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There Is No “Coming Break” with Israel

There might be a temporary end to some of the usual reflexive support
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Speaker Boehner and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrive for a press conference following his address to a joint meeting of Congress. May 24, 2011.

Reihan Salam gets a bit carried away:

So no, [Obama’s] efforts to radically remake our relationship with Israel isn’t a reflection of ignorance or a lack of familiarity with the basics of the conflict. If the president chooses to pursue this dangerous course, let no American who values our alliance with Israel, or for that matter our national honor, ever forget it.

If Obama decides to lend U.S. support to a new Security Council resolution on Israel and Palestine (or, more likely, if the U.S. refuses to veto such a resolution), that is hardly going to “radically make” the relationship. It would be one thing if Obama were actually proposing a “break” with Israel as significant as the one Salam claims, but that isn’t even under consideration. Hawkish critics have a bad habit of attributing “radical” goals to Obama when he is usually pursuing much more modest goals that they happen to dislike. There isn’t a “coming break” with Israel, but there might be a temporary end to some of the usual reflexive support.

Supposing that Obama does what Salam fears, what is likely to happen? If the Security Council passes a new resolution that sets out the terms of a final settlement, we can be certain that Israel will ignore this resolution as well. If Israel is then in greater danger of being treated as a “pariah state,” that will be due in large part to its own behavior. The U.S. has been doing Israel a disservice for a long time by shielding it from the consequences of its policies, which has allowed its government to continue policies that are incompatible with a resolution of the conflict. If there is to be any chance of changing those policies, the Israeli government has to be confronted with the full costs of pursuing them, and that won’t happen as long as it can always count on the U.S. to cover for them.

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