Obama Officials Despair As Poll Outcome Puts Focus On US-Israeli Links

[Purveyor]

The Guardian, Thursday 12 February 200

Middle East specialists in the Obama administration yesterday looked in despair at the Israeli election results, seeing their hopes for peace in the region fast receding. In public US officials adopted a neutral stance, but in private there is regret that the elections proved inconclusive, with divisions and deadlock on the Palestinian side now replicated on the Israeli side.

Professor Paul Scham, a specialist in Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said he found it difficult to find any basis for optimism. "Maybe Obama can put it together, but the pieces do not seem to be there."

The election result complicates the review of Middle East policy under way in the US state department. Among questions up for discussion are the closeness of the US to Israel and whether that will undercut Obama's overtures to Iran and, potentially, Syria, and relations in general with Arab countries. Links between the US and Israel have not always been strong. In the first 20 years of Israel's existence, relations were often cool and Washington had better links with some Arab countries.

Inside the Obama administration there are officials who in private say how appalled they were by Israel's actions in Gaza, both in terms of the death toll and the impact on the Middle East. Open discussion about the alliance with Israel is difficult in the US. US officials, analysts and academics who question whether the national interest might be better served by loosening links quickly find themselves in the middle of huge squabbles and accusations of antisemitism.

Despite this, there are some who are prepared to voice such views in public. Glenn Greenwald, an author and political commentator who has questioned the US-Israel alliance, said yesterday: "There's no question that the blind, uncritical support the US has lent Israeli actions has harmed America's standing in the world generally, and in the Muslim world particularly ... For little benefit and much harm to ourselves, we have made Israel's numerous enemies, conflicts and wars our own."

MORE...

GUARDIAN UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/12/israel-elections-us-foreign-policy

[underpants]

1. The poor guy just can't win can he?

Oh that's right, he did

Keep on doing what you are doing Obama. Keep your eye on the end line. I am sure that he and they will.

[AdHocSolver]

2. Let us ignore George Bush's destruction of Iraq as reason for Arab and Muslim hostility to the US.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been going on for decades. The Arab states had been proxies for the old Soviet Union against the U.S. for decades. Many Arabs sided with the Germans and against the Allies during WWII.

There are lots of people who are eager to blame all of the U.S. problems in the Arab and Muslim worlds on U.S. support of Israel. This ignores the U.S. overthrow of the Iranian government in the 1950's and putting in a dictator. Then, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, and encouraged and armed both sides in the Iran-Iraq war.

Both the British and the U.S. repeatedly stabbed the Arabs in the back over oil. The Arabs were killing Jews in the Middle East long before Israel became a state. It is disingenuous to blame Israel for U.S. lack of credibility in the Muslim world.