Frank Luntz on Jpost: Why Left American Jewish Students Won’t Defend Israel

(Evelyn Gordon - commentarymagazine, JPOST).PR guru Frank Luntz gave a lengthy interview last week to the Jerusalem Post’s David Horovitz. Much of it was what one might expect from a PR guru.But one incident he described was shocking: a session with 35 MIT and Harvard students, 20 non-Jews and 15 Jews:

“Within 10 minutes, the non-Jews started with ‘the war crimes of Israel,’ with ‘the Jewish lobby,’ with ‘the Jews have a lot more power and influence’ – stuff that’s borderline anti-Jewish.

And guess what? Did the Jewish kids at the best schools in America, did they stand up for themselves? Did they challenge the assertions? They didn’t say sh*t. And in that group was the leader of the Israeli caucus at Harvard. It took him 49 minutes of this before he responded to anything.

After three hours, Luntz dismissed the non-Jews and confronted the Jews, furious that “you all didn’t say sh*t.”

“And it all dawned on them: If they won’t say it to their classmates, whom they know, who will they stand up for Israel to? Two of the women in the group started to cry. … The guys are like, “Oh my God, I didn’t speak up, I can’t believe I let this happen.” And they’re all looking at each other with horrible embarrassment and guilt like you wouldn’t believe.”

But Luntz didn’t stop with illustrating this gaping hole in what American Jews are evidently teaching their children; he also explained it:

“The problem that I see is that so many parents in the Jewish community taught their kids not to judge. I’m going to say something that’s a little bit ideological, but I find that kids on the right are far more likely to stand up for Israel than kids on the left. Because kids on the right believe that there is an absolute right and wrong; this is how they’ve been raised.

Kids on the left have been taught not to judge. Therefore those on the left will not judge between Israel and the Palestinians; those on the right will.”

Excerpts:

You’re here with some new polling data from the US, which shows what?

Which shows the necessity of communicating effectively. Israel is blessed with some very smart, talented people, but they have been cursed with a political environment around them, and frankly a political system, that doesn’t always encourage the best communication globally.

What about the claim that it’s not the articulation, it’s the policies?

‘The policies are bad, you’re oppressing the Palestinians...’ The reason that I can go from Netanyahu to Peres, or from Sharansky to Braverman, is because I don’t take a position on the policies.

It’s not for people who don’t live here to tell you what you should do. My job is to help you communicate your policy effectively.

If the government changes tomorrow, then my communication will change along with it.

[An example:] Israelis make a statement which is entirely accurate and entirely difficult, and that is that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” We asked a question [in our focus groups] – and 56 percent of Americans disagree with that statement. Only 8% agree with that statement. I understand that food is getting through. I understand that supplies are getting through. But the [American] public doesn’t know that. So when you make a declarative statement like that – and all [Israeli leaders] do it, left to right, it’s the official policy of the government – they’re basically saying to those who are listening: “Believe us, not your eyes. Believe what we tell you, not what you see and not what you hear.”

I need Israel to be able to fight another day – linguistically, not just physically. And if there is a misperception, there has to be a better way to educate and communicate and inform.

So if the BBC or the CNN ask you, as an Israeli minister, why is it that you insist on creating real humanitarian grief in Gaza, how do you answer that?

The answer to that is, “First, when there is suffering on any side, it is the responsibility of leaders on all sides to address it, and to do so in a way that is protective of their own people and respectful of others.

We don’t have to like each other, but we do have to live together with each other. It’s a small land. The earth is not a big place. So let’s find some way that at least we can tolerate each other.” Step one.

Step two is to recognize why this exists: “Why is Gaza so different from the West Bank? It’s because the leadership, Hamas, is so different from the leaders in the West Bank. And much of the problem in Gaza is all the bombs and the tunnels. There is enough aid to make it right, but not if that aid is spent on trying to kill others.”

Frank, your BBC and CNN interviewer wouldn’t give you the time to say that...

And I would stop them and say, “If you want a substantial answer, you’re going to have to allow the time.”

Okay, but the next question would be: “Still, you Israelis are restricting the flow of supplies to the point where there is a humanitarian crisis.”

