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Behind the Goldberg-Obama Interview

(Algemeiner) Joshua Levitt - Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Barack Obama last week on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the U.S. and he discussed the controversial interview with "Bloomberg View" talk show host Charlie Rose on Wednesday. Goldberg, who has been interviewing Obama on the subject of Israel for seven years, said that several years ago Obama thought Netanyahu would leave the stage. But "Obama's thinking about [Netanyahu] has shifted to a remarkable degree, not about his politics, but about his staying power." Goldberg described the dynamics between Secretary of State John Kerry and Obama as a "good cop, bad cop" approach to propel the peace talks to the framework agreement. He described Kerry's approach, which has been to note down all of Netanyahu's concerns and try to resolve them one by one. Goldberg also saw the harsher comments from the U.S. as a way to signal to the PA that Israel is also under pressure to make the deal, and that the U.S. is not simply taking Israel's side. Goldberg said that after backtracking on his "red line" for using military force in Syria, Obama's threats to use military force against Iran are now being seen as toothless. He said that even "our Arab allies don't really believe Obama would ever use force."
2014-03-07 00:00:00
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