In the weeks after the U.N. vote, Obama said privately and repeatedly, "Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are." With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation. And if Israel, a small state in an inhospitable region, becomes more of a pariah — one that alienates even the affections of the U.S., its last steadfast friend — it won’t survive. Iran poses a short-term threat to Israel’s survival; Israel’s own behavior poses a long-term one. The dysfunctional relationship between Netanyahu and Obama is poised to enter a new phase. Next week, Israeli voters will probably return Netanyahu to power, this time at the head of a coalition even more intractably right-wing than the one he currently leads.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In the weeks after the U.N. vote, Obama said privately and repeatedly, "Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are." With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation. And if Israel, a small state in an inhospitable region, becomes more of a pariah — one that alienates even the affections of the U.S., its last steadfast friend — it won’t survive. Iran poses a short-term threat to Israel’s survival; Israel’s own behavior poses a long-term one. The dysfunctional relationship between Netanyahu and Obama is poised to enter a new phase. Next week, Israeli voters will probably return Netanyahu to power, this time at the head of a coalition even more intractably right-wing than the one he currently leads." in the context of "Jeffrey Goldberg, in "Obama: ‘Israel Doesn’t Know What Its Best Interests Are’" in Bloomberg View (14 January 2013)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.