[And my answer would be:] “It is a legitimate question. If the international community actually cared enough and was effective enough to stop these weapons going into Gaza, there would be no need for Israel to intercede. There would be no reason for the conflict that took place over the flotilla. This is an international challenge that requires an international solution. And if they won’t stand up and do something, then Israel’s military is the last resort. But let us hope that it won’t happen again.”

You always get at that conclusion: a look towards the future. It is not enough just to talk about what happened five weeks ago, five years ago, or 500 years ago. The American people, and the Europeans in particular, want to know what’s going to happen next year and 50 years down the road.

How problematic is Israel’s standing in America now?

The Wall Street Journal had a poll that shows Israeli support is as high today as it ever has been – 61% identified with Israel, only 10% identified with the Palestinians. But only 34% support what Israel did with the flotilla, which is a record low for an Israeli policy. So at some point, if they don’t support the individual actions, it will have an impact on overall support.

The other challenge for Israel right now is that they’ve never had an administration that is so vocally committed to not taking sides.

One of the people I met with today correctly pointed out that Israel has negotiated directly with the Palestinians every single year for 17 years, until this year. Is this what Barack Obama really wanted? That’s the impact of his policy. It requires, in this time of great instability, Israel being even more clear and, frankly, sympathetic.

And that is what I see missing from so much of the [Israeli] communication: the essence of empathy. If I believe that you have the right intent, then I will believe that you have the right policy. But if I perceive that the intent is wrong, then I will never trust you.

Knowing the Obama administration as well as I do, and knowing the challenge that Israel has among Democrats in America, the more empathetic the communication, the more effective the communication. I really hope that the Israeli leadership realizes that the American political situation is not the same today as it was two years or four years or six years ago. And just as leaders have changed, the communication should change. What worked for Israel 10 years ago, would not work today...

It is the order of communication that matters.

And I’ve studied this now for 15 years.

What you say in your first sentence determines how everything else flows. The Israeli communications strategy is to declare a conclusion and then provide the evidence. And I’m asking [the Israelis I’m working with] for exactly the opposite approach: to provide all the evidence and then demonstrate the conclusion.

The evidence will bring them to the conclusion. In many cases I’m actually taking the last sentence of what they say and making it the first, and taking the first sentence and making it the last.

Now you might say to me that’s so inconsequential.

It isn’t. Could you imagine delivering a report where you’ve already gotten to the end before you’ve even set the context? That’s not how we take in information when we’re trying to learn.

So I’m trying to demonstrate, through online and telephone polling, and through dial sessions [among focus groups, who use a dial to respond positively or negatively to footage they are watching], that if [Israeli leaders and spokespeople] merely change the order of their sentences, they will actually have a better impact on American audiences and on European audiences. And this is not a small thing.

So you have these recorded interviews and speeches...?

Dozens.

By Israeli leaders, in recent weeks, months...?

Years.

And you’ve now gone to some of these leaders and said, “Look, here’s what you said. If only you’d reversed your sequence here...”

I want to read you an example. (Luntz reads, sorrowfully, from a recent government statement): “The current security regime for Gaza will be maintained.”

(He sighs.) The word “regime,” to an American, is a negative term. It sounds like a Third World nation. It sounds like a dictatorship.

They don’t actually mean these words. But this is what’s written (as a direct official translation, posted on the government Web site and released). So [in my suggested improved text] I’ve replaced “The current security regime for Gaza will be maintained” with: “The safety and security of the innocent families in the region must always be our first priority. No man, woman or child should live in constant fear of violence.”

I’ve now humanized the approach. Then I get to, “When organizations like Hamas insist on terrorizing and attacking Israel...” So I’m doing the human component first, then I get to the politics and the organization. Israel tends to do it the opposite way. It talks about governments before it gets to people.

If Israel had followed your philosophy and approach in dealing with the flotilla disaster, could it have achieved higher than 34% approval for that operation? (Adopts spokesman’s pose:) “Let this be the last time that the Israeli military has to intercede.

Let this be the final time that we ever have to debate this situation. Let’s ensure that the international community is so engaged...”

You’re dismissive? I’m the BBC guy: “Excuse me, but you’ve killed nine people on a boat!”

And my response is: “Excuse me, but you’ve experienced this in London, you know what it is to have rockets fall on a country again and again, day after day. You understand that, it’s in your culture. And the heroism of the British people was remarkable...”

