rt_cube_logo_240_2Not much to add here. My sense is that during the campaign, we saw the real Netanyahu (e.g., "NO Palestinian state for you"), and now we see the back-peddling Netanyahu ("Well, we still support a 2-state solution."). Pardon, but all of those back peddling statements have the strange smell of something tht often falls out of the rear end of a bull (and also our chickens; really, I saw it happen today!).

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US re-evaluation of Israel policy could pave way to UN condemnation

The US is "evaluating" its policy towards Israel in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election and campaign statements. This could involve passing a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

President Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to congratulate him on winning the March 17 election, and used the opportunity to reaffirm Washington's commitment to a two-state solution that would result in a "secure Israel alongside a sovereign and viable Palestine."

The president also brought up Netanyahu's campaign comment about Israeli Arabs and said the US was reassessing its options following the prime minister's rejection of Palestinian statehood, a White House official told Reuters


https://youtu.be/Z9wFY0_5tk0

During the election, Netanyahu accused his opponents of busing Israeli Arabs to the polls "in droves." The White House condemned the comments as "cynical, divisive election-day tactics" that "erode the values critical to the bond between" the US and Israel, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday.

Earnest characterized Netanyahu's campaign promise to block Palestinian statehood as "walking back" from Israel's commitments to a policy that enjoyed bipartisan support in the US, and formed a basis for US actions on behalf of Israel in the UN and elsewhere.

The White House spokesman was echoing the statement of his State Department colleague. "Based on the prime minister's comments, the United States is in a position going forward where we will be evaluating our approach with regard to how best to achieve a two-state solution," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday. "But that doesn't mean that we've made a decision about changing our position with respect to the UN," she added.

Foreign Policy magazine reported Thursday that Washington had told its allies it would continue to block any measures against Israel in the UN Security Council in case opposition candidate Isaac Herzog won the election, but "signaled a willingness to consider a UN resolution in the event Netanyahu was re-elected."

"The more the new government veers to the right the more likely you will see something in New York," FP quoted an anonymous Western diplomat as saying.

The magazine speculated that Washington might abstain from voting on the UN resolution condemning the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, thus letting it pass. "I could see that as a possibility," Ilan Goldenberg, former member of the Obama administration's Mideast peace team told FP.

Read more​White House pushes Palestinian statehood in face of Netanyahu win

The rift between US and Israel is more based on a clash of personalities rather than fundamental bilateral relations Eric Draitser, independent geopolitical analyst, told RT.

"There has definitely been a rift that has grown in the personal relations between Netanyahu and Obama; between the Israeli regime that he leads and the Obama administration. Part of it has to do with extreme racism and belligerent rhetoric."

US officials insist they would never cut military aid to Israel, nor would they support Palestinian membership in the International Criminal Court. "But they feel no similar inhibition about settlements, which they consider utterly indefensible," liberal columnist Peter Beinart wrote in the Israeli daily Haaretz on Thursday.

Beinart claims that top Obama officials "loathed" Netanyahu before, but the Israeli PM's comments about Palestinian statehood, settlements, and Arab voters in particular, "drove them to new levels of fury."

Another sign that the US may rethink being "Israel's shield" was the recent appointment of former Clinton adviser Rob Malley as the White House's point man on Israel, reports Politico. Malley had been forced to resign from the Obama campaign in 2008, after Jewish groups dubbed him an "Israel-basher" due to his contacts with Hamas, considered by Israel and the US to be a terrorist organization.

Domestic politics may play a role in the White House's calculations as well. "The worse relations between the White House and Israel get, the more Hillary can appease the American Jewish establishment by running to Obama's right, and promising to repair the rift," an unnamed US official told Beinart.

But as US enters the election cycle, the US – Israeli "fundamental relationship" is to be observed.

"Whatever the new incoming administration is going to be they will be moving further and further to the right," Draitser said, which means realigning itself with the "powerful" Israel lobby, or standing "shoulder to shoulder with Israel."

Netanyahu has reportedly already softened his stance on Palestinian statehood, saying he would be open to it "if circumstances improve."

The White House, however, appears unwilling to let him walk back the campaign phrasing. "Words do matter," said Earnest.

"Something fundamental has changed," Beinart wrote of the mood in the Obama administration, adding that, "officials stress that they retain a deep, visceral commitment to the survival of the Jewish state. But they foresee terrible days for Israel ahead."