Kirsten Gillibrand, it turns out, was exactly right about the Obama administration’s willingness to apply pressure on a hawkish Israeli government.
Back in February, soon after Gillibrand’s appointment to replace Hillary Clinton–and right around the time the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu was forming a new government in Israel–she went further than most Democrats in the Senate, and certainly further than most Democratic elected officials in New York, in talking about her willingness, and the willingness of the American government, to assert its diplomatic prerogatives.
She said that she would “offer what I think is the best policy, regardless of what Netanyahu says is what he wants to do,” and expressed confidence that “the president will use all the means and all the tools in his toolbox to reach a solution for peace in the Middle East.