You’d never get to the end of that sentence on the BBC! We’re not talking about rockets out of Gaza, Frank. We’re talking about you sending your army to intercede on a boat full of peace activists, nine of whom are now dead...

“On boats that have been filled with the tools that have been responsible for the deaths of civilians on both sides of Gaza. And it has to stop. And the way that it stops is for the international community to play its role. For the Palestinian people to say enough is enough.

And for the Israelis to continue the effort for humanitarian aid.”

We do this live in the testing that we do. We have our 30 or our 40 people [in the focus groups] there, and they are giving us a hard time on everything. They are just as tough as the BBC, just as angry, because we tend to look to those that are anti-Israel, and we learn from that process what works and what doesn’t.

Is your field a function of choice of language, choice of message, delivery... or do you seek to enable Israel more widely in its public diplomacy strategies?

I exist because The Israel Project exists. And the reason The Israel Project exists is because nobody was focusing on the impact of messaging – not the delivery of it, but the impact of it. To this day there is insufficient appreciation of the impact that words, and how they are delivered, can have on audiences.

The greatest challenge for the Israeli position isn’t in the media. It’s on the typical college campus. Because there, the truth doesn’t matter.

There, day after day, the Palestinian advocates will say anything and do anything and these Jewish kids are totally ill-prepared to stand up and challenge.

We did a session with MIT and Harvard students.

The best of the best. We had 35 people in the room: 20 of them were non-Jewish, 15 were Jewish. And I didn’t tell anyone who was which. And I’d recruited them by telling them “we’re going to talk about Iraq, Iran and the Middle East,” not telling them that the real focus was Israel.

Got them all into the room. It was so crowded that we had kids sitting on the floor. But that added to the intensity. They felt like they were in a dorm room. And within 10 minutes, the non-Jews started with “the war crimes of Israel,” with “the Jewish lobby,” with “the Jews have a lot more power and influence” – stuff that’s borderline anti-Jewish.

And guess what? Did the Jewish kids at the best schools in America, did they stand up for themselves? Did they challenge the assertions? They didn’t say sh*t. And in that group was the leader of the Israeli caucus at Harvard. It took him 49 minutes of this before he responded to anything.

The group is over. It’s a three-hour group. I then say, “Who’s Jewish, who isn’t?” At that point some of the Jewish kids got a little outraged. I dismiss all the non-Jewish kids.

And the Jewish kids are there. And they’re now ticked at me for doing this, you know, “Why have you segregated us?” I said, “I’m Frank Luntz and I’m Jewish, and I’ve been working on this now for 10 years, and you all didn’t say sh*t.”

And it all dawned on them: If they won’t say it to their classmates, who they know, who will they stand up for Israel to? Two of the women in the group started to cry. I got the whole thing on tape. The guys are like, “Oh my God, I didn’t speak up, I can’t believe I let this happen.” And they’re all looking at each other with horrible embarrassment and guilt like you wouldn’t believe.

And I take this tape down, this little DVD, to the Jewish community and I say, “This is what we’ve done – or not done.” It’s not just giving them the facts. It is also teaching them how to say it, when to say it, when to crack a joke, when to acknowledge someone else’s points, when not to be argumentative or judgmental.

The problem that I see is that so many parents in the Jewish community taught their kids not to judge. I’m going to say something that’s a little bit ideological, but I find that kids on the Right are far more likely to stand up for Israel than kids on the Left. Because kids on the Right believe that there is an absolute right and wrong; this is how they’ve been raised.

Kids on the Left have been taught not to judge. Therefore those on the left will not judge between Israel and the Palestinians; those on the Right will. I’ve now been doing this research for eight years.

Is something supposed to come out of your college work? Some new initiative?

This is my goal. That’s what I want to do – to work for Natan Sharansky. To help the [Jewish Agency] “ambassadors.” They are sending 40 of them to college campuses in September.

Your hope is there’ll be some ongoing work with you to create a better climate on campus and a more vocal, articulate, empowered study body for Israel?

I could not have said it better. Because that will change the dynamic of every Jew in America, in Europe, across the globe. You have to create an environment where people feel free to ask questions, where they feel to challenge, and where they feel free to express their support for this country. And that environment does not exist on most college campuses.

