Bibi gets bollocked

[David Guyatt]

What sort of Obama guy would say this, I wonder, when Obama appears to have a concluded deal with Iran and all is now peace?

Benjamin Netanyahu is 'a chickens**t prime minister' and 'coward', says US official



The comments were made in the light of Israel having refused to strike Iran

LAMIAT SABIN

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Benjamin Netanyahu has been branded a "chickenshit prime minister" and "coward" by a senior official in the Obama administration.
[B][B]
The official, who has not been identified, reportedly said that the Israeli leader had "no guts" and was too scared to launch wars, suggesting that he would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran in order to help prevent Tehran from building a stockpile of nuclear weapons.[/B][/B]
[B][B]The claims, which were made during an interview with The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, reflect a significant deterioration in US-Israel relationships amid Mr Netanyahu's controversial plans to construct Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank and the highly-disputed territory of East Jerusalem, which the Obama administration believe have undermined Secretary of State John Kerry's peace process.[/B][/B]

[B][B]The US official continued to say that Netanyahu has dodged responsibility to strike deals with the Sunni Arab countries and Palestinians, with which the most war to date ended after 50 days in August with 2,100 Palestinian and 73 Israeli deaths.[/B][/B]
[B][B]He said: "The only thing he's interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He's not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he's not [Ariel] Sharon, he's certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He's got no guts."[/B][/B]
[B][B]In response, the Israeli prime minister's office said: "Netanyahu will continue to uphold the security interests of Israel and the historical rights of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, and no amount of pressure will change that."[/B][/B]
[B][B]Palestinian children look out of destroyed buildings in al-Tufah, east of Gaza[/B][/B]
[B][B]Another senior US official told Mr Goldberg that the White House has not believed since 2012 that Netanyahu will launch a preemptive strike on Iran and that an attack now would be "too late". "The feeling now is that Bibi's bluffing," he reportedly said.[/B][/B]
[B][B]"He's not Begin at Osirak" referring to the then-Israeli prime minister's bombing of an Iranian nuclear reactor during Saddam Hussein's reign in 1981. [/B][/B]

[B][B]The Obama administration will no longer defend Israel at international organisations ahead of the Palestinian move toward statehood at the United Nation and the midterm Congressional elections on November 4, Goldberg reported.[/B][/B]
[B][B]He added that even if Washington vetoes a settlement resolution put forward by Palestinians, the situation would be brought to a vote, but Israel would remain isolated by international officials.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Netanyahu last month claimed that Iran is a bigger threat to the world than Isis and Hamas, which he believes are "branches of the same poisonous tree" and that they are as dangerous as the Nazis.[/B][/B]