Looming Obama - Netanyahu confrontation? Nah...

Isi Leibler, the optimist, starts this article with:

One might have hoped that Obama’s calamitous mishandling of recent Middle East crises, climaxing with his disastrous response to the Syrian use of chemical weapons, would have taught him a few lessons on regional politics. Regrettably, his address to the United Nations General Assembly last week proved otherwise.

Right. Isi is also right when he says that:

Prime Minister Netanyahu must have been bitterly disappointed. He has bent over backwards in efforts to please Obama. At Obama’s urging he extended a humiliating apology to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan for the killing of the Turkish terrorists seeking to violently breach Israel’s maritime arms blockade against Gaza. Yet, when Erdogan subsequently refused to fulfill his undertakings, Obama failed to even reprimand him.

Netanyahu outraged most Israelis by capitulating to extreme US pressure by releasing Palestinian terrorists, many of whom were mass murderers.

He also encouraged AIPAC to support the President in Congress on the Syrian issue – an act which backfired after Obama equivocated, and then withdrew his request for Congressional support.

Yet Obama disregarded all Netanyahu’s efforts and once again left him in the cold.

Still, there will be no confrontation. And it's impossible to blame Bibi for the lack of thereof, because, as Isi himself correctly notices:

But unlike his political opponents on the right accusing him of cowardice, Netanyahu - as all Israeli leaders since the time of Ben Gurion - realizes that Israel is dependent on a superpower and that today the support of the US both politically and militarily is crucial. Netanyahu also recognizes that for all his failings, Obama with the strong encouragement of Congress continues to provide Israel with the military necessities that no other nation could provide.

And therein lies the rub. So let's bear it with a smile.