At the Poker Table with Bibi and Barack | FrontPage Magazine

FrontPage Magazine/ by Daniel Greenfield

As Netanyahu’s plane crossed the vast distance of the Atlantic Ocean, he must have thought that the oceanic gap was small compared to the diplomatic gap with the Obama administration. This time around there were no visible hostilities or outbursts. With an election coming up, Obama is less eager to humiliate Netanyahu, and Netanyahu does not seriously expect that a passionate appeal will get through to Obama.

Both men know the nature of the game they are playing, but neither of them expects much of the other.

Netanyahu does not believe that he can get Obama to set a firm “red line” that will trigger military action. For all the talk about “having Israel’s back”, the administration has not been willing to set such a “red line” in public or private, which makes all the assurances completely worthless. Without that “red line”, no actual commitments have been made, except a commitment to the Sisyphean diplomatic track.

And so Netanyahu has not bothered to seriously push for a “red line.” Any possibility of such a thing was off the table even before he arrived. More >>