"Bad Attitudes
Posted on January 14th, 2010 by Daniel Larison
Andrew:
The Netanyahu government has all but declared war on the Obama administration and then openly disses a vital ally, Turkey.
The Netanyahu government certainly shares in the blame for the deterioration in relations with both Washington and Ankara, but there are several factors here that this statement obscures. First of all, the Netanyahu government is not Israel, and it does not represent all of Israel, so the attitude problem Andrew identifies is not “Israel’s attitude,” but the attitude of a government whose largest two parties received a distinct minority of the vote at the last election. After Lieberman was given the foreign affairs portfolio, we had to expect that the conduct of Israeli foreign policy was going to become more combative, short-sighted and reckless. Lieberman is proving to be a perfect foil for Erdogan’s demagogic posturing on foreign policy and the growing anti-Israel sentiment in the Turkish public. Israelis can see the results of this kind of foreign policy, and it seems unlikely that they are going to reward it. Already the government is being excoriated for its incompetence:"
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