Emanuel to Israel: Want help with Iran then abandon West Bank for Palestinian State

Obama's stance worries Israelis

• Jason Koutsoukis, THE AGE of AUSTRALIA
  
• April 18, 2009

CAN Israel still call the United States its best international friend? Apparently not, if you believe the tone of the local media.

Watching the drama unfold inside Israel, the increasingly tense dialogue between US President Barack Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking on all the trappings of a duel.

Almost every day brings news of another sore point between the two countries, a source of yet further inflammation of their once warm relations.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the more immediate threat to Israel's national security lay across the Atlantic rather than from closer to home.

It is bad enough that President Obama uses almost every opportunity he can to set the parameters of a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Now US officials are openly using Israeli anxiety over Iran's fledging nuclear program as a bargaining chip to force Israel's hand on giving up control of the West Bank Palestinian territory.

No less a figure than White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel -- whose father fought with the militant Zionist group the Irgun, and whose appointment had provided such reassurance to Israeli officials -- was quoted this week laying down the law to Israel.

If Israel wants US help to defuse the Iranian threat, Mr Emanuel was reported to have told Jewish leaders in Washington, then get ready to start evacuating settlements in the West Bank.

Talkback radio blazed with fury across the country the same day, as Israelis protested that no US official had the right to tell them where to live.

Then on Thursday came the news that Mr Netanyahu's planned first meeting with President Obama in Washington next month had been called off.

Mr Netanyahu had hoped to capitalise on his attendance at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington to visit the White House.

But Administration officials informed Mr Netanyahu's office that the President would not be "in town".

First phone call on becoming prez: Mahmoud Abbas, first interview Al Arabiya

Washington sources added that the Obama Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call's notice.

It might have been no more than coincidence, but yesterday Israeli defence officials told the liberal daily Haaretz that Israel's $US15 billion ($A21 billion) purchase of 75 US-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets was now under review due to "the unexpected high cost and disagreements with the manufacturer".

Contrary to initial expectations, President Obama has wasted no time becoming fully engaged in the Middle East peace process, despite the magnitude of his domestic political agenda. While Mr Netanyahu has refused to endorse a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict agreed to by his predecessor, President Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US will accept nothing less than Israel living side by side with a sovereign Palestinian state.

Mr Obama is also demanding a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, and has dropped the Bush administration's opposition to Hamas being part of a future Palestinian Authority government.

According to prominent Israeli political commentator Maya Bengal, who writes for the country's second-largest selling newspaper Maariv, the holiday is over.

"As Passover comes to an end, so comes to an end, it seems, the days of grace granted to the Netanyahu Government by the American Administration," says the commentator.

Tel Aviv barman Meir Avraham, 30, says he can feel on the street the tensions being played out between the US and Israel.

"This is one of the the main things that the people are talking about at the moment," says Mr Avraham, who recently returned to Israel after several months in Townsville.

All Israelis, says Mr Avraham, understand the vital nature of the relationship between Israel and the US. "If we lose America, then we are alone," he says. "So we must listen to what America wants. But really I think this is more about the little brother testing the limits of the big brother."

I could not disagree more. At this point I OBSERVE that a Palestinian state would be as much of a threat to Israeli existence as Iran, since nobody is giving up the idea that Israel must go on the other side, and Abbas will do NOTHING to enforce the law on HAMAS, because he knows what will result .. a HAMAS state.

That Emanuel is now a Kappo for this Obama plan, in cooperation with Obama's fawning on KSA's king and their plan for Israel to return to borders which are impossible to defend shows NOT how determined America is to bring peace to the ME, but how determined they are to prove their view of how the world really is, WORKS, REGARDLESS of caution or consequences.Not just appeasement, but arrogance in believing it works.

If Netanyahu wants Israel to live, he had better prepare for life without american support, and american weapons. The fallout from this is going to affect the strategic military situation around the world to america's security deficit. Think Israel will trust us again? We elected this man? Bernard Lewis: "America is harmless to it enemies, and treacherous to her friends"

All who oppose Obama on this will be characterized as RIGHT WING LIKUDNIKS AGAINST PEACE, acting against Israel's best interest. Working against Obama's viewpoint will be allowed to be characterized as PROOF that Walt and Mearsheimer were correct.

Obama is Carter on crack.

It will take more than a generation to recover from Barack Obama if these kinds of actions keep up to fruition.