The Obama Administration is working feverishly to prevent the government of Palestine from asking the United Nations for recognition as a state. The United States cannot prevent the asking, but has said it would prevent the success by vetoing the measure when it comes before the Security Council. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared he will then appeal to the General Assembly for recognition, which he will certainly get. But the Palestinian Liberation Organization has had observer status at the United Nations since 1974, received formal recognition as a state by numerous countries since 1988. What, then, is the big deal of such recognition? 

President Abbas described the purpose as "negotiating from the position of one United Nations member whose territory is militarily occupied by another, and not as a vanquished people." Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said the appeal to the United Nations was the best of their options, which consisted of surrender, return to violence, or appeal to the international community. That is, they consider negotiations with Israel at a dead end. He dismissed Quartet envoy Tony Blair's efforts with "sounds like an Israeli diplomat," and called for "international responsibility toward the Palestinians."

For the last several years, Prime Minister Fayyad has been taking an alternative approach: creating competent government so that Palestine actually has a functional state. It's a significant difference. Our own country endorsed that approach, bilaterally contributing $600 million a year, including direct budgetary support to the Palestinian Authority and significant effort to training Palestinian security forces.

That aid to the government of Palestine was a very difficult sell to Congress, who feared we were building the military and paramilitary forces that would threaten Israel. The fear has so far not materialized -- well-trained and disciplined security forces in Palestine have been a stabilizing presence in the occupied territories, often working in conjunction with Israeli security forces. Fayyad's fait accompli strategy has worked well enough that Nabil Shaath now confidently asserts "a new culture of nonviolence." If only.

Using international institutions to threaten Israel is unlikely to make Palestine independent. For all the international sanctimony, who is going to force Israel to cede its territory, and commit to ensuring that territory's independence once arrived at?

What Abbas' gambit is likely to produce is an end to American funding and participation in professionalization of Palestinian security forces (already tenuous because of the April 2011 Fatah-Hamas power sharing agreement), and greater hostility to political engagement with the government of Palestine by the two governments it needs to make a Palestinian state a reality: the United States and Israel. It may also undercut the Palestinian case for a right of refugee return to lands in Israel.

The Obama Administration's veto in the Security Council will incur a high political cost to the United States. It is difficult to argue, as we have, for the independence of South Sudan, the dawn of representative governments throughout the Middle East, and the right of ethnic and religious enclaves to their autonomy while opposing the partition of Israel's territory along those lines. Moreover, as the last two administrations have supported a two-state solution, it leaves the United States in the awkward position of vetoing something we have said we want as the outcome. And then there's the man on the street question: if the Palestinians have a President and Prime Minister, don't they already have a state?

Arab countries will cry foul at our hypocrisy, making more difficult our partnerships in that important region. The Abbas government is surely banking on Gulf states filling in the financial assistance that the Congress will cut off; that may happen, although the record is patchy of fellow Arab states supporting Palestinians beyond rhetoric and Palestinians are already among the world's largest recipients of foreign assistance. There will also be the economic effect of tighter restrictions by Israel.

Skillful working of the U.N. rules could delay the vote until well into October, which would deny Abbas the grandstanding opportunities of the General Assembly convocation in September. That is probably the best the Obama Administration can hope for at this point. 

It is difficult to see Abbas' move bringing Israel to the bargaining table. Israeli fears of international persecution will be stoked at the prospect of their security being adjudicated in the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. An overtly confrontational move like going to the United Nations will not soften Israeli hearts or government policies. Peace in Palestine depends fundamentally on Israel feeling secure enough to trade land for peace -- something it tried before and got burned on -- and reining in the settler movement.

At the end of the day, Palestinian aspirations would be advanced more by appealing for international support on the basis of the dignity of Palestinians creating their own state rather than having a U.N. coronation for one that may not be strong enough to support itself.

One of the more curious aspects of President Obama's May 19 Middle East speech was his decision to devote so much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The president's main theme, of course, was supposed to be the Middle East upheavals of 2011 and the United States' support for those seeking liberty after decades of tyranny. Indeed, in his speech, the president properly highlighted one of the region's great unspoken truths: that for years on end, autocrats of every stripe have cynically manipulated the conflict with Israel to divert their people's grievances outward. When provided half a chance to give voice to what's really on their minds, the Arab masses since last December have repeatedly demonstrated that their thoughts turn not so much to far away Palestine, but to their own mistreatment and degradation at the hands of corrupt, unaccountable despots. Contrary to the myth indulged by generations of Western diplomats, the real driving force of Middle East politics has proven not to be Israel's dispute with the Palestinians, but a freedom deficit that has left hundreds of millions of Arabs living lives of quiet desperation under the thumb of their own oppressive dictators.

