With regard to President Obama and French President Sarkozy’s diss of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Reid Smith takes me to task for not mentioning that Obama and Sarkozy were in disagreement over Sarkozy’s decision to support Palestinian membership in UNESCO.

Well, I’m not sure what Benjamin Netanyahu has to do with Sarkozy’s decision to support Palestinian membership in UNESCO. What we do know is that the discussion turned to Netanyahu and Sarkozy called him a liar while Obama responded by saying in essence that Sarkozy was lucky that he didn’t have to deal with him everyday. Obama certainly didn’t say anything to disagree with Sarkozy’s assertion. Naturally, I would be curious what evidence Sarkozy has regarding dishonesty on the part of Netanyahu. Somehow I don’t think he will share that with us anytime soon.

Yet it seems that Mr. Smith is inclined to believe that Netanyahu is less than honest in his dealings citing a slogan from Kadima and the word of an Labor MK. Well, I have news for Mr. Smith. Like America, Israel is a democracy and just as Democrats were inclined to question the honesty of President Bush over Iraq, opposition politicians in Israel have been known to question the honesty of Netanyahu and members of his cabinet.

Now where it concerns the Middle East peace process, Mr. Smith states, “We can all agree that Abbas isn’t trustworthy. Maybe it’s time to consider whether Netanyahu isn’t, himself.” Well, only Israelis can consider Netanyahu’s trustworthiness and Israelis have the power to vote Bibi out of office. They did so once before and there’s not stopping them from doing so again if they see fit. Palestinians in the West Bank on the other hand are stuck with Abbas who has remained in power two years beyond the end of his term with no new vote in sight.