Obama Should Review US Middle East Policy
Clovis Maksoud writes about the state of US-Israel relations and the hope that the second Obama administration will pursue a viable peace process.
If what appeared in Haaretz on Jan. 15 is accurate — describing US President Barack Obama's assessment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — then Netanyahu is discovering what many all over the world already know about him. Despite this, however, Haaretz disclosed that President Obama will continue to pursue the same the policy on Iran: supporting Israel and shielding it from its violations of the Security Council resolutions.
I think these mutual discoveries about Obama and Netanyahu are interesting, but not surprising. The issue that the international community and Arab community alike should focus on is that the United States has to answer a fundamental question: Does it consider Israel an occupying power in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem? If that is not clarified, all these leaders' personal assessments of each other are interesting, revealing sometimes, but ultimately inconsequential.
In 1967, did the United States consider Israel to be an occupying power? At that time, settlements would have definitely been a violation, as they continue to be.
If the Haaretz report is correct that President Obama did not want to appear bothered when he was informed that Netanyahu had established the Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the E1 area of Jerusalem, and that he told the people around him he had become "accustomed to this kind of behavior from the Israel PM," it gives the impression that he is indifferent to Netanyahu following his policy of "self-destruction."