Was this really the time, then, for the president to re-focus global attention on the imperative of resolving the Palestinian issue? To commit, in effect, the very transgression that he had just minutes before rightly criticized Arab leaders for, i.e., diverting attention from what really ails the Middle East -- the absence of humane, representative governance that has as its first priority addressing the legitimate needs of its own citizenry -- to the intensely emotional, but profoundly intractable issue of Palestine?

For all the president's laudable comments on the region's "winds of change," what should have been the primary message of his speech was quite predictably overwhelmed by the deluge of attention given to his revived foray into peacemaking. "Obama Seeks End to the Stalemate on Mideast Talks," trumpeted the New York Times. "Obama urges Israel to make push for peace," proclaimed the Washington Post. Talk about stepping on your own headline. A vital region of the world is convulsed by a process of historic transformation that carries both great promise as well as great danger for U.S. interests. Yet in the wake of a major presidential address on the issue, all we are left talking about is a new U.S. position to help solve a six decade-old conflict whose prospects for near-term resolution are effectively nil?

Of course, quite apart from serving as a major distraction from the most pressing threats and opportunities that currently confront the United States in the Middle East, the president's peace process play made little sense even on its own terms. Thanks in large part to the ham-handed diplomacy of Obama's first two years in office, peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians are (as noted above) largely frozen. There was no real prospect that anything the president said in his May 19 speech was likely to launch the process on a more virtuous path.

Quite the contrary. Coming on the eve of a visit by Israel's prime minister, without any advance warning or coordination between the two allies, the president's "1967 lines" gambit guaranteed yet another embarrassing contretemps and breach of trust with the United States' closest and most powerful Middle Eastern friend. Making matters worse was that the substantive tilt in favor of the Palestinian position came in the context of a brazen drive by the Palestinian Authority to defy U.S. interests -- first by foregoing direct negotiations with Israel in favor of a dangerous course of unilateralism at the United Nations; and second, by striking a unity deal with an unreconstructed Hamas. On top of it all came the unfortunate spectacle of Prime Minister Netanyahu having to dress down the President of the United States in the Oval Office, and Obama's efforts to "clarify" what his peace initiative really meant just days later in front of a pro-Israel audience. The cumulative effect was to reinforce all of the worst stereotypes of Obama that have unfortunately metastasized across the Middle East: a weak, unreliable, and incompetent leader whose first instinct is invariably to punish traditional American allies while rewarding those bent on undermining U.S. interests.

And all for what? To convince Europe to help derail the bid for U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood in September? Well, maybe. But, again, one has to ask: Why not do some advance coordination with Israel on what it would take to achieve this legitimate (and shared) strategic purpose? More importantly, why make the shift on "1967 lines" and endure all the subsequent costs without first securing guarantees that the Europeans will in fact deliver? Here, once more, the president simply plays to the most harmful caricature of himself, as a leader who actually believes that his august pronouncements are somehow a substitute for serious policy; a worrisome mix of arrogance and naiveté who is left playing the sucker that friends can never rely on to protect their backs and enemies increasingly believe can be challenged at little or no cost.

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The to-ing and fro-ing between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government continues unabated, with each new verbal clash further dimming any chances for an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. On Friday the Israeli government moved another step closer to lifting its construction freeze by publishing in the Israeli press its plans to build 1,345 new housing units in mostly Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Two days later Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Vice President Joe Biden in New Orleans, where the impasse between Jerusalem and Washington remained as firm as ever. 

Two days after that, President Obama, responding to a question at his Jakarta news conference about Israeli construction, first stated that he had not received "a full briefing on Israel's intentions," but then went on to say that such activity was "unhelpful." Naturally, the world press focused on the latter part of Obama's remarks, with breathless headlines proclaiming, in tabloid fashion, "Obama Rips Israel." Not to be outdone, Netanyahu responded to Obama's remarks by pointing out that Jerusalem was "not a settlement," and that the new housing units would not affect the outcome of peace talks. In effect the Israeli Prime Minister dismissed the entire flap as much ado about nothing (his actual term was "overblown"). At which point the State Department issued its own retort, arguing that there was indeed a linkage between construction and the peace process.

