Obama's Second Term And What It Means for Israel
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Israel is worried. Or, more accurately, the Israeli Likud right is worried over the prospect of a second term for U.S. President Barack Obama.
After the Democrats' defeat in the mid-terms and Obama's weakening poll numbers, Israel's primer "Bibi" Netanyahu became more assertive toward Obama.
Obama has checked off all the pro-Israel boxed: aid, UN veto, effusive words of praise and love. But the president's manner toward the Zionist state is lukewarm in comparison to his predecessors and he, since the start of his administration, has been critical of Israel's occupation and initially made a demand (since recanted) that Israel "freeze" all illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. "Bibi" and Barack have clearly never gotten along and for awhile the former thought he could outlast Obama by waiting for his electoral defeat in 2012.
That now looks very unlikely with a recovering economy, bin Laden sacked, and a Republican party in disarray with slim hope of nominating a candidate capable of beating Obama. Israelis, whether they like it or not, are stuck with 6 more years of Obama.
What will that mean? An increasingly isolated Israel. Obama's subtle posture has slowly pushed Israel from its bedrock "special relationship" with America and exposed it and its intransigent policies much more than before. The world if increasingly fed up with Israeli occupation, wars and massacres and Israel's absurd pretexts and excuses, and the slowly expanding cleft with America was emboldened Israel's antagonists and pro-Palestinian solidarity activists. Israel, never a popular cause in most of the world and for years now no longer a popular state in Europe, is no more so disliked in light of its insolent and public clashes with a popular US president.
Obama, without himself doing much such as cutting aid or no longer offering unconditional backing at the UN, has done a lot for the Palestinians by simply creating an atmosphere of growing American differences with Israel. An America that is overtly diffident, if not opposed, to being a shrill for Zionism any longer.
That is what Israel fears. It should fear a second term more, since Obama will by uninhabited by reelection concerns (and thus the Israel lobby) to more strongly call an Israeli spade a spade. The next six years do not bode well for Israel if it does not heed the call for peace. Obama is offering a life jacket. Israel can either take it at the last moment or sink into oblivion, kind of like bin Laden.
