No surprise here: 'US giving full support to ANY Israeli 'reaction!"

"As President Obama departs Washington on holiday, he leaves behind an unsettled place. He is being criticized both for going on holiday at all and for his choice of Martha’s Vineyard as his destination. He will take with him much on which to reflect. Very little will concern foreign policy. Other than issuing a strong statement on Syria, Obama’s preoccupations have been wholly domestic. Even the upsurge of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan attracts little interest. This is likely to remain so. Although the forthcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11 will allow him and the wider country to reflect on America’s position in the world, the recent new evidence of weak economic recovery have raised substantial new doubts about Obama’s prospects in 2012. Even some of Obama’s closest advisers are now openly saying that he is not obsessed with being reelected – although his pace of fund-raising remains active.... In the Middle East, the strongly-worded statement criticizing the August 18th rocket attacks in Southern Israel and the mild reaction to renewed Israeli construction in East Jerusalem indicate that the US will give full support to any Israeli reaction. A State Department official commented to us, “we are stressing to the Egyptians not to take Hamas’ side.”..."