President Obama has clearly determined that construction in East Jerusalem is a "red line" that the Israeli government should not cross. The problem is that "East Jerusalem" does not merely consist of Arab neighborhoods in the Old City or even outside its walls. Many districts of what is East Jerusalem have been home to tens of thousands of Israelis for years, even decades. Construction in these neighborhoods never was an obstacle to peace talks until the Obama administration put the Palestinians in an impossible position by insisting that construction should stop. 

Given Washington's position, the Palestinian Authority has had no alternative but to focus on the construction issue. It clearly cannot not take a softer line on construction than Obama has done. Meanwhile, Israelis of all political stripes, including many who otherwise have no truck with Netanyahu, are puzzled and angered by Washington's stance. Many suspect that he is simply trying to curry favor with the Muslim world at Israel's expense. His performance at the Jakarta press conference does nothing to allay that suspicion. After all, having said he needed to study the issue, he need not have gone any further. But he did, and Netanyahu responded in turn and in kind.

Why does the president continue to harp on settlements in East Jerusalem, as opposed to expansion of West Bank settlements that would be dismantled under the terms of any peace agreement between the parties? Obama may feel that he has crossed a Rubicon and must push forward. Or he may feel that he must put Netanyahu in his place; there is no love lost between the two men, and the Israeli reportedly feels that the recent Congressional elections have strengthened his position. Obama may want to show the Israeli that his grasp of the balance of power in Washington is not as strong as he thinks it is. (Which of the two men is right is another matter, and in any event will not be determined for some time.)

There is, however, another possibility: the president may simply not realize that while Israel might give up parts of Jerusalem, as both Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were willing to do, even they were not ready to cede major Jewish neighborhoods in what every prime minister since 1967, of whatever party, considers to be Israel's capital.

Whatever the reason, Obama's behavior in Indonesia, and his constant harping on the construction issue, has complicated his avowed search for an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel will not give in to his demands, and the Palestinians will not proceed unless the Israelis do so. The peace process is stalemated, and it is up to the president, who has, perhaps unwittingly, brought on this latest dead end on the long-standing saga of Israeli-Palestinian misery, to come up with a way that lets both sides move forward, even if it means that he personally has to take several steps back in order to do so.

It is widely believed that the massive $60 billion U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia is directed against Iran. After all, Israel did not object to the deal. As one analyst told China's Xinhua News Agency, Jerusalem, of all places, was simply adhering to the ancient principle of: "My enemy's enemy is my friend."

It is indeed possible that the deal -- which includes up to 84 new F-15s, upgrading of Riyadh's current force of 70 F-15s, and up to 1,000 so-called "bunker buster" bombs -- is meant to enhance the Saudi deterrent against Iran. But that presupposes that Iran will still be moving ahead with its nuclear weapons program in 2015, when the first new F-15s will be delivered to the desert kingdom, but will not yet have actually fielded the bomb. Should Iran already have acquired nuclear weapons together with viable systems for delivering them prior to that date, it is difficult to see how the Saudi purchases would effectively deter Tehran from anything other than a conventional attack on the Saudi Kingdom. On the other hand, should Iran have dropped its nuclear program -- whether as a result of either international pressure or an internal upheaval -- the Saudi purchase would appear to be somewhat beside the point.

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Sunday's expiration of Israel's settlement construction moratorium is looming ever larger, and was put back on the front pages by President Barack Obama's unequivocal statement on Thursday, in his U.N. General Assembly speech dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian issue, in which he stated he "believe(s) the moratorium should be extended."   

In returning forcefully to this issue in a high-profile venue, Obama risks repeating his administration's past diplomatic errors. Recall that it was Washington's -- not the Palestinians' -- early preoccupation with settlements that metastasized into a precondition delaying peace talks in 2009 and early 2010.  The American (re)emphasis on it now decreases the chance of a compromise which will allow the talks to continue unimpeded.

Commenting on the settlements impasse, a State Department spokesman said on Thursday that, "You have stated positions on both sides that are incompatible." But an inspection of Israeli and Palestinian leaders' recent statements suggests that this is not necessarily the case. A senior Israeli official told AFP that "Israel is prepared to reach a compromise acceptable to all parties to consider extending the freeze on construction, provided that the freeze will not be total," echoing similar comments made Israeli PM Netanyahu which suggested an openness to compromise. PA President Abbas also hinted at flexibility recently, stating "I cannot say I will leave the negotiations, but it's very difficult for me to resume talks if Prime Minister Netanyahu declares that he will continue his (settlement) activity in the West Bank and Jerusalem."

