The glee with which the Obama administration jumped on the Jewish state for a misplaced timing of an announcement is palpable. I write administration because Obama himself is silent. He knows Jews will have tough enough time voting for him as is, he does not need to give his 2012 Republican opponent additional ammunition. Instead, he sends Hillary Wynette, the woman Bill Clinton passed on to him (by convincing her to take a career killing job she did not want) to do his dirty work. After all, this is the woman who praised Suha Arafat after Suha accused Israel with infecting Palestinians with the HIV virus. Hillary is famous for standing by her man. She can have no qualms attacking Israel for actions she has praised mere months ago as Barry Rubin notes:

For more than four months the U.S. government has been celebrating Israel agreeing to stop construction on settlements in the West Bank while continuing building in east Jerusalem as a great step forward and Israeli concession deserving a reward. Suddenly, all of this is forgotten to say that Israel building in east Jerusalem is some kind of terrible deed which deserves punishment. . . .

October 31, 2009: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lavishly praises Israel as making"unprecedented" concessions in stopping construction on West Bank settlements while it is still going to build in east Jerusalem.

BUT on

March 12, 2010: Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says that Israel building in east Jerusalem is an "insult" to the United States, jeopardizes the bilateral relationship, and damages the cause of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Why the change? Why the blatant refusal to accept Netanyahu's apology? After all, even Moammar Gadhafi was gracious enough to accept an American apology?

To prove to the Arabs, he is a MAN, Tom Friedman explains to Tom Brokaw:

In the Middle East, people can guess your power from a hundred paces. They have to. That's how, how they survive. And if we look weak, vis-a-vis our closest ally in the region, that will have regional implications.

In other words, hiding behind Hillary's skirts, Obama tries to counter Arab perceptions that he is not strong enough to stand up to Iran by beating up on Israel on the issue of settlements. After all, showing toughness by abusing Jews has a long"honorable" tradition and as my distinguished history professor, Yaakov Talmon, pointed out, Israel is the “Jew of the nations." Friedman should know. Every so often, he beats up on Israel as he does today to prove that he deserves to be a NYT columnist.

Is sending a woman to beat up on a longtime ally, even a Jewish one, an effective way to prove doubting Arabs that Obama has enough"Cojones" to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? After all, Friedman acknowledges, the Arabs are"obsessed" with Iran. So obsessed General Petraeus says that they would like the US and Israel to bomb it.

No. The truth is that Obama and company would like the Arab world to stop obsessing and learn to live if not love the Iranian bomb. They believe waving the red"settlements" flag in front of Arab bulls will help refocus their attention on the less explosive Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It used to be said that if Israel did not exist, the Arab autocrats would have had to invent her. Sad to say, the same is true today about this Democratic administration and its supporters.

Ugly!

Israel-bashing Hill is loyal - to a fault