Three great articles on the US-Israel Crisis

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
16 March '10

Two of Israel's leading journalists on the moderate left, who don't like Netanyahu, have written a great article repeating the basic points I've been trying to make with excellent clarity about how the Obama Administration is alienating Israelis:

"America's response to the government's approval of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo in northeast Jerusalem is excessive. While it extends a hand to Iran, which continues in its effort to acquire a nuclear bomb; and reaches out to Syria as it arms Hezbollah with advanced weapons, it seems the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to aggravate a diplomatic crisis with the Netanyahu government."

They add:

"Attempts to imply that Israeli policy is endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and even Iraq, verge on an insult to the intelligence - U.S. citizens particualrly. Afghans don't care about Ramat Shlomo, or about the Palestinians and Netanyahu. They have problems of their own to deal with. As far as extremist Islamists are concerned, the seven-year presence of American forces on Iraqi soil is a good enough excuse to attack Americans.

"Efforts by Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, to imply otherwise in television interviews are dishonest. The only people who to suffer from Israeli policy decisions are the Palestinians and neighboring states that have peace agreements with Israel - Jordan and Egypt. Not a single U.S. soldier in Afghanistan is at risk because of 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem."

And they note that this U.S. policy actually damages any chance for a peace process, or even quiet, by making the Palestinians feel they can get more by being more aggressive in demands and perhaps through violence:

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