In light of these statements, it is the U.S. public insistence on an extension of a freeze that seems overly rigid, rather than the parties' own stances. One could argue that the president's position is just rhetorical, and that in fact U.S. negotiators are working behind the scenes to broker a compromise (which it seems they are). Be this as it may, unequivocal and ultimately unnecessary public proclamations -- especially when uttered by top U.S. officials -- make those private efforts more difficult. For Netanyahu, any compromise will now seem to be the result of U.S. and international pressure, which will add fuel to the inevitable political attacks he will face from his right. For Abbas, openness to compromise makes him appear less committed on this sensitive issue than even the United States, reducing his room to maneuver.  

The smartest approach for the United States to adopt now is quiet diplomacy. Past settlements compromises have bought room for negotiations, and there are various formulas available to the parties now for a workable outcome. With both the Israelis and Palestinians apparently interested in continuing with the talks for now, behind-the-scenes efforts may pay off if Washington plays its cards right and defers its public statements. Success, if it comes, will speak for itself.

Despite the optimistic tone struck over the past few days by U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian leaders, the latest round of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians already faces a looming crisis. On Sept. 26, the ten-month moratorium on settlement activity decreed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will expire. Netanyahu has stated that he will not renew the moratorium, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asserted that Palestinians will walk out of the talks unless he does just that.

The Sept. 26 deadline is the legacy of the Obama administration's early emphasis on the settlements issue. Washington demanded a freeze to all settlement activity, including "natural growth," which prompted Abbas to take up the same demand. Netanyahu steadfastly refused, finally agreeing to a temporary moratorium to prevent a crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. If history is any guide, it is likely that, had Washington not chosen to focus so singularly on settlements, they would have remained a matter of great contention, but not an insuperable obstacle to negotiations.

Either an extension or the expiration of the moratorium on Sept. 26 has potentially disastrous consequences for the peace talks. If Netanyahu allows the freeze to expire, the talks will collapse. If he extends the moratorium, his coalition may well collapse, resulting in political paralysis in Israel for at least several months.

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The fallout from the ill-fated May 31 Israeli Navy commando raid on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish-registered ship that sought to run the blockade of Gaza, has yet to run its course. Having already withdrawn its ambassador and terminated military exercises with Israel in retaliation for the assault that included nine Turkish citizens among the 19 dead and dozens that were wounded, the government of Recep Erdogan this week announced that it has closed its airspace to Israeli military aircraft. The first plane to be denied overflight rights was a cargo plane that was ferrying Israeli officers to Poland for a visit to the Auschwitz death camp. No one could miss the symbolism of the latest Turkish move.

Erdogan insists that Israel must apologize for its actions, must compensate the families of the victims, must agree to an independent -- that is, non-Israeli -- investigation of the incident, and must lift the blockade of Gaza. Yet he knows full well that in the aftermath of the Goldstone report, Israel will place no trust in any investigation over which it has no say, and that it certainly is not about to permit any and everything to enter the territory controlled by an enemy that seeks its complete annihilation.

Israel's defenders argue that Erdogan is simply seizing on the raid as a pretext to distance increasingly Islamist Turkey form Israel. Certainly Ankara continues to move closer to the Arab world and Iran, even as Europe's financial crisis represents the end of the road for Turkish membership of the EU. Moreover, with the United States and NATO enmeshed in an increasingly unpopular war in Muslim Afghanistan, and with Europe equally critical of Israel, there appears to be even less incentive for Turkey to give the Israelis any slack just because that is what Washington would prefer.

There can be little doubt that the Israelis botched the operation; they are mistaken to think it could have been finessed with better PR. Why the raid was undertaken before daylight, when reconnaissance would have aided the commandos; why it had to take place outside Israel's 20 mile exclusion zone, when at least the issue of international waters could have been sidestepped; why -- if Israel suspected the IHH sponsors of the flotilla to have terrorist ties -- the Israelis believed they would face no opposition when they boarded, are questions that have yet to be fully answered. And smoother PR will not answer them.

Erdogan therefore has a case -- after all, nine of his citizens were killed -- but he is overplaying his hand. In the short run, his tilt away from Israel will gain him more popularity in Turkey. In the longer run, the loss of Israeli intelligence support (which helped Turkey nab the PKK's Ocalan), of military cooperation, and of Israeli trade and tourism will not be offset by closer ties to Iran and Syria. Both of those countries really have very little that is of tangible military or economic utility to a G-20 state like Turkey. In fact, Iran's nuclear ambitions can only spook the Turks, while Syria is hardly anyone's image of a reliable ally.