If it’s dire in America, it’s beyond dire everywhere else.

I want to do Oxford and Cambridge. All of Britain is run by Oxford and Cambridge! Every prime minister [went there]. I was there for three years.

Do you know where I got it kicked in the head? I went to the University of Pennsylvania.

We never lost a debate. I go to Oxford and Lord Mayhew was one of the debaters. I had never heard a smart person deliver an anti- Israel statement until I was at the Oxford Union. They blamed Israel for [everything wrong in] the Middle East. This is 1986. I called home and I started to describe it to my parents and my voice started to crack. I was so upset. “Mom, there are really smart people who really hate Israel. What the hell?” And my mom said, “This is great for you. Now you’re gonna learn and it’s going to make you a better person. There are bad people everywhere.”

At Oxford and Cambridge, it’s awful. At the two universities that educate more British leaders than everywhere else combined, it’s awful.

And I’ve never been able to get organizations to [hire me to] do research there...

(Luntz reaches into his briefcase, and pulls out a folder with some maps. He shows me one map of Israel and its immediate surroundings, in which Israel dominates the page, and another of the wider Middle East, in which Israel is barely visible.) The thing I wanted to show you is the maps. The smaller that Israel is, the more supportive people are. When Israel is shown as big on the map, it has much less sympathy.

So, what do you do with this information?

You get the biggest map you possibly can find, stretch it out over an entire wall. It also looks great in the TV interviews and then you invite the cameras and say, ‘Oh, can you zoom in on Israel? Because your zoom lens probably doesn’t get you close enough.”

Israel is so small on these Middle Eastern maps that you can barely write the word “Israel” in it! Notice, when you look at a big map of the whole Middle East, you can’t even fit the word “Israel” in Israel! You actually have to write it in the water! This is an easy point.

I’ll give you a second example. This is one that was really painful to watch. I went to The Hague for the so-called trial about the security fence [at the International Court of Justice in 2004], and it was so hard because the Israeli government brought the fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children of the people who had been killed [in terrorist attacks]. All the TV cameras were in the back and the [relatives of the] victims were going to sit in the front and talk about their situation.

There was a huge banner with the individual names and photographs of every individual who had been killed. One of the [relatives] looks back and sees this. He goes closer, and so does a second and then a third. And they’re looking for [the picture of] their brother, their sister, and they’re finding it. And you would hear “uhhhhhh,” or something in Hebrew like, “Oh my God,” and they would tell each other where the pictures were, and they’re pointing, and they would hug each other.

It was the most human moment I had ever seen Israeli communication demonstrate. It wasn’t staged. And the camera crews tore their cameras off the sticks and came running up in front, and that led every newscast.

Why can’t Israel do that every day? Why can’t Israel demonstrate, communicate, the human dimension of all that has happened in this region? Not for 50 years, but for 3,000 years?

How problematic for you today, meeting all these Israeli leaders, was the language barrier? We have a lot of people in this country who think they speak good English, but you’re communicating subtleties here. You think they got what you were saying?

I know they did. Like we pointed out “regime” – don’t have that word in this document.

They got it...

But I do think that often that phrase “lost in translation” has real meaning here. I only wish that they could all sit with me and watch the reaction of people when they hear a word like “separation” (Ariel Sharon’s original term for his “unilateral disengagement” strategy) or “wall” or “regime” [being used by Israel]. They should see the reaction on people’s faces when they hear that language, and [watch when people] turn against Israel because of it.

If this were a serious approach by serious people, which [Israel’s leaders] are, they would put in as much discipline to their public education as they do to their public defense. They would realize that language can sometimes be even more powerful than the gun or the tank.

Do you have any sense at the end of your time here that anybody is going to internalize that and act upon it? Seventy percent of them take 70% of the advice. If you do the math on that, it means it’s 49% successful. I have no other client where I’m successful less than half the time.

Do you know how painful that is? An example of effective communication: Shimon Peres doesn’t speak like a political scientist.

He speaks like a humanitarian. And he speaks in parables that are easily understood and appreciated. And he uses stories that make the information compelling, because no one’s ever heard them before. He said [to me] today, “Don’t try to get young people to listen to opera. It may be the most beautiful music ever created, but they’re going to be mad at you.”

