Kicking around US Presidents is a perk of office for Israeli PMs. So is bragging about it afterwards.

Before departing for the land of nod, Ariel Sharon allegedly boasted ‘don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America!’ to cabinet colleagues.

Reports of Sharon’s tactless if uncharacteristically honest remark caused a minor stir at the time, but no official denials from Washington. What’s to deny?

Shamed the US Secretary of State, boasted about it afterwards

Now AFP reports Mr Olmert has spilled the beans again, gloating over the surprise US abstention in last week’s UN Security Council vote (emphases added):

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.

“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.

Fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel’s main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

“In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour,” Olmert said.

“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.”

Condoleezza Rice: her anonymous spokesperson claims "Israel does not make US policy"

Bush has consistently placed the blame for the conflict on Hamas, telling reporters on Monday that while he wanted to see a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire on Israel.

But a US State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, denied Olmert’s claim.

“Mr. Olmert is wrong,” the official said. Even if everything had gone according to plan, “she would have abstained. That was the plan,” said the official. “The government of Israel does not make US policy.”

It is possible that Mr Olmert will be having similar conversations with Barak Obama in a week or so, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Somehow, I don’t think Olmert does either. Hence the race to bomb, kill and maim now, while the puttyman is still in the White House.

UPDATE 1: Juan Cole

Professor Cole writes about this incident in Israeli PM Ehud Olmert Claims to be Able to Order Bush Around.

His theory is that the shocking international PR of Olmert’s speech was outweighed by it’s domestic political benefits. In other words (mine), Israeli elections are becoming competitions over who is better at kicking around US Presidents.

Not everyone is happy. Cole reports that Daniel Levy, who had been a Labor Party adviser on peace negotiations, told The Los Angeles Times (emphases added):

“This is terrible for the United States . . . This confirms every assumption they have in the Arab world about the tail wagging the dog. . . . It’s a story you’re likely to hear quoted there for years to come.”

Levy also accused Olmert of “unparalleled arrogance.”

“There are some things you don’t say, even in Ashkelon, even in Hebrew . . . “

UPDATE 2: Private Eye Front Cover, Issue 1227

The Special Relationship in action

London’s Metropolitan police put a lot of effort into good community relations. At least, that’s what millions of viewers of The Bill believe. So it’s not surprising to see the fruits of good community relations when the going gets tough.

Below is a photo sourced from Monday’s Daily Mail article: Cities across the world become platform for hundreds of thousands of protesters against Gaza fighting. It depicts the pro-Israel rally in London last weekend. There were similar rallies in other some cities around the world.

CST assist with policing of London pro-Israel Rally

Note the initials ‘CST’ on the yellow jacket amidst a solid row of Metrolopolitan Policemen.

What, you may be wondering, is the CST?

Presumably, it’s this CST, which announces on its website:

“the CST believes that the fight against antisemitism and terrorism is vital to help ensure a vibrant Jewish community, and in safeguarding democratic British society against extremism and hatred.”CST provides physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews. CST assists victims of antisemitism and monitors antisemitic activities and incidents. CST represents British Jewry to Police, Government and media on antisemitism and security.”

Well, that’s all very good, isn’t it? The Bill co-operates with an organisation dedicated to ensuring the vibrancy of its community by leading the fight against antisemitism and terrorism. What a great idea!

Or perhaps not? Jews Sans Frontiers reports the CST doesn’t speak for all Jews. Apparently, the CST seems to have something of an ‘agenda’:

“(The CST), aka the provisional wing of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, provides a visible presence outside synagogues in smart areas of major cities and suburbs to convey an impression of a community under threat. They also send photographers to Palestine solidarity demonstrations and refuse to confirm whether they keep files on individuals or not. You might call them “shadowy” or you might call them silly or you might call them both.

Just the kind of guys you need standing next to you to placate nutcases who turn up at pro-apartheid rallies, when you think about it!

This is clever modern policing. Any imputation that the leadership of the Metropolitan Police is the slightest bit biased towards one sector of London’s diverse multicultural community, to the potential detriment of others, is a contemptible slur.

The British Government and Metropolitan Police are still too busy fighting the ‘War on Terror’ to hold a public inquiry into Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity. Obviously they need all the help they can get!

Here’s food for thought.

Back in 2003, David Hirst wrote in the Guardian about a revised edition of his classic study of the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Gun and the Olive Branch. Here are a few paragraphs from his article (emphases added):

The Gun and the Olive Branch

“the time may also come when the cost to the US of continuing to support its infinitely importunate protégé (Israel) in a never-ending conflict against an ever-widening circle of adversaries is greater than its will and resources to sustain it.”That would very likely be a time when Israel itself is already in dire peril. And if it were, then America would very likely discover something else: that the friend and ally it has succoured all these years is not only a colonial state, not only extremist by temperament, racist in practice, and increasingly fundamentalist in the ideology that drives it, it is also eminently capable of becoming an ‘irrational’ state at America’s expense as well as its own.