You had to know this was coming:

Haaretz reported an Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu asked for a meeting with Obama after attending the opening of the UN general assembly in New York in late September. The Israeli prime minister offered to travel to Washington but, according to the Israeli official, the White House said Obama was too busy.

News of the apparent snub came as Netanyahu warned the White House that it had no moral right to block an Israeli attack on Iran‘s nuclear facilities if Washington is not prepared to set firm “red lines” for Tehran, including a deadline for it to meet western demands for a halt to uranium enrichment.

The US national security council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, rejected the idea that Obama is snubbing Netanyahu. He said there will be no talks, because the pair are not in New York on the same day. But Vietor did not address the report that the Israeli prime minister was prepared to meet in Washington.

I’m actually kind of irritated that Obama didn’t meet with Netanyahu. Sure, it won’t accomplish anything, but there’s no risk to it. Declining it outright means another round of “Jews flirting with the GOP?” stories, instigated by Republicans like Shelly Adelson, who are obsessed with this notion in spite of decades of history and every poll ever published. Great. Meeting the guy wouldn’t have annoyed anyone, and no bad press would be involved.

This brings up a strange tendency on the part of the Obama Administration–on a semiregular basis, one sees signs of provocative, aggressive action and rhetoric that are immediately reversed as soon as anyone raises a stink. In this case, I sort of understand it because diplomacy is involved. In countless other cases–I don’t know. Remember how the president tore apart Paul Ryan’s budget plan right in front of him, and then didn’t follow up on it? Or the populist speech in Kansas whose themes lived on only subliminally in the campaign? There are simply too many examples to count during the debt ceiling crisis. And the Administration’s “War on FOX News” that lasted, what, a weekend? Most recently, the deeply silly capitulation to needlessly reinsert the word “God” into the party’s platform. Admittedly, the Netanyahu thing is most likely accidental, Obama’s staff doesn’t realize how dangerous domestically Netanyahu can be–he used to campaign for GOP candidates during his time out of power, lest we forget–and he must be handled very, very carefully. Anything they don’t get just right, he’ll use against them. But time and again, this crew just doesn’t follow through after it throws an elbow, and more often than not, looks impotent and silly walking it back or shrugging it off. This doesn’t apply so much to the campaign, but I really do wonder, finally: what the hell are they afraid of?