Great line! He understands. And by the way, he’s like Reagan. He’s 87 years old and he still communicates better than anyone else with teenagers.

I’ll give you one other example. These are the words that Americans would respect most in a country in the Middle East, words that came up in our dial sessions. What they want most in a Middle Eastern country is “humanitarian.”

So when an Israeli leader says “there’s no humanitarian crisis,” not only is he denying what people perceive, but he’s actually going contrary to what the public wants. That word is so powerful.

[Israeli politicians should also speak about] a “commitment” to progress. Israeli politicians use the word “vision”. Vision is a wish.

Commitment is your personal reputation on the line.

Tell me a little more about your work methods.

We’ve [researched] both in surveys and in dial sessions. The power in the dial session is that it measures the reaction word by word.

People have a device about the size of this [micro] tape recorder. And the dial goes from zero to one hundred. Fifty is neutral. The more positive they feel, the higher they turn the dial.

The more negative, the lower it goes. The dials react on a second-by-second basis. And so we say to them: React to every word, every phrase, everything that’s done.

They’re watching tape. We collect tape from the BBC, CNN, Fox and MSNBC... And I will do it with them. An example is this: “OK, everyone, I want you to live dial me now. Grab your dials, instead of watching on TV, I want you to react to me.

Imagine for a moment that you live in a community that over the last seven years, almost 10,000 rockets have been fired at you. What would you do? What would you ask from your government? If these [rockets] came in from Vancouver into Seattle, or from Windsor into Detroit, would you say, ‘Turn the other cheek, ignore it?’ Or would you expect your government to do something about it? Would you expect the responsible approach of your government is to say ‘enough is enough?’” And I would test this. I’m constantly testing language. This is how I learned that the rhetorical question is the most powerful.

This is how I learned that the first sentence determines the reaction to everything else. This is how I realized that certain words and phrases had such a powerful impact. And it gets me beyond that, because I can then ask, “What did you like, what did you dislike? What did you believe, what did you not believe?” And that’s how I learn.

Body language is not a factor?

Body language is a factor. Body language contributes to the positive or negative rating of an individual. But in the end, the best language will overcome the worst body language.

Dress, clothing. I always feel I’m looking at their tie, do I like their shirt?

We judge them based on our standards of how we judge an American speaker or a British speaker. They are judged by our culture rather than their culture. Now, it used to be really easy. But the Palestinians have gotten very good in the last five years. They have learned the tricks of the trade and they are much more likely to follow [those tricks] than the Israelis.

The Palestinians will say the same word, the same sentence, the same phrase, in the same way, again and again and again. And it doesn’t matter who’s saying it. They have one set of talking points and that is what they deliver in every interview, no matter what the question is. The Israelis...

Can’t even agree on what the talking points should be. We are handicapped by our democracy. They are not.

What a great line you just gave me: “Some people think we are handicapped by our democracy. We relish it. We celebrate it. We celebrate the fact that my defense minister may come on and say something that’s a little bit different than what I told you. That’s what democracies do. You don’t hear that from Hamas. They have one set of talking points because they can enforce it. For us, 10 Israeli leaders, 15 opinions.”

And yet, you say, if the message is correctly crafted...

The key is the intent. Another great line for Israel is to say, “We’re not perfect. Every nation makes mistakes and we have our share. The question you need to ask us is, do we learn from them? And when we learn from them, are we a better people? Are we a better country, having learned from those mistakes?” Once again, Hamas will never admit this.

Israel benefits from having the potential of candor. You’re not going to go to jail. No one’s going to kill you in the middle of the night for saying you made a mistake. Hamas can never do that.

You’ve been coming here and doing this for years. Are the leaders you’re meeting with more open than they were a few years ago?

If you look at the list of people that I see each time I come here, it’s a who’s who of Israeli politics.

Obviously there’s an interest, or they wouldn’t spend the time to see me. Second is that Israel continues to maintain significant American support even with the challenges of the new administration. Clearly, they’re doing something right. Third is that even with the flotilla and even with Gaza, Israel has the advantage of a cultural identification with America that Hamas and the Palestinians don’t have. The Israelis are better than they were.

The communicators are better than they were.

Enabling Israel to articulate more effectively, do you think this can have an impact on the reality? Do you think that if the messages are clearer, it will foster a climate in which it may be possible to change minds on the other side of the divide?

