Month: August 2015

Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic is a respected and well-connected American commentator on U.S.-Israel affairs and regional issues such as the nuclear deal with Iran. His access to top Administration officials like President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry is among the best in the business.

When he wrote a few months ago that a senior Administration official had described Benjamin Netanyahu as “chickenshit,” it caused gigantic waves in both Washington and Jerusalem. People in the know take Goldberg seriously.

So what is one to make of his latest effort, which propels the Iranian regime’s attitudes to Jews and Israel into the forefront of the ongoing debate (or virtual war) over getting the nuclear deal through Congress?

No less shocking than the deaths of an 18-month-old Palestinian baby and a 16-year-old Jewish girl over the weekend, is the blatant dishonesty of the responses to their killings, from the president and prime minister on down.

“Flames of violence have engulfed our country,” said President Rivlin after an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed six participants in a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem, one of whom later died of her injuries. “Flames which permit bloodshed in the name of the Torah, in the name of the law, in the name of morality, in the name of a love for the land of Israel.”

“Their path is not my path,” the good president added. “Their path is not our path. Their path is not the path of the State of Israel and it is not the path of the Jewish people.”