The Obama administration naturally is consumed by other matters: the fallout from the McChrystal affair and other ongoing Afghan troubles, the transition in Iraq, and domestic economic woes that don't seem to get better. But strategically, the Turkish-Israeli alliance anchored the Eastern Mediterranean for the United States. Washington needs to work tirelessly to get those two very bloody minded prime ministers, Erdogan and Netanyahu, to find a way to give each other something to work with, so that the tattered but not yet ruptured relationship between their two countries can slowly be mended. The administration has many "top" priorities, but this one should be one of them.

I have been reflecting on President Obama's foreign policy thus far and I think I have identified what my Duke colleague Ole Holsti might call his "operational code": the link between beliefs and behavior that generates a predisposition, a general pattern of action that, more often than not, points to the options taken or not taken. Of course, as with any leader, there is a fair bit of ad hoc cost-benefit calculation and some making it up as they go along. But I also think there is a strategic logic that one can trace through it and that explains a remarkable number of the choices President Obama and his team have made. 

I call it the "yes, but" strategic logic because what Obama has sought to do is systematically neutralize (in a rhetorical debating sense of the term) the laundry list of complaints about US foreign policy that other countries use as excuses whenever we would push them to help us on pressing American priorities like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and so on. We would ask for help on Iraq because it was so vital, and they would say, "Yes, but you haven’t done anything on Israeli settlements." We would ask for help on strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime and they would say, "Yes, but you have your own nuclear arsenal." We would ask for help on preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and they would say, "Yes, but what about the Israeli nuclear arsenal?" or (in Russia's case), "Yes, but what about your missile defenses in Poland?" We would ask states to encourage moderate Muslims to speak out more forcefully against terrorists and they would say, "Yes, but what about Guantanamo?" Etc. etc.

Well, I think Obama has sought to build his own "yes, but" response. "Yes," in the sense that he tends to agree with the complaint, and "but" in the sense that he has a good talking point to offer in rebuttal: "But we signed an exec order closing GITMO," "But we slapped Israel around on settlements," "But we have committed to global nuclear zero," "But we have publicly endorsed a Middle East nuke-free zone," "But we have committed to climate change," "But we have shut down the Polish missile defense site," and so on.

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The Obama administration is talking tough on Iran. Despite allowing the Iranian government to escape sanction for a year of not accepting sugar-coated Western deadlines to abandon their nuclear program, and doing nothing about discovery of another nuclear plant at Qom, Team Obama is suddenly making an awful lot of noise.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's memo requesting White House guidance to further defense planning leaks, characterized as a wake up call for identifying military activity that could be taken against Iran. The national security advisor rebuts the characterization as a routine part of their 15 months of activity "successfully building a coalition of nations to isolate Iran and pressure it to live up to its obligations." Secretary Gates personally reinforces that view. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes (i.e., Presidential speechwriter -- since when did they become commentators of record on military options?) gets sent out to mop up any misunderstandings the hapless Jim Jones might have left. Admiral Mullen's Chairman's Guidance is revealed to task planning for "limited results" strikes on Iran. A prominent scientist who defected is publicly identified (picture in the newspaper) as an intelligence coup. The director of national intelligence publicly explains the national intelligence estimate on Iran has been delayed these six months because we suddenly have enormous streams on intelligence coming to us from disgruntled Iranian "technocrats." When the undersecretary of defense for policy tells a conference in Singapore military options are "not on the table in the near term," the secretary of defense personally refutes her statement. A senior administration official states the United States will not allow Iran to even acquire a "weapons capability," much less a weapon. Secretary Gates publicly questions whether it is possible to verify the difference between capability and weapon, suggesting the administration's threshold for action is actually more restrictive than Iran crossing the nuclear threshold.

And yet it is patently clear that destroying the Iranian nuclear program is not on the table for the Obama administration. All the hubbub has the feel of an orchestrated attempt to look like Washington is doing something when Washington is doing nothing -- they are covering their retreat into a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran. I hope I'm wrong, but it would appear the Obama administration wants very much to look like the pincers of their strategy are closing in on Iran precisely because they have taken military force off the table, can't get the "crippling sanctions" Secretary Clinton trumpeted, and just held a summit meeting on nuclear proliferation that said nothing about Iran or North Korea's nuclear programs.