(To my surprise, Luntz answers without hesitation:) No. But if the Israelis fail, then they could lose the freedoms that are granted by American and Western European support, which would limit their action and limit their choices, and in the end do tremendous damage to the country. I have no illusions about the limited benefits of effective communication, but I have no doubts about the damage if and when Israel communicates badly.

The No. 1 thing that we recommend is the empathy. Every mom mourns for her child, whether they are Jewish, Christian, Muslim.

The loss of any children is the loss of humanity.

And so the strongest line there is “Let us work for the day when we will not bury another child.”

I didn’t even understand the power of that until my father died and my mother explained to me that as awful as you feel, you don’t know what it is for a parent to bury a child.

And I connected that to Israel. So I’m taking all this language that I’m learning from other places, and trying to apply it here – testing it to see whether it works or not. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

The Bibi Report live show 7/18 - on the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and on Israeli concerns of Obama's Mideast policy

TIME Report: Israel convinces Obama to plan for credible Iran strike

According to a report in Time magazine Israel has managed to convince Washington to put the option of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities back on the table.

Israel has long argued that all of the international sanctions against Iran are pointless unless Western powers are prepared to back them up with the threat of force.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressing that point since US President Barack Obama pushed through a new package of sanctions at the UN Security Council last month.

In the past few weeks, Time reported that US Central Command has been devising a thorough plan of targeted air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. The article claimed that Israel has been brought into that planning process.

Israel is also reportedly still revising its own independent plan of attack, should a solo mission against Iran become necessary.

“Without [a military option], the sanctions will likely not work,” a senior defense official said. The Israeli defense establishment cites Iran’s cessation of its nuclear activities in 2003 concurrent with the US invasion of Iraq, though since then, lacking a military threat from the Americans, Iran has continued on its nuclear course.

Waking up! TIME: A U.S. Attack on Iran: Back on the Table

(Joe Klein-TIME).In late 2006, George W. Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and asked if military action against Iran's nuclear program was feasible. The unanimous answer was no. Air strikes could take out some of Iran's nuclear facilities, but there was no way to eliminate all of them. Some of the nuclear labs were located in heavily populated areas; others were deep underground. And Iran's ability to strike back by unconventional means, especially through its Hizballah terrorist network, was formidable. The military option was never officially taken off the table. At least, that's what U.S. officials always said. But the emphasis was on the implausibility of a military strike. "Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in 2008. It would be "disastrous on a number of levels."

Gates is sounding more belligerent these days. "I don't think we're prepared to even talk about containing a nuclear Iran," he told Fox News on June 20. "We do not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons." In fact, Gates was reflecting a new reality in the military and intelligence communities. Diplomacy and economic pressure remain the preferred means to force Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal, but there isn't much hope that's going to happen. "Will [sanctions] deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability?" CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC News on June 27. "Probably not." So the military option is very much back on the table.

What has changed? "I started to rethink this last November," a recently retired U.S. official with extensive knowledge of the issue told me. "We offered the Iranians a really generous deal, which their negotiators accepted," he went on, referring to the offer to exchange Iran's 1.2 tons of low-enriched uranium (3.5% pure) for higher-enriched (20%) uranium for medical research and use. "When the leadership shot that down, I began to think, Well, we made the good-faith effort to engage. What do we do now?" (See pictures of terror in Tehran.)

Other intelligence sources say that the U.S. Army's Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes — aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region. "There really wasn't a military option a year ago," an Israeli military source told me. "But they've gotten serious about the planning, and the option is real now." Israel has been brought into the planning process, I'm told, because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own. (Comment on this story.)

One other factor has brought the military option to a low boil: Iran's Sunni neighbors really want the U.S. to do it. When United Arab Emirates Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba said on July 6 that he favored a military strike against Iran despite the economic and military consequences to his country, he was reflecting an increasingly adamant attitude in the region. Senior American officials who travel to the Gulf frequently say the Saudis, in particular, raise the issue with surprising ardor. Everyone from the Turks to the Egyptians to the Jordanians are threatening to go nuclear if Iran does. That is seen as a real problem in the most volatile region in the world: What happens, for example, if Saudi Arabia gets a bomb, and the deathless monarchy there is overthrown by Islamist radicals?

