(INN).In his first 18 months in office, U.S. President Barack Obama has succeeded in humiliating Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on occasion and forcing a temporary freeze of construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria – but can he exert any more leverage on Israel now that the November congressional elections are drawing near? Obama's window of opportunity for pressuring Israel has closed, TIME magazine appears to say in an latest piece, and may not reopen until his eighth year in office, should he be re-elected.
While Obama may use his “powers of spin” to “sustain the appearance of progress” in his efforts to restart a "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, his chances of success are slim, the article by the magazine's Middle East writer Tony Karon said.
Karon portrayed Israel as having “broadened and deepened” its hold on Judea and Samaria in the past two decades, but did not mention the complete withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria which Israel effected five years ago in an attempt to show the PA it was serious about making peace.
The magazine thus implies that the Democratic party's dependence on the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. will prevent Obama from pressuring Israel any more, any time soon.
While Obama may use his “powers of spin” to “sustain the appearance of progress” in his efforts to restart a "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, his chances of success are slim, the article by the magazine's Middle East writer Tony Karon said.
Karon portrayed Israel as having “broadened and deepened” its hold on Judea and Samaria in the past two decades, but did not mention the complete withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria which Israel effected five years ago in an attempt to show the PA it was serious about making peace.
” With both sides believing that they're unlikely to agree on a credible and comprehensive two-state deal despite the U.S. desire to settle the conflict, the game is once again for each to cast blame on the other. But with the White House's attention now on a difficult November congressional election — a focus that always works to Israel's advantage, given the far greater domestic political leverage its advocates wield in Washington — the Administration isn't likely to expend political capital on the issue anytime soon. Observers on both sides in the Middle East concurred that last week's embrace of Netanyahu by Obama was a domestically driven vindication of the Israeli leader's defiance of Obama's earlier efforts to pressure Israel on the settlements issue.
Even if the Obama Administration manages to coax Abbas into direct talks, the likelihood of them producing any kind of agreement is slim. The gulf between the two sides' positions is not a matter of personal chemistry but of political reality. The standoff seems to underscore the idea that Israel and the Palestinians are unlikely for the foreseeable future to reach an agreement simply through dialogue that settles the core final-status issue of the two-state solution. But those hoping that recognition of that reality might prompt the U.S. to seek an international consensus on a final-status agreement that both sides could be pressed to accept are forgetting that the 2010 electoral season — followed by the 2012 presidential race — militates against the Administration's trying anything quite so bold in the Middle East. There may be a political logic to Obama's two predecessors' leaving their Mideast peacemaking efforts to their eighth year in office".
The magazine thus implies that the Democratic party's dependence on the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. will prevent Obama from pressuring Israel any more, any time soon.