Israel's fear and loathing of Obama

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https://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidFTNEWSPLUS_CB20100427_26


Israel's alarm at the deterioration in its relations with the US is palpable. In Jerusalem recently, even a liberal commentator told me: "Barack Obama is a disaster for Israel. I don't think the general public realise just how much of a disaster he is." Government officials are more careful - but only a bit. Danny Ayalon, the deputy Israeli foreign minister, says that it would be a "grave mistake" for America to present its own Middle East peace plan, an idea that the US president's people are known to be considering.

Listening to all this, I could not help thinking back to the early stages of the Northern Irish peace negotiations. In part, this is because some of the same cast of characters have moved from Belfast to Jerusalem. George Mitchell,

Mr Obama's envoy to the Middle East, played a crucial role as a go-between in Ulster. Tony Blair is also on the scene, this time installed in the American Colony hotel rather than Stormont castle.

But there is more to the parallel than familiar faces. The Israelis' furious reaction to the pressure they are under from the Obama administration is reminiscent of the British rage early in the Northern Irish peace process, when it became clear that our American allies were intent on "talking to the terrorists" of the Irish Republican Army. But, as it turned out, the Americans were right to insist that there was a peace deal to be made with the IRA. They are right again on the Middle East peace process. There is still a deal to be had - and if Israel does not take it soon, the long-term survival of the Jewish state will be imperilled.

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Mr Obama is right to identify a halt to "settlement activity" as crucial.

Israelis have many theories about why Mr Obama is being so beastly to them. The wilder fringes of the Israeli right insist that the US president is an anti-semite - despite the fact that both his chief-of-staff and his top political adviser are Jewish. Even leftwing commentators muse that Mr Obama may be more instinctively sympathetic to the developing world than to the Jewish state.

But no special explanation should be needed for Mr Obama's insistence on a settlement freeze. Such a policy is in the interests of Israel as well as the Palestinians. Israelis may fear and even detest Mr Obama - but the American president is actually doing them a favour.
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