Showing posts with label US-Israel relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US-Israel relations. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Dr. Gorka on What's Next for US-Israel Relations
Monday, September 14, 2015
Has Obama Put Relationship with Israel At Risk?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Striding to the podium inside the Washington Convention Centre, President Barack Obama did his very best to avoid any sense that he felt intimidated by entering what was, in political terms, the lion's den.
There was tepid applause and a couple of isolated boos from the crowd of almost 10,000 members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as Aipac, the premier and most hardline mainstream group in the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
The reception was one of intense scepticism. A vast majority of delegates felt that Mr Obama had a need to explain himself after his comments that a Middle East peace deal should be based on Israel's 1967 border incorporating agreed land swaps with the Palestinians.
But if they thought that the American president was going to take back his words in Thursday's speech at the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters, then they were sorely mistaken.
Wagging his finger repeatedly, Mr Obama adopted the manner of a schoolmaster frustrated that his pupils were too dim or inattentive to pay attention to what he had said. Continue reading and comment » | Toby Harnden | Sunday, May 22, 2011
Friday, July 09, 2010
YNET NEWS: US president tells Channel 2 Israel currently receives more aid than during any previous term, adds he is reaching out to Muslims to 'reduce antagonism' towards state. 'My middle name is Hussein, which creates suspicion,' he says
US President Barack Obama gave an interview to Channel 2 Wednesday night in which he said his administration had provided Israel with more aid than any other before it.
The president also told news anchor Yonit Levy that Iran and its nuclear program have been the US's first priority for the past 18 months. "I have said consistently that it is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon, (and) that we are going to do everything we can to prevent it from happening," Obama said.
In an interview aimed at assuring Israelis of the US's support, Obama ventured a guess as to why they were mistrustful of him. "Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion," he said.
"Ironically, I've got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the US Senate."
Obama added that his direct appeals to the Muslim world may have also fostered some misgivings among the Israeli people. >>> Ynet | Thursday, July 08, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: A senior Israeli diplomat has warned that the Jewish state's relationship with the United States has suffered a "tectonic rift".
The sobering assessment comes a week before Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, meets President Barack Obama at the White House.
There had been hope the two could lay to rest a row that erupted between the two allies in March but the new comments have raised fears of long-term damage.
Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told foreign ministry colleagues at a private briefing in Jerusalem that they were facing a long and potentially irrevocable estrangement.
Sources said Mr Oren told the meeting: "There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs. [Instead] relations are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."
Mr Oren's privately-voiced pessimism stands in stark contrast to public declarations in both Jerusalem and Washington that differences between the two states amount to nothing more than "disagreements" between allies. >>> Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem | Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 05, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — Tensions deepened between Turkey and Israel on Friday, and a new fissure threatened to open between the United States and Israel, as the three countries continued to deal with the fallout from Israel’s deadly raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla off Gaza.
A senior Turkish diplomat warned that his country might sever diplomatic relations with Israel unless its government apologized for the attack, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed; consented to an international investigation; and lifted its blockade of Gaza.
“Israel is about to lose a friend; this is going to be a historical mistake,” said the diplomat, Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to Washington. “The future of our relationship will be determined by Israel’s actions.”
Israeli officials refused Turkey’s demands, saying their commandos acted in self-defense after activists on one ship set upon them with knives, clubs and metal rods. Israel also took issue with the Obama administration’s assertion that the United States had warned Israeli officials to exercise caution and restraint in intercepting the flotilla.
“I was not contacted by anyone in the administration about this,” said Michael B. Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Mr. Oren said he was not aware that anybody else in the Israeli government had been called and was seeking clarification from the administration.
A spokesman for the State Department, Philip J. Crowley, said the United States had “extensive contacts” with Israel and Turkey before the flotilla set sail. “We expressed to the Israelis the need for caution and restraint in dealing with civilians, including American citizens,” he said. >>> Mark Landler | Friday, June 04, 2010
Sunday, August 02, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Tension is escalating between the U.S and Israel. The problem: The administration views the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the root of all problems, while Israel is focused on Iran’s nuclear threat, says Elliott Abrams.
The tension in U.S.-Israel relations was manifest this past week as an extraordinary troupe of Obama administration officials visited Jerusalem. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Advisor James Jones, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and new White House adviser Dennis Ross all showed up in Israel’s capital in an effort to…well, to do something. It was not quite clear what.
Since President Obama came to office on Jan. 20 and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 31, the main motif in relations between the two governments has been friction. While nearly 80% of American Jews voted for Mr. Obama, that friction has been visible enough to propel him to meet with American Jewish leaders recently to reassure them about his policies. But last month, despite those reassurances, both the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements critical of the president’s handling of Israel. Given the warm relations during the Bush years and candidate Obama’s repeated statements of commitment to the very best relations with Israel, why have we fallen into this rut?
U.S.-Israel relations are often depicted as an extended honeymoon, but that’s a false image. Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel’s history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948. Relations weren’t particularly warm under Eisenhower—who, after all, demanded that Israel, along with Britain and France, leave Suez in 1956. The real alliance began in 1967, after Israel’s smashing victory in the Six Day War, and it was American arms and Nixon’s warnings to the Soviet Union to stay out that allowed Israel to survive and prevail in the 1973 war. Israelis are no fans of President Carter and, as his more recent writings have revealed, his own view of Israel is very hostile. During the George H.W. Bush and Clinton years, there were moments of close cooperation, but also of great friction—as when Bush suspended loan guarantees to Israel, or when the Clinton administration butted heads with Mr. Netanyahu time after time during peace negotiations. Even during the George W. Bush years, when Israel’s struggle against the terrorist “intifada” and the U.S. “global war on terror” led to unprecedented closeness and cooperation, there was occasional friction over American pressure for what Israelis viewed as endless concessions to the Palestinians to enable the signing of a peace agreement before the president’s term ended. This “special relationship” has been marked by intense and frequent contact and often by extremely close (and often secret) collaboration, but not by the absence of discord. >>> Elliott Abrams | Saturday, August 01, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: 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.
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. >>> By David Blair | Tuesday, May 12, 2009
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