Obama visiting to take on opposition leader post
‘He’s been the de facto opposition leader for four years anyway. He might as well get the unlimited felafel in the Knesset cafeteria that comes with the job,’ says Ambassador Oren
The reason for US President Barack Obama’s Israel visit next month is to formally accept the title of opposition leader to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, political sources exclusively told The Jerusalem Roast on Friday.
Since Obama’s visit was announced earlier this month, political pundits have proclaimed he is coming to announce a Middle East peace plan, persuade Israel not to attack Iran, and attempt to stop American Jews from kvetching about why he hasn’t come yet. But all of those theories have been rejected by Obama’s top aides.
Now it turns out that the president’s visit is actually intended to enable him to accept another job besides the one he has in Washington: Obama will officially be given the title of opposition leader in Jerusalem, and he will immediately begin more overt efforts to bring down Netanyahu’s government.
“He has been the de facto opposition leader in Israel for four years anyway,” Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said. “He might as well get the unlimited felafel in the Knesset cafeteria that comes with the post.”
Sources close to Obama said he was glad to come out of the closet and stop having to hide his efforts to sabotage Netanyahu’s governments, like the 10-month settlement freeze, sending Israel Naftali Bennett, and taking away Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and supermodel Bar Refaeli.
MKs enthusiastically removed the roadblocks toward Obama receiving the post, including an obscure clause requiring the opposition leader to get elected to the Knesset. Obama will take over from MKs Shaul Mofaz and Shelly Yacimovich who held the job in the last Knesset.
When Yacimovich held the post, world leaders refused to meet with her. Knesset officials said they expected that to change with her replacement.
“World leaders love this new guy we’re getting,” a Knesset official said. “No one’s going to boycott this guy.”
Obama was quoted as saying in closed conversations that after having Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, he is used to working with sarcastic, loud-mouth Israelis. Asked how he could handle holding two jobs at once, he paraphrased a well-known quote from former prime minister Golda Meir.
“I’m already the leader of a country of 300 million people,” he said. “How hard can it be to run an opposition of 50 prime ministers?”
Netanyahu released a twoword response to Obama’s forthcoming appointment: “Oy vey.”
Outgoing Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded by pleading with the US president to go by his middle name Hussein in Israel so no one will confuse the two of them.
“I told people I retired, and now Barack is back?” he said. “Now no one will believe me anymore.” Lahav Alittledreydl contributed to this report.