US/ISRAEL: Obama returns ties to traditional norm

OxfAn excerpts:

• On the Arab side, many hope Obama will resurrect the US role as a broker of peace rather than a staunch defender of Israeli actions.
• On the Israeli side, there are fears that no one in the administration is sufficiently committed to Israel, and a diminished US-Israeli relationship will mean that Israel is forced to face its security threats alone -- the most important of which they see emanating from Iran.

Yet both such hopes and fears are probably overblown. 

• Peace push. ... he called the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to indicate his commitment to moving forward, ..
• Arab-Muslim outreach. ...he would address the Muslim world in early June from Cairo.

Israeli concerns. As a result of these gestures, Israelis fear that Obama is inclined towards 'naive engagement' with Israel's enemies, and believe that in a zero-sum competition for the attention of the US president, every gesture he makes towards the Arab world is a turn away from Israel. 

Compounding Israeli fears is their knowledge that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's approach of confronting enemies and distrusting the intentions of countries historically hostile to Israel seems diametrically opposed to the US president's urge to consult and assuage, creating the conditions for a confrontation. 

Shared interests. Yet it is very much in the interests of both leaders to avoid a blow-up:

• New, pragmatic Bibi? Close observers say Netanyahu has mellowed considerably in the decade since his first stint ....
• Obama pro-Israel bent. Obama has shown a keen interest in maintaining a strong relationship with Israel. Last year, in his speech at the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, a domestic lobby group, he assured attendees that he supported an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, going somewhat beyond existing US policy. ....

Meeting results. The meeting between the two leaders on May 18 did not produce any public surprises: 

1.        Old Israeli-Palestinian dynamic. ......the last quarter century is full of examples of Israeli efforts to grant the Palestinians self-determination short of statehood, ....

2.        Netanyahu delaying tactics. ........his approach toward Palestinian self-governance will continue to be governed by Israel's feeling that sustained security intervention in the West Bank and Gaza is inevitable. 

3.        Signals on Iran. ..Netanyahu -- have generally been vague about what Iranian steps Israel would deem an unacceptable threat:

• No enrichment 'trip-wire'. Clearly, a "nuclear military capability" goes far beyond the uranium enrichment cycle to include warhead design and delivery systems. It was this additional work toward weaponisation that the US National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 concluded had ended in 2003 -- producing an outcry of concern in Israel.
• Time for diplomacy. The obstacles Iran faces in achieving such a capability are large, and while many in Israel talk worriedly about Iran reaching a "point of no return" on enrichment, Tehran's ability safely and securely to deliver a weapon that will not detonate on launch is almost certainly several years off.
• No Israeli preemptive strike. Netanyahu's comments in this regard gives more time for diplomacy to dissuade the Iranians from producing a bomb, and probably makes the threat of an Israeli pre-emptive military strike less imminent.

4.       ....the most significant indicator of Obama's intentions has been not so much what he says, but what he has been careful not to say..... to leave an escape hatch for adjustments in US policy. The most important indicator of this in the last month was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement that the United States would not necessarily cut off funding to a Palestinian government that included members of Hamas,...... 

Creating trust. The key challenge for each side is creating a sense of trust between two very different leaders. On practical matters, Netanyahu is continuing to seek to lock down US commitments on Iran in exchange for Israeli engagement on Palestinian-Israeli issues. Obama's challenge is more complex: he must focus the agenda with Netanyahu, who seems determined to engage in a tactical dance between the many issues on the agenda. The Israeli leader's approach is designed to avoid making strategic concessions, at a time when Netanyahu judges Israel is unlikely to receive strategic rewards in return. 

CONCLUSION: Policy under Obama is returning to the traditional parameters of the US-Israeli relationship after unusually close ties under Bush. The United States remains a key defender of Israel's interests, but is showing a willingness to be critical when US and Israeli assessments and interests conflict."