Netanyahu is good for Obama

[scandal 951]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086062.html

Last update - 05:27 17/05/2009

Netanyahu is good for Obama

By Zvi Bar'el

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lands in Washington Sunday, he brings a valuable gift for U.S. President Barack Obama: new U.S. legitimacy in the Middle East. If Netanyahu says the right password at the White House gates - "two states for two peoples" - Obama will have his first Israeli political achievement. Then there will be no escaping attributing this ideological compromise to American pressure on Israel. If Netanyahu refuses to say the magic words, this will further thicken the alliance between Obama and the Arab and Muslim Mideast. No matter how we spin this summit, Obama will be the winner.

Since the days of Ronald Reagan through Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, U.S. foreign policy has been widely viewed as anti-Arab. The various administrations were perceived as "Jewish regimes" willing to bow to every Israeli caprice, with some arm-twisting by the Jewish lobby. Arab leaders would emerge from White House visits frustrated, having failed to convince the president to listen to their requests.

America's consistent UN veto for resolutions condemning Israel, its inability to force Israel to adhere to the road map, its opposition to talks with Syria, its support for the Second Lebanon War, and most of all its war in Iraq - all this drove the Arab world to regard the American-Israeli power couple as a single individual. This closeness created such deep antagonism against the U.S. that the September 11 attacks were met with understanding in many Arab communities. The Arab public regarded the U.S. as an illegitimate state, and Israel was the direct source of that de-legitimization.

In his first 100 days in office, Obama has been able to reverse that trend, at least in the diplomatic arena. His warm embrace of the Arab Peace Initiative, adoption of the two-state solution as the basis of his Mideast strategy, dialogue with Syria, calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and treatment of the Israeli prime minister as one of equals all place Israel in a new position. But not Israel alone. Arab states are now willing to trust the U.S. For the first time in decades, Arab leaders are not being treated merely as charity cases, as weepers and wailers or bearers of inferior diplomatic status.

One could, of course, start tearing one's hair out and panicking. But this time we are not seeing the well-worn zero-sum game, whereby everything good for the Arabs is bad for Israel and vice versa. America's new position and Obama's personal standing bear several important advantages for Israel. For example, U.S. policy toward Iran is not perceived as the result of Israeli pressure, but as coordinated with the Arab states and Europe. It is therefore received with greater legitimacy, so that even if dialogue with Tehran fails, an American response will not be viewed as another U.S.-Israeli move, but as regional policy, which will enjoy much wider support.

Radical Islamists, whether in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, will struggle to bring in secular or nationalist supporters on the pretext of fighting the American enemy. Conversely, we can also expect the U.S. administration - which is basing its relations with the Arab states on diplomatic interests rather than the forced re-education missions of the Bush years - will also arouse less antagonism in everything related to adopting Western values.

How will this affect the peace process between Israel and the Arabs? As U.S. legitimacy grows in the region, the term "impartial mediator" will regain the legitimacy lost during the Clinton and Bush years. Such a mediator, naturally, needs partners, but when they are at least willing to sit down at the table, the mediator has a much greater chance of succeeding than when it is perceived as one-sided. That will be Washington's gift to the negotiating table.

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Since the days of Ronald Reagan through Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, U.S. foreign policy has been widely viewed as anti-Arab. The various administrations were perceived as "Jewish regimes"

...

As U.S. legitimacy grows in the region, the term "impartial mediator" will regain the legitimacy lost during the Clinton and Bush years.

hmmm.

[scandal 951]

Since the days of Ronald Reagan through Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, U.S. foreign policy has been widely viewed as anti-Arab. The various administrations were perceived as "Jewish regimes"

...

As U.S. legitimacy grows in the region, the term "impartial mediator" will regain the legitimacy lost during the Clinton and Bush years.

hmmm.

Good catch!

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

At odds with Obama, Netanyahu heads to U.S.

BEN-GURION AIRPORT, Israel (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu begins on Sunday his first U.S. visit since taking office, promoting policies that could herald a rocky relationship with President Barack Obama.

At the top of Netanyahu's Washington agenda is halting Iran's nuclear program, which Israel calls a threat to its existence, and a new approach to peace with the Palestinians that would shift the focus of talks away from statehood top.

Both issues could put Netanyahu and Obama, who will meet at the White House on Monday, on a collision course, although Israeli and U.S. officials have been trying to play down prospects of a confrontational meeting.