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A slam against the Obama administration heard with greater frequency these days is that it is much harder on its allies than on its enemies (even former enemies). At the same time that it desperately tries to win over "new friends," the administration treats its old friends either with indifference (e.g., most of Europe) or a critical eye. A perfect example of this is the administration's handling of the recent blow-up with Israel over settlements in East Jerusalem as compared with its response to Russia's announcement last week on nuclear reactors in Iran.   

There is no question that Israel deserved pushback for having its interior ministry announce during the visit of Vice President Joseph Biden plans for additional housing in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was as surprised as Biden by the announcement, did not deserve the endless and condescending scolding from the Administration, however, including a 45-minute phone lecture from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after Biden left Israel. Biden handled the response to the Israeli announcement quite well. Why then did Obama and Clinton think they needed to pile on? Do they not have confidence in the vice president? Indeed, it was rather shocking to see Obama administration condemnation of the Israelis continue for days and relations between the two countries reach their lowest point in years. Obama senior advisor David Axelrod went on the Sunday talk shows and called the Israeli move "destructive" and an "insult", even though the offense wasn't even committed by Netanyahu but by a Ministry official in the coalition government. 

Fast forward to Moscow end of last week. On the day Clinton arrived in Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian-built Bushehr reactor in Iran would be up and running this summer. Put aside the fact that Bushehr is well behind schedule as it is, the point here by Putin was to undercut U.S. efforts to present a unified position on Iran and embarrass the Secretary of State. Where was the firm U.S. response then?   

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By Dov Zakheim

Press reports this past week indicate that the Western powers' discussions with Iran appear to have mollified the Israelis, at least to the extent that Jerusalem has toned down jeremiad-like rhetoric regarding the Iranian nuclear program. How long Israel will be prepared literally to hold its fire while Iran transfers some, but by no means all, of its enriched uranium for processing in Russia, and opens its facility in Qom for IAEA inspections, very much remains to be seen.

Clearly, with the West talking tough, Israel does not want to be viewed as carping on the sidelines. But the Israelis recognize that the so-called secret facility at Qom was not so secret at all; the United States and others were aware of its existence for some time. The Israelis also harbor grave doubts about the IAEA's ability to monitor Iranian activity that Tehran prefers it not monitor. And Jerusalem knows full well that sanctions have a mixed record of successfully obtaining whatever objective motivated their imposition.
 
At the same time, however, Israel recognizes that Washington is now increasingly positioning itself to take military action against Iran if the talks, transfers to Russia, and sanctions fail to halt the momentum of the Iranian program. In particular, the Obama administration's announcement that it will reposition its missile-defense forces so as better to protect Europe against an Iranian strike has the direct effect of supplementing Israel's missile defenses. In fact, the American military deterrent has far greater significance than the talks, sanctions, or reprocessing deal. By committing Aegis ships to the eastern Mediterranean, the administration is also putting its forces in harm's way: There is no way that ships off Israel could avoid the effects of an Iranian nuclear strike on that country.

Israelis have long recognized -- though rarely acknowledged -- that there is an additional factor that would give Iranians pause before they launched a nuclear attack. Even one successful detonation would likely have devastating effects not just on Israeli Jews, but on Palestinian Arabs (thereby offering one way, perhaps, to conclude the peace process, namely, by wiping out both sides), and, indeed, on neighboring Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, and even Saudis. And while a cynic might point out that Persians have as much contempt for Arabs as they do for Jews, the fact that Jerusalem might not survive may be the greatest of all deterrents for an Iranian leadership that views itself at the vanguard of Islam.
 
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that the Obama administration's tough talk will translate into action; tough talk has accomplished little to move Pyongyang, for example. There is considerable uncertainty as to how exactly the administration will deploy naval forces to the Mediterranean: the Navy's force levels are dropping below 300, and the demand for Aegis ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans has not diminished. Moreover, the fact that, in a remarkable exercise in role-switching, European leaders and intelligence analysts are more pessimistic about the progress of the Iranian nuclear program than their American counterparts, inspires little confidence in Washington's ultimate intentions.
 
The Israelis are prepared to give their closest ally the benefit of the doubt for the time being. And "the time being" may not be that long. In the end, however, unless they are absolutely certain that, as several senators proposed on Sunday, the United States commits itself to a military strike on Iran if the negotiations fail, they will act on their own. "Sinn Fein," ourselves alone, may be the name of an Irish movement, but it embodies the very essence of Israeli policy in the face of what it continues to view as a threat to its very existence.

