Goldberg: Obama wants Livni in coalition

[oberliner]

US President Barack Obama’s administration’s recent pressure on Israel is designed to force Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to add Kadima to his coalition instead of Israel Beiteinu or Shas, influential American columnist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in a story published on Tuesday.

In a column in The Atlantic magazine titled “What Obama is Actually Trying to Do in Israel,” Goldberg, who is close to Obama, said the president wanted to cause a rupture in Netanyahu’s coalition that would necessitate bringing in Kadima. He said he spoke about the matter with officials in the White House.

“I’ve been on the phone with many of the usual suspects (White House and otherwise), and I think it’s fair to say that Obama is not trying to destroy America’s relations withIsrael ; he’s trying to organize Tzipi Livni’s campaign for prime minister, or at least for her inclusion in a broad-based centrist government,” Goldberg wrote.

“I’m not actually suggesting that the White House is directly meddling in internal Israeli politics, but it’s clear to everyone – at the White House, at the State Department, at Goldblog – that no progress will be made on any front if Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party, Israel Beiteinu, and Eli Yishai’s fundamentalist Shas Party, remain in Netanyahu’s surpassingly fragile coalition.”

Livni’s spokesman declined to comment about the column, but Kadima MK Shlomo Molla, who is her close ally, warned Obama and his advisers against interfering in Israeli politics.

“We don’t need Obama’s help,” Molla said. “But we agree that the current coalition is bad for Israel and for US-Israel relations and that if Livni was working with Obama, there would be much more trust from the White House.”

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171259