As Wrong As You Can Go

But Obama and a new Labour leader would, almost certainly, push each other in the opposite direction, feeding off each other’s notion that Israel is the roadblock to peace [bold mine-DL].

The dynamics under Obama would be very different. Blair was constantly attacked as Bush’s lapdog. In reality, they acted in concert because they simply agreed on the big picture. A weak Labour leader would, alongside Obama, be far more of a lapdog, with a limp UK foreign policy tugged along by an irresolute president.

The chances are, of course, that a new Labour leader would be a mere caretaker until being turfed out by the Conservatives. But there is little sign that David Cameron would be much different. As his Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague joined the anti-Israel bandwagon in 2006, criticising Israel’s “disproportionate” behaviour in Lebanon. And Cameron himself has made a series of worrying speeches, not the least dreadful of which was made on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, in which he argued that recent foreign policy lacked “humility and patience” and that the US and UK viewed the threat from terror in “unrealistic and simplistic” terms. ~Stephen Pollard

Pretty much nothing in this analysis is correct.  We don’t know who will replace Brown, but I would bet a nice steak dinner that his successor as party leader will not adopt a policy towards Israel that is any less supportive in practice than its recent leaders.  However, focusing on this part misses something more important.  If it is true that the next Labour leader will be a wimpy lapdog to Obama, and it might very well be true, it matters very much to know what Obama’s view on Israel is, and there is absolutely no evidence that he thinks that Israel is a roadblock to peace.  Whether he is sucking up to AIPAC or throwing in random “pro-Israel” remarks in his Philadelphia race speech, he constantly refutes and rejects this idea that Israel is a “roadblock” or that Israeli governments have anything to do with the problem.  The hope (or fear) that Obama holds different views is misplaced. 

Funny that Pollard should mention the war in Lebanon.  Apparently how one assesses Israeli actions in that war is the litmus test of “pro-Israel” sentiment; I don’t think supporters of Israel want to define things that way, just as Americans shouldn’t want to define criticism of the Iraq invasion as nothing more than anti-Americanism.  Of course, the Second Lebanon War was disproportionate (and it certainly was if we’re supposed to believe Washington that Russian incursions into Georgia are disproportionate), and Hague and others were right to say so.  Obama, of course, held a position identical to that of Blair in backing up Israeli actions without a hint of criticism, which means that if Labour’s leadership follows Obama it will be as depressingly party-line as Obama is.  There is then the obvious point that criticizing Israel’s disproportionate response in Lebanon has nothing to do with being anti-Israel, and it is quite possible to desire Israel’s welfare and security and criticize stupid military expeditions for that reason.  Recent U.S./U.K. foreign policy has lacked humility and patience, and both governments have handled the terror threat in unrealistic and simplistic ways.  That just seems like common sense, and that’s not always the phrase I associate with David Cameron.  Why it is bad for Israel to have both American and British governments headed by somewhat more sober people is something I do not quite understand.