"... But once Mr. Cordesman had dispensed with what in the newspaper world is called the “to-be-sure” paragraphs, he laid out a dispassionate argument that has gained increased traction in Washington — both inside the Obama administration (including the Pentagon, White House and State Department) and outside, during forums, policy breakfasts, even a seder in Bethesda. Recent Israeli governments, particularly the one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Cordesman argued, have ignored the national security concerns of its biggest benefactor, the United States, and instead have taken steps that damage American interests abroad.
“ .... It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it tests the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews.”
.....The Gaza fight also makes it more difficult for America to rally a coalition that includes Arab and Muslim states against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to stop Jewish housing construction in Arab East Jerusalem also strains American ties with Arab allies. It also makes reaching an eventual peace deal, which many administration officials believe is critical to America’s broader interests in the Muslim world, even more difficult. Both President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have made the link in recent months between the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict and American security interests....
... “But the status quo is unsustainable,” he said in an interview Friday. “If you don’t achieve progress in a just and lasting Mideast peace, the extremists are given a stick to beat us with.”
And in March, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, that new construction in East Jerusalem or the West Bank “exposes daylight between Israel and the United States that others in the region hope to exploit.”
All of this has led to deep soul-searching in parts of the American Jewish community, alongside a fierce debate among officials from past and present administrations. Mr. Obama’s mere characterization of the acts that led to the deaths in the Gaza flotilla as “tragic” unleashed a withering response from Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president. “There is no middle ground here,” she said in a statement. “Either the United States stands with the people of Israel in the war against radical Islamic terrorism or we are providing encouragement to Israel’s enemies — and our own.”
Ms. Cheney’s remarks reflect some of the alarm among Israeli officials and some American Jewish leaders, who preferred the Bush administration’s steadfast support, no matter ... what actions that government took....
Some foreign policy experts say the new willingness to suggest that the Israeli government’s actions may become an American national security liability marks a backlash against the Bush-era neoconservative agenda, which posited that America and Israel were fighting together to promote democracy in an unstable region.
The new concern is also, paradoxically, a consequence of commitments made during the Bush years, when the lives of American soldiers, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, became tied to the state of Arab and Muslim public opinion.....
Within the Obama administration, there are gradations of how to even talk about that issue. At the seder, one Jewish adviser to the administration invoked concerns that ordinary Americans might get so frustrated with Israeli government actions that they will begin to question America’s support for that government. He asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivities surrounding the issue...."
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