Background: How Obama team attacks liberated Netanyahu
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 15 March 2010

At the start of the Ramat Shlomo incident Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
had to carefully and painstakingly weigh his moves as he attempted to
placate Washington without causing a crisis in his own party and the ruling
coalition.

This all changed when, over the course of the weekend, it became clear that
the Obama team had decided to exploit the Ramat Shlomo incident to try and
oust Netanyahu by forcing him to take actions that they themselves expected
would ultimately break up his ruling coalition.

This simplified matters considerably.

Fine tuning was no longer relevant.

And thus, a clearly relieved Netanyahu was able to take a very clear stand
today that construction would continue, as it has ever since 1967, in all of
Jerusalem. And he reiterated that the settlement housing construction
freeze would indeed end as promised after ten months.

What now?

Will the Obama team ratchet up the pressure even more in the hopes that they
can create such a great crisis that Netanyahu will break down and commit
political suicide?

Or will they opt to let the passage of time put the incident behind them.

One indication of this will come when the Quartet meets and issues a
statement later this week and again when Secretary of State Clinton
addresses the upcoming AIPAC conference.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il