US President Barack Obama, who once famously said he would “always have Israel’s back”, may be rethinking that promise as aides begin weighing options in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election disavowal of a two-State solution to the Middle East conflict.
Following Obama’s warning that the United States would “reassess” its relationship with Israel, the administration is not only reconsidering the diplomatic cover it has long given Israel at the United Nations but is also looking at a range of other possibilities to put pressure on its historically close ally, US officials said.
Those could include becoming less active in protecting Israel in international fora and finding new ways to reinforce the message of US opposition to Jewish settlement expansion.
As internal discussions proceeded over the weekend, the White House appeared in no rush to lower the temperature in the worst US-Israeli crisis in decades, sparked by Netanyahu’s campaign declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.
White House appears in no rush to lower the temperature
The White House made clear for a second straight day that it had little faith in Netanyahu’s effort to backtrack since winning Tuesday’s election and insist he was in favour of a two-State solution, long a cornerstone of US Middle East policy.
There was no sign of any imminent move to turn the administration’s heated rhetoric against Netanyahu into a tangible shift in policy.
As a result, some analysts questioned whether Washington was merely posturing to put the Israeli leader on the defensive at a time when an end-of-March deadline looms in US-led nuclear diplomacy with Iran that Netanyahu vehemently opposes.
“The administration is putting everything on the table except security assistance – and this will allow Netanyahu time to walk back his comments more credibly,” said Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel.
“I would also not expect any decisions before the situation with respect to the Iran negotiations becomes clearer.”