By Kristen Silverberg

A number of U.S. commentators are reading Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech as a bow to President Obama. I had the opposite reaction. Netanyahu's speech reads to me to be, at least in part, a rebuttal, including to Obama's Cairo speech.

It is unlikely the treatment of Iran in the Cairo speech escaped Israeli notice. To the extent Obama addressed the Iranian nuclear issue, it was largely to reiterate U.S. concessions to the Iranian government: He accepted U.S. responsibility for overthrowing the leader of Iran, restated U.S. willingness to move forward with negotiations with the Iranian government, and reaffirmed Iran's rights to peaceful nuclear power. The sole sentence critical of Iran stated only that "Iran played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians," but then expressed our willingness to let bygones be bygones. This approach, combined with Obama's declaration that the United States would give Iran until the end of the year to demonstrate good faith, as well as his view that progress in the Peace Process is a prerequisite to progress on Iran, undoubtedly has left the impression that the U.S. urgency on Iranian issues has flagged.

For Netanyahu, in contrast, Iran is the first issue he mentioned and is at the top of the list of the "three tremendous challenges" facing the world today. He stated clearly,

The Iranian threat still is before us in full force, as became quite clear yesterday. The greatest danger to Israel, to the Middle East, and to all humanity, is the encounter between extremist Islam and nuclear weapons.... I have been working tirelessly for many years to form an international front against Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons.

Likewise, Netanyahu disputed Obama on the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While Obama's Cairo speech adopted the Arab view that Jewish claims to a homeland in Israel are rooted solely in the Holocaust, Netanyahu explained at length:

The connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah. This is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers.

The right of the Jewish People to a state in the Land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish People over 2,000 years -- persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations.... The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People.

These aren't minor, rhetorical issues -- both our treatment of the Iranian question and U.S. views on the legitimacy of Israeli claims are at the core of the U.S.-Israel relationship. This was further confirmation that we have leaders with profoundly different worldviews, and suggests at least some reason for concern about the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship going forward.

By Michael Singh

Given the media buildup to Monday's meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the casual observer could be forgiven for being a little bit disappointed. While the media portrayed these two as ideological foes bound to clash, their press conference gave the appearance of two leaders who, while far from soul-mates, understand keenly their personal and national convergence of interest.

And so it should be. The U.S.-Israel alliance is deep and of abiding importance to both countries, now perhaps more than ever as the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran and emboldened rejectionists loom large in the Middle East. Whatever their differences, both men articulated the same essential concerns -- that Iran be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that peace be established between Israel and the Palestinians. As I argued on this blog in February, Obama and Netanyahu may not be a match made in heaven, but there is more driving the men together than apart.

So we saw Netanyahu reach out to Obama by stressing his readiness for peace talks with the Palestinians and Syrians, without delay -- and Obama nodding to Netanyahu by reasserting America's commitment to Israel's security and Jewish identity, and promising that talks with Iran would not be open-ended. Just as importantly, aides to both men backgrounding the media afterward stressed their bosses' happiness with the outcome of the day's discussions.

But the differences remain, and were as apparent in their press conference as in the media leaks that preceded the meeting. Obama repeatedly invoked Palestinian statehood, while Netanyahu did not mention it at all. Netanyahu thanked Obama for promising to keep all options on the table with respect to Iran, something which Obama did not, at least in his public remarks, actually do. In moves away from the table, Secretary Clinton clarified that the president was against even "natural growth" in Israeli settlements, implying that Israeli assurances that no new settlements would be built were insufficient. Also, CIA chief Leon Panetta publicly warned against an Israeli strike on Iran, as Defense Secretary Gates had done before.

In the world outside Washington, the silent parties to the Obama-Netanyahu talks made their own moves. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced that his group was ready to govern Lebanon if it won the upcoming parliamentary elections. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei railed against America and encouraged Iranians to vote for anti-Western candidates in upcoming presidential elections, and Iran reportedly test-fired a missile that could reach Europe. Highly talented and well-respected Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was reappointed to head a reshuffled PA government. Taken together, these developments underscore that Obama and Netanyahu face serious challenges, and rare opportunities.

Oval Office meetings tend not to make policy but to build relationships -- between nations, between leaders, and between their trusted aides who coordinate beforehand. It would have been too much to expect a great deal out of this first meeting between the new American president and Israeli prime minister, who are still feeling each other out and still shaping their own views on policy. But America and Israel can afford their leaders only a brief courtship, before the U.S. and Israeli governments must resolve their differences and work in concert and with all speed to address the mutual challenges before them. The first official Obama-Netanyahu meeting leaves me hopeful that both men desire to do so, but still waiting to see if they can corral their bureaucracies and get it done.

