Obama in a dilemma?

All eyes are now focused on the upcoming fortnight, awaiting the much-promised address to the joint session of the US Congress by the defiant Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which is likely to turn matters sour between Israel and the US.

This will most likely be the case if Netanyahu retains the Israeli premiership after elections on March 17.

But all this depends on what happens in the next few days preceding the national elections and whether Netanyahu and his shortsighted supporters maintain their aggressive positions, which include continued rejection of the Palestinians’ ambition to gain statehood, as well as the US participation, alongside the four permanent members of the UN Security Council in critical negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, an issue that troubles Israel, a nuclear power unchallenged by key Western nations.

Official and unofficial American supporters of Israel and the Israeli public remain seriously divided over the arrogant and unyielding performance of the Israeli prime minister ahead of the Israeli elections and the simultaneous negotiations with Iran.

A significant American warning came this week from Martin Indyk, a two-term ambassador to Israel and, at present, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Programme at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

The former US special envoy to last year’s failed Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations was a participant last week in the annual Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv.

He warned at the conference, according to The Jerusalem Post, that if the Israeli government emerges after the elections and does not launch a diplomatic initiative or opposes a Palestinian state, Israel will likely face a UN Security Council resolution proposed by all permanent members designed to “lay out the principles of a two-state solution”.

Secretary of State John Kerry is said to be working on such a project at this time. 

Indyk, who did little to hide his position that Netanyahu was responsible for the breakdown of the peace talks, underlined Washington’s concern that the situation is reaching a boiling point, exacerbated by Israel’s withholding the transfer of tax funds to the Palestinian Authority so that it could pay salaries of the Palestinian civil servants.

“The way forward,” he said, “begins with coordinating an initiative with the United States … and then, looking to Egypt and Jordan and the resurrection of the Arab Peace Initiative.”

What may, however, tone down Israel’s anxiety about the Obama administration’s position is the appointment of a new secretary of defence, namely Ashton Carter, a longtime Pentagon aide.

The Jerusalem Post described Carter as “an ardent supporter of Israel who has also enjoyed a close relationship with [Israeli] Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon”.

Another American, who emigrated to Israel and now is its ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, reported, according to Politico Magazine, that congressional Democrats were “already suspicious of him, alleging that he has been undermining negotiations with Iran by distributing negative talking points” to congressional offices.

According to The New York Times, the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, among others, had initially resisted the appointment.

Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst, wrote in The National Interest that “the naming of Dermer is a statement that manipulation, with a hard-right twist, of American politics is not just something that arises from time to time in US-Israeli relations but instead is the main aspect of the relationship”.

He elaborated: “It also is a statement by Netanyahu that he isn’t bothered if the relationship is seen that way.”

Obama seems angered by Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington to address a joint session of Congress days before the Israeli election.

Israeli polls “across all ideological groups” show that “a majority does not trust Obama to ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapon”, reported The Times of Israel.

“Among undecided voters, the distrust is slightly deeper, with 17 per cent saying they trust Obama and 76 per cent saying they do not.”

But The Washington Post ran an interesting letter to the editor from a reader who describes himself as Jewish.

He wrote: “Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud Party have done considerable harm to Israel, to its international standing and even to the reputation of the Jewish people in general. 

“Furthermore, his unseemly attempt to come pleading to Congress while willfully dismissing President Obama plays into the hands of people who proclaim that Israel holds undue influence over the affairs of the US government.”

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.