Deflect and obfuscate is the modus operandi of the White House.
Via JPost
He is a firm believer in telling what he sees as the truth over and over and over again until at a certain time – and at a certain level – it will seep in.
This was how he acted when warning for years about a nuclear Iran, even when the world was skeptical that Iran was really trying to acquire nuclear arms. This was his modus operandi when he pushed at every opportunity for crippling economic sanctions against Iran, even when the world was reluctant to impose them. And this is his policy now as he continues to say repeatedly that Hamas is Islamic State, and Islamic State is Iran: All of them branches “of the same poisonous tree.”
That was the message he brought with him Sunday to the US. Or, as he put it in an interview with MSNBC, Israel and the US are fighting a common enemy, just on different fronts.
But a funny thing happened on the way to delivering that message: It was derailed by news Tuesday that Jews moved into homes they had purchased in Silwan in Jerusalem, and by Peace Now’s revealing – not coincidentally – just as Netanyahu was about to meet with US President Barack Obama, that yet another approval for the Givat Hamatos project had come through last week. This is a project in southern Jerusalem for which Israel has already been censured on numerous occasions in the past.
No sooner had Netanyahu’s convoy left the White House than the White House press secretary issued a blistering attack on the moves. Netanyahu was forced to respond, once again revealing gaps in American and US policies, knocking him off message.
The message that Netanyahu wanted to convey – that the US and Israel were fighting a common enemy – was muffled.