Israel als Schurkenstaat 82

President Obama's Mideast gamble

By BEN SMITH | 3/27/10 6:52 AM EDT

President Barack Obama’s relations with the Israeli government have hit a new low, but the tensions on display this week between him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be reviving another presidential project: Obama's quest to improve America’s image in the Arab and Muslim world.

Obama raised high expectations among Arab leaders and citizens with his promise of dramatic change from the days of George W. Bush and high-profile gestures in the first days of his administration, but the administration’s awkward retreat last year from an initial demand of a total Israeli freeze on settlements dissipated much of that goodwill.

Now, Obama's return to the question of Israel’s continuing construction in East Jerusalem has signaled an acceptance of some Arab criticism of Israel. At the same time, Obama’s willingness to cross swords with the Israelis comes at a domestic political cost: The pro-Israel group AIPAC released a letter Friday with the signatures of three-quarters of the members of the House, pressing the administration to retreat from public confrontation.

The question facing Obama is whether he will be able to turn a perception of increased “evenhandedness” into an Arab engagement in the peace process that the administration sought, but did not get, last year.

“The administration has used [the Jerusalem conflict] as an opportunity to bring back the settlement issue and to show that they’re willing to talk tough on settlements,” said Stephen Gordon, a Mideast scholar at the Brookings Institution. “I think that has sent the signal that, yes, we are committed to the peace process; yes, we are going to be evenhanded; and, yes, we recognize that this conflict is important to people in the Arab world.”

Obama’s new focus, and the intense pressure his administration has placed on Netanyahu, have stirred deep concern among Israel’s allies on Capitol Hill, they say, because it represents an acceptance of the Arab narrative that Israeli intransigence lies at the heart of the Middle East conflict. And some observers see it in the context of a subtle, but major, shift in American strategy toward resolving it.

“I think, inadvertently, Netanyahu enabled the White House to restore a little bit of momentum to the idea that they are going to approach the Middle East problem in a new way,” said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration trade official.

The new model drawing attention from Democratic foreign policy hands, he said, is to build support among Arab leaders for a U.S. plan and then present that to Israel — to serve as the Arabs’ lawyer, rather than as Israel’s, in one formulation used to describe the effort in the region.

“There is a sense that if the Israelis aren’t going to play, the U.S. is going to have to play a different kind of leadership role,” he said.

Senior American officials say their confrontation with Netanyahu is about the substance and timing of a housing announcement earlier this month and nothing more. Their goal, they say, is no broader than bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to the table in limited, indirect “proximity talks.”

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