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16 comments

1 Randall Gross  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 6:41:09am

Well the info is a bit suspect since exactly zero reporters will go on record with this under their byline. Don't you think they would if it were real?

2 Randall Gross  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 6:49:50am

whoops, they will report the story as a hearsay thing, but none profess to having heard it themselves, & we are supposed to take the word of an unnamed interpreter.

3 Bob Dillon  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 6:58:20am

Disinformation is thick. However, if I were one of the reporters and considering that my presidential junket invitations might be reduced or put on hold ... I might just think about that a bit before taking any hasty action. I think I remember some prior incidents in this context. Could be wrong ...

4 celticdragon  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 7:07:29am

Hysterical accusations that the President is an anti-Semite and hates Israel in 5...4...3...

As far as I can tell, a lot of folks in Israel also think the PM is a lying asshole. C'est la vie.

5 Bob Dillon  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 7:21:37am

re: #4 celticdragon

It was suggested long ago, as a way of personal consideration, was that what others thought about me was their business. What I thought about me (and how I may respond to a personal attack) was the important piece. Just saying.

6 _RememberTonyC  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 8:28:51am

Sarkozy may have been "going fishing" for a return insult about Bibi from Obama. The POTUS didn't bite. He is much smarter than Sarkozy.

7 simoom  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 8:59:36am

Kind of reading between the lines of a number of accounts here, but it sounds like what happened is that the two leaders were off having a private conversation in a closed room, and reporters were told that they weren't getting the official headphones to plug into the translation feed for that reason. Some reporters then used their own headphones to surreptitiously plug into the feed, and when they were caught, they all agreed not to publish what they'd listened in on as they were breaching the rules of conduct. That eventually unraveled after one of the parties published an account anyway.

[Link: www.guardian.co.uk...]

A staff member reportedly explained that the headphones to go with the translation sets were not yet being handed out because this would have allowed journalists to listen in on the private conversation still going on. Half a dozen journalists immediately plugged in their own headphones and caught three minutes of the private exchange.

[Link: www.ynetnews.com...]

The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that journalists present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments.

...

[A member of the media] added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.

8 simoom  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 9:10:16am

re: #7 simoom

MSNBC Video

Several French-speaking journalists, including one from The Associated Press and another from Reuters, overheard the comments but did not initially report them because Sarkozy's office had asked the journalists not to turn on the headsets until the press conference began, and the comments were deemed private under French media traditions.

9 blueraven  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 9:16:17am

So (supposedly) Sarkozy doesn't personally like BB? This is a big deal why?

The same people that are all upset about this would be very happy if it was Obama being dissed by the French president.

Oh wait...he did, and they were

[Link: www.commentarymagazine.com...]

News Flash: World Leaders don't always like or agree with each other.

[Link: www.nytimes.com...]

10 simoom  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 9:34:06am

A little more from the overheard few minutes, cobbling together snippets from various accounts. First:
[Link: www.reuters.com...]

During their bilateral meeting on November 3, on the sidelines of the Cannes summit, Obama criticized Sarkozy's surprise decision to vote in favor of a Palestinian request for membership of the U.N. cultural heritage agency UNESCO.

"I didn't appreciate your way of presenting things over the Palestinian membership of UNESCO. It weakened us. You should have consulted us, but that is now behind us," Obama was quoted as saying.

Next the widely reported part of the conversation occurred, the specific words recollected somewhat different depending on which news service (the reporters were hearing the French translator's translation of the President's remarks):

"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama ...

Reuters:

"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.

Haaretz:
[Link: www.haaretz.com...]

Obama said he had to deal regularly with Netanyahu even if Sarkozy was fed up with the Israeli leader, according to the translation of a French interpreter during their Cannes exchange.

And then the overheard exchange ended with (from Reuters again):

As a result of the vote, Washington was compelled to halt its funding for UNESCO under a 1990s law that prohibits Washington from giving money to any U.N. body that grants membership to groups that do not have full, legal statehood.

Obama told Sarkozy that he was worried about the impact if Washington had to pull funding from other U.N. bodies such as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the IAEA nuclear watchdog if the Palestinians gained membership there.

"You have to pass the message along to the Palestinians that they must stop this immediately," Obama said.

The day the conversation took place, the Palestinians announced that they would not seek membership of any other U.N. agency.

11 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 2:02:25pm

Why is a dissing of one pol by another in private a big deal?

12 windsagio  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 2:13:44pm

re: #11 Sergey Romanov

I like to think of it as 'Netanyahu pwnt by the truth.'

We had a long (to say the least) discussion a week back or so about how a lot of people think BN is a lying scumbag, so its a nice endcap to hear what major world leaders really think.

13 researchok  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 2:24:55pm

Politicians who lie. Imagine that.

14 Buck  Wed, Nov 9, 2011 1:12:36pm

So none of you can see that this exposes the lie to the "standing with Israel" rhetoric?

Not Pro Palestinian, not anti semitic.... That is not what I am saying.

However... Obama, and for that matter Sarkozy have to take a side here.

If you over heard two people you thought were your friends talking like this about YOU.... would you understand what it means?

Sarkozy said says that 'a Jewish state has no meaning because a state is neither Jewish nor Catholic.' and people thought... there must be more to this. There must be something missing.

With that, was it really a surprise when Sarkozy decided to vote in favor of a Palestinian request for membership of the U.N. cultural heritage agency UNESCO?

And now this. Obama's failure to defend Israel is not smart diplomacy. It is telling. At least to me it is.

15 Buck  Wed, Nov 9, 2011 1:20:31pm

What I wrote on this subject in May of this year (emphasis added) :

Obama is making a change to where the US stands in the region. No I am not saying he is standing with the Palestinians, that is silly. However, he is trying to move the US policy to the middle, to be more of a “neutral player” in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

If you want to be in the middle, or think of yourself as neutral that is fine. In fact it plays well to the American sense of fairness. It sounds good to say "we are not taking sides and only want to help both sides.

However America long ago decided that it was not going to be neutral. To many of the Jews it is as simple as "you are either with us or against us" We have seen the effect of neutral in the past, and we didn't like it.

The main reason for Israel is that forever more there will be at least one government what will never "be neutral".

When someone tells you "precisely because of our friendship, it is important that we tell the truth" they are telling you that you don't already know the truth. That you are fooling yourself in some way.

Well, in my opinion, it is NOT Israel that needs to hear Obama's version of the truth, it is the Palestinian leadership. It is NOT Israel that needs to hear bad news, it is the tyrants and dictators of the Arab and Muslim countries.

Israel does not need to be told what Obama's ideas of truth is. However if Obama wants to make changes to how the US wants to be perceived in the region, he can. Just don't make it sound like he isn't really doing that. If Obama thinks that a “neutral player” will be more effective, then admit that is what he is doing. Don't try and have it both ways.

16 Obdicut  Sat, Nov 12, 2011 11:01:08am

re: #14 Buck

Bibi is not Israel.


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