Meddling In Internal Affairs

I thought common diplomatic process was to not be seen as intervening in internal affairs of another country. Even though we all know that every country tries to use it's influence in every possible way to achieve results in any given situation that will favor it's own personal interests, they at least generally try to do so without it being known. Comments like "That is an internal affair and I won't comment on that" is pretty standard in the diplomatic world.

Three times this past week the United States government officials breached that protocol. We had Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta talking at the Saban Forum and saying things like Israel needs to get to the damn table, and mend fences with other neighboring countries. Ok, that is less an internal affair and more public policy issues regarding Middle East Peace, but it still seems he crossed into blaming Israel too much for foot-dragging and causing delays.

We then had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking, also at the Saban Forum, about Israel's internal issues with the extreme haredim who are demanding gender-separation in many public spheres of life in Israel.

And Kadima claims on its website that President Bill Clinton, also while at the Saban Forum, granted an interview to a journalist in which they were talking about, among other things I presume, Kadima Chairwoman Tzippi Livni. Clinton said during the interview that if Livni would be in the current government, the government would be much better. It is really a "what if" discussion, so he is just assuming she would do things more in line with his own ideas, and even that she would accomplish anything is just an assumption (Kadima led the government already with Livni holding a senior position, and they brought us no closer to peace)..

It seems like the United States has no problem meddling..