US Pressure On Israel: Hey, What Are Friends For!?

The US is dead set on completely freezing Israeli settlements.

As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.

Left unsaid is whether the sale of US weapons to Israel would be affected.

For example:

Government sources said the administration has held up Israel's request for the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter. The sources said the request was undergoing an interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Considering the fact that those helicopters would be used to attack Hamas terrorists, and considering the lengths Israel has gone to in order to cut down on the deaths of civilians among whom the terrorists hide--the reason given for holding up the helicopters is absurd.

In any case, Israel is taking seriously the possibility that US weapons may be used to apply further pressure on Israel:

There are indications that the Obama administration is using weapons shipments to Israel as a way to force the Jewish state to see its way on the issue of establishing a Palestinian state.

The administration’s decision to delay weapons shipments comes amid a brewing dispute between the U.S. and Israel over establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank.

This may have had a role in reports as the Israeli Defense Ministry decided to resume developing and producing indigenous munitions in an effort to end its dependence on U.S. weapons.

To whatever degree and in whatever area Israel can become less dependent on the US, it is all to the good.

Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”

That's right: Israel will no longer be treated the same way as the enemies of the US--with words alone. No siree, Israel is a 'friend' and unlike North Korea and Iran can be counted on not to spread nuclear technology, intimidate neighboring countries or destabilize the region--so by all means lets go ahead and come down hard on Israel. What are small democracies for?

Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.

The fact that pressure on Netanyahu on the issue of the settlements could bring down his government seems to have become a popular point to make--if not a popular idea in itself.

I can't wait to see the pressure the US puts on the Palestinian Arabs to live up to their end of the Road Map and stop killing Israelis.

Technorati Tag: Obama and Israel.