"... Israel's anxieties deepened in May 2009. Barely eight weeks after Netanyahu took office, Obama turned global attention to the most divisive issue in the U.S.-Israel relationship: Israeli settlements in the West Bank...
Many Israelis, even some who despise the settlements, saw this heavy-handed approach as artless at best, if not downright antagonistic. The episode reinforced the perception that Obama was naïve about the Middle East and easily swayed by the left...... placed much of the blame on White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod, two American Jews from Chicago. Some of Netanyahu's people painted them as devotees of the strain of Middle East diplomacy that views Israel as the obstacle to peace.....
J Street advisor and former Council on Foreign Relations fellow Henry Siegman, for example, wrote that Israel is no longer a true democracy but an "apartheid regime" under "the influence of Israel's settler-security-industrial complex" that wants to "retain Israeli control of Palestine from the river to the sea." America's "special relationship with Israel is sustaining a colonial enterprise." But "President Obama is uniquely positioned to help Israel reclaim Jewish and democratic ideals on which the state was founded." This will, of course, require "forceful outside intervention." M.J. Rosenberg, formerly of the Israel Policy Forum, wrote that, "No matter who heads Israel's ... government, it is President Barack Obama who holds 51 cards in the deck." FP contributor Stephen M. Walt added, "Unless the U.S. president is willing and able to push Israel ... peace will simply not happen."
This chorus of voices from the Democratic left strengthened the impression in Israel that Obama, or at least some of his top officials, must agree. However, over the past 12 months, some counterevidence has begun to suggest that Obama and his top advisors are not in fact believers in the catechism of the ideological left.
Yes, Obama is drawing down in Iraq, as he pledged in his campaign. But this is a policy embraced by many in the center, not just the left. At the same time, he is greatly increasing the deployment of American soldiers in Afghanistan from 38,000 to 100,000.
Another important part of progressives' agenda is to cut what they saw as bloated budgets for national security, redirecting allocations to underfunded domestic programs. But Obama has rejected this advice and instead increased the Bush defense budget from $513 billion in fiscal year 2009 to $537 billion for fiscal year 2010 and $549 for 2011. If defense budgets are one of the best indicators of the direction of policy, Obama's defense budgets mark him as no leftist.
Another key indicator of foreign policy direction is a president's willingness to accept human life costs for national security goals. Obama is putting American soldiers at risk in Afghanistan, and he seems to accept that some level of civilian casualties is a regrettable but unavoidable reality if global security objectives are to be achieved. Obama has greatly increased drone strikes against al Qaeda in Pakistan, undeterred by frequent reports of civilian casualties. In December, the president personally issued the order for U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, killing 35 suspected Al Qaeda agents but also, collaterally, dozens of civilians....
On issues that touch Israel more directly, Obama's choices actually align him more closely with Israel than with his progressive colleagues. Many on the left continue to believe that the United States has not made a good-faith effort at diplomatic outreach toward Iran. But Obama said on Feb. 9, "We have bent over backward to say to the Islamic Republic of Iran that we are willing to have a constructive conversation.... We gave them an offer.... They rejected it.... They in fact continue to pursue a course that would lead to [nuclear] weapons." The intelligence community is producing a new National Intelligence Estimate reportedly assessing a much greater threat from Iran than the 2007 document.
On Israeli-Palestinian issues, Obama and his team have changed the pitch, if not the words to the song, after his initial stumble on the settlements freeze. He has, to the consternation of the J Street left, accepted Netanyahu's compromise and moved on. Mitchell said on Nov. 25, "We believe the steps [toward a partial settlements freeze] announced by the prime minister are significant and could have substantial impact." In a Jan. 7 interview with Charlie Rose, Mitchell said, "The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in or construction in East Jerusalem. They don't regard that as a settlement because they think it's part of Israel." Mitchell had the unusual task of explaining to European allies on Jan. 12 why it is unrealistic to expect a freeze on construction in Jerusalem -- a freeze that he himself had demanded just months earlier.
Obama is also unyielding in the face of demands that he open relations with Hamas. He says this would undermine the peace process as long as Hamas continues to reject the existence of Israel, and it would undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. And he is striking a more realistic general tone about the prospects for radical change in the region. In an interview with Time on Jan. 21, he said, "If we had anticipated some of [the] political problems [in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations earlier] we might not have raised expectations as high."...."
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