"The inbuilt and natural alliance between the United States and Israel ensures a good dialogue. What we have in common far outweighs whatever disputes there might be," Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told Reuters in an interview.

Advocating the creation of a Palestinian state, a cornerstone of U.S. policy that Netanyahu has balked at endorsing, Obama has pledged to make Middle East peacemaking a high priority.

But Netanyahu has signaled he regards halting what Israel believes to be Tehran's push for nuclear weapons as more urgent than the pursuit of elusive peace with the Palestinians.

Noting that Netanyahu and Obama met twice before assuming their current posts, Ayalon, a former ambassador to Washington, added: "There is a strong basis for positive chemistry."

With Hamas Islamists in charge of the Gaza Strip and little progress made in now-frozen statehood negotiations that resumed late in George W. Bush's presidency, Netanyahu has said talks should focus instead on economic, security and political issues.

Palestinians reject that approach, saying they will not negotiate with Netanyahu's right-leaning government until he commits to a two-state solution to the conflict and halts the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

DIFFERENCES

Top Netanyahu aides held preparatory talks in Washington this week, apparently seeking a diplomatic formula that could smooth over his differences with Obama on the statehood issue and settlement building, which the United States opposes.

Obama's efforts to engage Iran have also raised concern in Israel, which has not ruled out military strikes if diplomacy to halt Tehran's uranium enrichment fail. Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity.

Analysts expect the Obama administration to use Netanyahu's visit to urge Israel, widely believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, not to act precipitously.

Earlier this month, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that world powers should take action against Iran if it did not curb its nuclear activities by August, a timeframe Netanyahu has not endorsed publicly.

On a diplomatic level, Obama sees Israeli-Palestinian progress as crucial to repairing the U.S. image in the Muslim world and to convincing moderate Arab states to join a united front against Iran.

Israeli officials have rejected any such linkage between resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and enlisting Arab states against Iran.

"Iran is a destabilizing player in the region. It is the root of the problem in many areas," National Security Adviser Uzi Arad told Israel's Channel One television.

"Most of the leaders of the Arab world are aware of this. Therefore whoever wants to stabilize the Middle East must deal with the root of the problem."

Netanyahu will spend three days in Washington. He plans extensive meetings on Tuesday in Congress, where support for Israel traditionally has been strong.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNew...E54F2J920090516

A different take on the meeting.

[sj5 4]

I'm curious what's their deal for this peace.

Edited May 17, 2009 by sj5

[scandal 951]

A different take on the meeting.

It is different, but not dramatically so. Both articles recognize the different stances of Israel and the US. The Ha'aretz article (my favorite left leaning news source there ) predictably played up the angle of the wise and benevolent Obama "tutoring" the wayward Netanyahu and giving him some needed course correction. Can't argue with that

It's pretty apparent that the new governments in both Israel and the US have very different agendas. Israel is trending right, America has just made a historic shift left. It remains the case that Israel is the one true democracy in the region that shares similar values to America's. The countries are natural allies regardless of the shifts of the political tides and I don't expect that to change in the Obama Administration. Many of my friends and family in Israel have been in a near panic of what Obama will mean for the country. I simply don't share their fears.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

A different take on the meeting.

It is different, but not dramatically so. Both articles recognize the different stances of Israel and the US. The Ha'aretz article (my favorite left leaning news source there ) predictably played up the angle of the wise and benevolent Obama "tutoring" the wayward Netanyahu and giving him some needed course correction. Can't argue with that

It's pretty apparent that the new governments in both Israel and the US have very different agendas. Israel is trending right, America has just made a historic shift left. It remains the case that Israel is the one true democracy in the region that shares similar values to America's. The countries are natural allies regardless of the shifts of the political tides and I don't expect that to change in the Obama Administration. Many of my friends and family in Israel have been in a near panic of what Obama will mean for the country. I simply don't share their fears.

Netanyahu is the old pro here, and Obama is the wet behind the ears pup. Israel will use Iran to distract from the Palestinian problem, and the bull dozers are probably being serviced, and made ready for action, as Netanyahu wants to establish more "facts on the ground".

Obama will avoid direct confrontation with Iran at all costs, and will do everything to appease the neighbors, so that means confronting Netanyahu over Palestine, at least in front of the cameras. But, Obama has yet to take a firm position for or against anything, so this all will probably go nowhere.