Obama guilty of naivety, says former Israeli diplomat

Dan Gillerman says US president’s recent actions reveal his ‘inexperience in foreign policy’
by Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian, UK
17 September 2009

One of Israel’s most senior former diplomats has launched a scathing attack on Barack Obama, accusing the US president of “naivety and inexperience in foreign policy” and ranking him alongside those guilty of an “appeasement” mentality.

Dan Gillerman, who until last year served as Israel’s ambassador at the UN, said he hoped international leaders would wake up to reality, especially “the president of the United States by whose naivety and inexperience in foreign policy, I am sometimes worried.

“Because thinking that going to Cairo and delivering a speech will change the Arab world is naive. Thinking that you can talk the Iranians into giving up their nuclear aspirations when you have a president who denies the Holocaust while preparing the next one and threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is naivety.

“Thinking you can praise Medvedev and put down Putin before you go to Moscow in today’s world is naivety. And thinking that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the conflict and that solving it will make all other problems – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran – go away is naivety.”

Later Gillerman said he hoped recent events would “awaken not only Barack Obama, [but also] some European leaders who have forgotten what happened over 60 years ago when appeasement was the name of the game.”

The article continues at The Guardian.

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