I guess Israel has not gotten the message that the days of WINE AND CHEESE with america are over...America is now in Iraq, so Isarel is NOT needed anymore. Expect america to make very ANTI-ISRAEL decisions from now on. Expect Israhell to be divided into two and the Palestinians get their section/state, expect an invasion of Israhell soon by a couple of nations...this will open the door to america and other nations entering into Israhell to "protect it", who will then DEMORALIZE it....Do unto others...
Will Benjamin Netanyahu fall out with Barack Obama?
On Monday, Benjamin Netanyahu will have his first formal meeting with Barack Obama in the White House. All the signs are that relations between Israel and its superpower ally are not as harmonious as usual, says David Blair.
By David Blair
Last Updated: 5:51PM BST 12 May 2009
Comments 32 | Comment on this article
Before going into politics, Benjamin Netanyahu made his name as a skilled ambassador to the United Nations. But he will need every ounce of diplomatic finesse to deal with the conundrum he faces as Israel's new prime minister.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu will have his first formal meeting with Barack Obama in the White House. All the signs are that relations between Israel and its superpower ally are not as harmonious as usual.
In the next few weeks, America is expected to publish the outlines of a new Middle East peace plan. The goal will be the creation of a Palestinian state based on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Mr Netanyahu, however, has not accepted the principle of Palestinian statehood, and his coalition is filled with Right-wing politicians who are bitterly opposed to the idea. A public rift between Israel and America over the endgame of a Middle East settlement is a real possibility.
On its own, American support for a Palestinian state is nothing new. George W Bush was the first US president to make this pledge explicitly when he produced his "road map" to peace in 2003. But two factors make the present situation different and more dangerous for Israel's government.
Mr Bush waited until his third year in office before coming up with the map – and he only did so because he needed diplomatic cover after his invasion of Iraq. Mr Obama, in contrast, seems set to publish his vision for a settlement in the first six months of his presidency, at the apex of his prestige, and without any diplomatic distractions to compare with the Iraq invasion.
Moreover, Israel assumed during the Bush presidency that it could get away with ignoring the map without incurring any serious penalties. So it proved: the path that supposedly led to a Palestinian state turned out to lead nowhere.
Israel's first obligation was to dismantle the "illegal outposts" that particularly extreme settlers have built across the West Bank. These 100 or so mini-settlements breach Israeli law as much as any UN resolution. Israel ignored this requirement – and paid no price. An aide to Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister, publicly boasted that Israeli diplomacy had managed to "park" and "freeze" the peace process.
Mr Obama may prove similarly reluctant to exert direct pressure on Israel. Merely setting the goal of a Palestinian state is not enough; the world's foreign ministries are filled with dusty copies of Middle East peace plans which everyone ignored. The central question is whether Mr Obama has the resolve to do whatever is necessary for his plan to be implemented, and to force Mr Netanyahu to pay a real price for any obstruction.
If so, this would be a striking departure from his predecessor's approach. Only two US presidents have used direct leverage over Israel: Dwight Eisenhower squeezed the Israeli economy until its army followed British and French forces and withdrew from Egypt during the Suez war in 1956, and George Bush senior withheld billions of dollars of loan guarantees to force Israel's government to attend the Madrid peace conference in 1991.
Mr Netanyahu will do his utmost to ensure that Mr Obama never joins this select club. At home, the prime minister has a reputation as Israel's most Americanised politician. Avoiding an open breach with the superpower will be his central aim – and he will pursue it with the fervour of a man who knows that he has miscalculated in the past.
During his last premiership, between 1996 and 1999, Mr Netanyahu spectacularly fell out with the Clinton administration, so much so that the White House openly celebrated his election defeat by Ehud Barak. President Clinton declared that he was "as excited as a kid with a new toy".
Mr Netanyahu will have two counter-moves to America's diplomatic offensive. Most of all, he will talk about Iran. The threat posed by Tehran's nuclear programme and the Islamic Republic's sponsorship of Hamas and Hizbollah will be Mr Netanyahu's trump cards.
He will argue that Israel cannot make concessions to the Palestinians until Iran has been defanged. In private, Mr Netanyahu says that, under present circumstances, any Palestinian state would be taken over by Hamas and become a satellite of Iran. He sums up this danger in one phrase: "If we pull out, Hamas moves in."
He will also argue that reaching agreement with the Palestinian leadership, divided between Hamas and Fatah, is impossible. Mr Obama may counter by saying that movement on the Palestinian track will help maximise pressure on Iran – and that building an Arab coalition against Tehran requires Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
In short, behind their public displays of mutual regard, the American and Israeli leaders are about to begin a diplomatic fencing match – and the outcome of this polite, veiled confrontation could decide the future of the Middle East.
