Saturday, January 17, 2009

Glick sees deteriorating US - Israel relationship

The US is distancing itself from Israel –Caroline Glick

[O]ver the past three years, the US has been expansive, indeed obsessive in its support for Fatah at Israel's expense. Rather than recognize that the Palestinian voters' decision to elect Hamas to lead them in January 2006 constituted a rejection of the notion of a two-state solution on the part of Palestinian society, the Bush administration judged the move as an act of civil disobedience reminiscent, in Rice's view, of the US civil rights movement.

Far from cutting the Palestinians off, the US massively increased its assistance to the Palestinian Authority. For the first time US taxpayers began financing the PA's budget and so, indirectly paying the salaries of both Fatah and Hamas terrorists.

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton pledged in her Senate confirmation hearings that the new administration will immediately seek to engage Iran diplomatically. She also stated that the US intends to actively pursue better relations with Iran's Arab satellite-state, Syria. Moreover, she pledged that the Obama administration will make an immediate push to establish a Palestinian state.

Clinton's testimony makes clear that Obama's major initiatives will all involve forcing Israel to pay a price. According to a source in close contact with Obama's transition team, the first price that Israel will be pressured to pay will be the [strategically vital] Golan Heights.

Obama has pledged that soon after taking office he will make a major speech in an Islamic capital to strengthen US ties to the Muslim world. And the source asserts that Obama intends to make that speech in Damascus. Moreover, he intends to pressure Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria as "payback" for any Syrian indication that it will weaken its ties to Iran.

No one, not even our friends, will fight out battles for us.
[Jerusalem Post]

2 comments:

LHwrites said...

PHEW. After Glick's reasonable article last time, I was getting worries she was showing signs of having a clue. A big thumbs up to her for getting back to her baseline! We don;t know anything yet about what Obama will do regarding Israel. What we do know is that, unfortunately for Israel, American interests around the world are bigger and more encompassing than just Israeli interests. Nevertheless, I do believe that Obama will honor his stated commitments to Israel, and America's long time promises and interests with Israel. This does not preclude America trying to have better relations with the Muslim world, or trying to continue to find a two state solution to Israel's issues that might work for Israel and the Palestinians. We have not seen or heard anything from Obama during the current conflict to make us think we will get much different than this from Obama as of yet. Nothing Hillary said was a marked departure from American policy before the last 3 year Bush-Panic Collapse-Hope-For-a Legacy, and we have no reason to suspect there is a big change from years ago. there are however new realities that we, the world,and Israel must face, such as that nothing tried yet has actually worked. There will be needs for change in MidEast policy, but we have not seen anything yet that indicates it would be bad or unfair to Israel. If America thinks concessions will be necessary, they can also broker U.S. and U.N. guaranteed security, not that this is what I think is best, or what America envisions, just that there are always two sides to any rationale, and we must wait and see. If Obama "secretly`" intends to destroy Israel, the American people, Congress and even Hillary, will not allow it.

Bruce said...

Ms. Glick could be jumping the gun, but there are also some troubling signals coming out of the Obama camp. While i have posted some of these signals, I pray fervently that they are wrong.

We'll soon see if he retains his old warmth towards the Palestinian narrative.