By Michael Singh

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the conventional wisdom is often worth challenging. On Friday, former Israeli Prime Minister and Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu was tapped to try to form the next Israeli government. Netanyahu's ascent and the overall victory of right-wing parties in the Israeli elections have led to dire predictions of the collapse of the peace process and tensions in U.S.-Israel relations. Such predictions have a tendency to be self-fulfilling, however, and the Obama administration should be careful not to heed them.

In one sense, this entire discussion is premature. Netanyahu isn't prime minister yet, and must endure a tough slog before he can take up the office. Likud won just 27 seats in the Knesset (Israel's parliament) and needs a coalition of at least 61 seats to form a government. Though a number of political combinations are available, the basic choice before Netanyahu is between a "national unity" government with Kadima and/or Labor (though the latter won just 13 seats to Kadima's 28) or a right-wing coalition. He has publicly displayed a preference for the national unity option, calling immediately during his acceptance speech for Kadima and Labor to join his government.

The outcome of the coalition negotiations will be critical in determining the shape of Netanyahu's tenure. A broad grouping would require him to cede influential positions to his chief rivals but somewhat paradoxically could also provide him greater flexibility in setting policy. During his previous stint as prime minister, Netanyahu's narrow coalition put him in a precarious position to make any significant moves on regional peace, and he doubtless wishes to avoid a repeat of that situation.

Assuming, however, that Netanyahu succeeds in forming a stable coalition and becoming prime minister, what can the U.S. expect from him, and what are the implications for U.S. interests?  

Judging by his public remarks and his party's platform, Netanyahu views Iran as Israel's most immediate problem. This view is shared by most Israeli leaders (and other leaders in the region, for that matter) and is difficult to dispute. Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons clearly poses a threat to Israel, but the challenge Iran poses to Israel goes much deeper. Iran funds, trains, and equips Hizballah and Hamas, two groups that, more than any others, are responsible for killing and terrorizing Israelis. Largely due to the actions of these groups, Israelis, as historian Michael Oren recently noted, have come to believe "that the conflict is not about 1967, but rather 1948." That is, Hamas and Hizballah seek not territorial concessions but the elimination of Israel, the same goal professed by certain Iranian leaders, and a goal that these groups would surely pursue more doggedly if afforded the protection of an Iranian nuclear umbrella. If peace negotiations are to be more than a sideshow to deepening violence, Iran's support for terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons must be stymied.

When it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, most commentators have suggested that Netanyahu's victory means that the peace process will be frozen. They cite his strong criticism of the post-Annapolis negotiations, his hard-line positions on issues such as Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, and his avowed preference for dealing first with economic and security issues in any peace talks before getting to those so-called "core issues."

What these commentators fail to take into account, however, is that both Israelis and Palestinians are disenchanted with the peace process. Israelis have made major territorial concessions in Lebanon and Gaza only to suffer more terrorism emanating from the vacated land; Palestinians have seen few if any advances in freedom or prosperity over the past 15 years of talks; and both have suffered through years of sporadic violence. In this environment, views have hardened across the board, and mutual trust is near nil. As tough as Netanyahu's positions may be on the "core issues," his chief rivals' stated positions are frequently just as hard-line, reflecting how events have led to a rightward trajectory in Israeli politics.

In such an environment, we should be seeking not to preserve the peace process as it stands but instead reassessing the paradigms that have guided that process (see Elliott Abrams's piece in the most recent Weekly Standard for an excellent discussion of this point). Years of talks focusing on the "core issues" to the exclusion of fundamental economic and security matters produced little progress. Therefore, Netanyahu's suggestion that further work is needed to promote economic prosperity, political reform, and security (for example, by lifting checkpoints in the West Bank) should be viewed by the Obama administration not as a threat, but as a chance to make progress where it is sorely needed. While progress in these areas cannot substitute for eventual agreement on the "core issues," it could help to restore confidence between the two sides and sap the strength of extremists who feed on anger and resentment.

It is certain that difficulties and disagreements will arise between the Obama and Netanyahu governments. This is true of any two countries that are engaged in the pursuit of their own interests. But President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will agree far more than they disagree and will largely share the same goals in the region. The extent to which they can succeed in advancing them will depend not so much on whether they align ideologically, but rather the extent to which they are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom to find new solutions for old problems.