It's hate

So, now "we," the U.S.A., have decided to support a United Nations resolution demanding that there be a nuclear-weapons free Middle East -- how sweet -- and that Israel specifically should open up whatever facilities it has for inspection. No mention of Iran, which is thiscloseandgettingcloser to a nuclear bomb which it has in turn promised to use against Israel. All this, by the by, just before a meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. I guess maybe this time Netanyahu will get something to eat, and not be left alone to cool his heels in the White House while his host goes off and has dinner with his family.

All the smart people who write politics are working, right this minute, on proper, cool, yet properly anguished and deeply intellectual responses to this up-ending of a decades-old friendly American policy toward Israel. They'll have their articles up by tomorrow morning. I can save them a lot of trouble, and assure them the day is coming when they will have to simply admit: Barack Obama may not be a good old fashioned anti-Semite. After all, it seems he can put up with Rahm Emmanuel without throwing up in his mouth. But he is a good old left-wing American academic who loathes Israel and could very calmly see ... well. Let's just say the day is coming when an event will occur that will force the commentators to say: he's not naive. He's not inexperienced. He's not puzzlingly or foolishly fixated on a post-modern world where ideologies, like those of the mullahs eager to bring the Mahdi back via bombs on Tel Aviv, don't or shouldn't matter. I would venture to say, he's not even really "young."

He's a hater. Yes, maybe U.N. resolutions are toothless in themselves, and maybe there is some kind of pathetic comfort in that. But Obama has opted to change this one piece of American foreign policy specifically because he hates. I daresay in this case there is something personal in it. Benjamin Netanyahu has what Barack Obama doesn't have -- a biography. Good luck persuading him, in deeply intellectual and anguished tones, back from where he is and delights to be. Then again, maybe they won't bother trying. Maybe this is the event.