinians to stop its incitement of hatred from its people? No. And Goldberg allows the President to get away with all that and more.

The President seems to trust Abbas and ignores his claims never to recognize the Jewish state, he believes Israel should give away everything while getting no concessions in return, the same way he conceded the "star wars" program and cancelled it without any sort of concession from Putin. That worked out well.

Jeffrey Goldberg acts so exited to be in the presence of Obama, that instead of confronting the President with facts. Obama used as his personal tool, and Goldberg suckled at the teat of this President's one-sided pressure on Israel.

Interestingly, Goldberg presses Obama on Iran (how can they believe you when you backed down on Syria?), but doesn't push the President on his Israel claims.

In the end an interviewers job is to ask the questions the reader wants answers to, Goldberg simply acted as the President's scribe.

In the end an interviewer's job is to ask the questions the reader wants answers to, Goldberg simply acted as the President's scribe. Obama could have used a tape recorder to simply give his answers to Bloomberg, but Goldberg allowed the President to use him as his human tape recorder instead.

My friend Ed Morrissey looks at the interview from a different perspective. Read his take at Hot Air by clicking here.