Who would have thought it even a few months ago.....Israel becoming an outcast. The election of Obama - with a direction toward to the Middle East different from that of George W - and the Israel's actions in the Gaza War have changed things markedly.
It is a subject taken up in an op-ed piece in "Borderline Outcast?" on FT.com:
"But Israel and its government, too, face a new reality. Under George W. Bush it had enjoyed an unflinchingly supportive White House. While no one expects President Barack Obama’s administration to embark immediately on a collision course with Israel, many officials and analysts predict that there will be tensions.
For Israel, the new reality in Washington comes at a time when the Gaza war and its aftermath have stoked widespread public condemnation, damaging the Jewish state’s international standing and straining relations with friendly Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan as well as with Turkey, a vital ally.
While most analysts agree that Israel is not, at this stage, an international outcast, the question of how the new government will deal with the backlash – and how the backlash will affect policymaking and diplomacy in the years ahead – is both real and urgent. A European diplomat predicts that if Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman refuse to back the two-state solution then, at least in Europe, “we won’t be able to conduct business as usual with them”.
Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East task force at the New America Foundation in Washington, says of the decline in Israel’s reputation: “Part of this is a structurally inbuilt logic of an occupation that becomes increasingly aggressive, in order to maintain itself and a settler population that is increasingly radicalised.
“Both of these lead Israel to take harsher measures and in turn Israeli society becomes less humane and liberal; and in order to justify itself, it becomes ever more immune to international criticism.”
Far from persuading the country to re-examine its policies, such criticism is having the opposite effect. “There is a campaign to delegitimise us but we’re a democracy and we have major strategic allies,” says Danny Ayalon, the new deputy foreign minister."
It is a subject taken up in an op-ed piece in "Borderline Outcast?" on FT.com:
"But Israel and its government, too, face a new reality. Under George W. Bush it had enjoyed an unflinchingly supportive White House. While no one expects President Barack Obama’s administration to embark immediately on a collision course with Israel, many officials and analysts predict that there will be tensions.
For Israel, the new reality in Washington comes at a time when the Gaza war and its aftermath have stoked widespread public condemnation, damaging the Jewish state’s international standing and straining relations with friendly Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan as well as with Turkey, a vital ally.
While most analysts agree that Israel is not, at this stage, an international outcast, the question of how the new government will deal with the backlash – and how the backlash will affect policymaking and diplomacy in the years ahead – is both real and urgent. A European diplomat predicts that if Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman refuse to back the two-state solution then, at least in Europe, “we won’t be able to conduct business as usual with them”.
Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East task force at the New America Foundation in Washington, says of the decline in Israel’s reputation: “Part of this is a structurally inbuilt logic of an occupation that becomes increasingly aggressive, in order to maintain itself and a settler population that is increasingly radicalised.
“Both of these lead Israel to take harsher measures and in turn Israeli society becomes less humane and liberal; and in order to justify itself, it becomes ever more immune to international criticism.”
Far from persuading the country to re-examine its policies, such criticism is having the opposite effect. “There is a campaign to delegitimise us but we’re a democracy and we have major strategic allies,” says Danny Ayalon, the new deputy foreign minister."
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