For the moment, the White House remains as skeptical as ever about a military strike. Most senior military leaders also believe Gates got it right the first time — even a targeted attack on Iran would be "disastrous on a number of levels." It would unify the Iranian people against the latest in a long series of foreign interventions. It would also unify much of the world — including countries like Russia and China that we've worked hard to cultivate — against a recowboyfied U.S. There would certainly be an Iranian reaction — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, by Lebanese Hizballah against Israel and by the Hizballah network against the U.S. and Saudi homelands. A catastrophic regional war is not impossible. (See who's who in Barack Obama's White House.)

Of course, it is also possible that this low-key saber-rattling is simply a message the U.S. is trying to send the Iranians: it's time to deal. There have been rumblings from Tehran about resuming negotiations, although the regime has very little credibility right now. The assumption — shared even by some of Iran's former friends, like the Russians — is that any Iranian offer to talk is really an offer to stall. A specific, plausible Iranian concession may be needed to get the process back on track. But it is also possible that the saber-rattling is not a bluff, that the U.S. really won't tolerate a nuclear Iran and is prepared to do something awful to stop it.

Jpost/Smith Poll post Netanyahu Summit: Only 10% of Israelis think US president Obama is pro-Israel

(JPOST).US President Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the people of Israel last week – when he hosted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a positive meeting at the White House and gave his first interview as president to an Israeli television station – were not very successful, according to a Smith Research poll for The Jerusalem Post.

When asked whether they saw Obama’s administration as more pro-Israel, more pro- Palestinian or neutral, just 10 percent of Israeli Jews said more pro-Israel, 46% said more pro-Palestinian, 34% said neutral and 10% did not express an opinion.

The poll of 515 Jewish Israelis, representing a statistical sample of the adult Jewish population, was taken on Monday through Wednesday and had a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.

After Obama’s earlier meetings with Netanyahu were portrayed as adversarial, Obama made a point of treating the prime minister with the utmost respect last week, accompanying him to his car and constantly commending him in particular and Israelis in general during his press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday, and his interview with Channel 2 anchor Yonit Levy two days later.

But what was widely described as a “charm offensive” did not immediately sway many Israelis in his favor, the JPost/Smith poll indicates. There was only a 1 percentage point rise in Israelis who consider the US administration headed by Obama to be more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian since the last such poll was taken in March.

The question asked was exactly the same as in four previous polls sponsored by this newspaper since May 2009. The first poll, which was taken before the first Netanyahu-Obama meeting in the White House and Obama’s landmark speech in Cairo in June 2009, found that 31% considered this presidency more pro- Israel and 14% more pro-Palestinian.

The next poll, taken just one month later, found a huge shift, with the proportion calling the Obama administration more pro-Palestinian rising from 14% to 50% and the proportion calling it more pro-Israel falling from 31% to only 6%.

Those calling the Obama presidency more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian fell in August 2009 to a nadir of 4% and rose to 9% in March 2010.

Since then, the latest poll shows, the share who consider this White House more pro-Palestinian fell by 2 percentage points, from 48% to 46%, and those saying it is neutral rose from 30% to 34%.

Respondents who consider themselves right-wing or haredi were more likely to call the Obama administration more pro-Palestinian.

Sixty-eight percent of haredi respondents and 63% of right-wingers gave that response, compared to 46% of the general Jewish population.

Among Likud voters, 52% called the administration more pro-Palestinian and 14% said it was more pro-Israel.

The Jewish Israelis who were mostly likely to respond that the Obama administration was more pro-Israel were those who said they intended to vote for Labor or Meretz in the next election, at 25%, compared to 10% of the general population.

When asked last week by interviewer Levy why he felt Israelis did not believe he had a special connection to their country, Obama blamed it on superficial reasons and ruled out it having anything to do with policies or his behavior.

“Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion,” Obama said. “Some of it may have to do with the fact that I have actively reached out to the Muslim community, and I think that sometimes, particularly in the Middle East, there’s the feeling of the friend of my enemy must be my enemy. And the truth of the matter is, is that my outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West.”

TIME: Netanyahu has Outmaneuvered Obama

(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.

” 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.

TIPP Poll: 56% of Americans support an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear plant

More than half of Americans would support Israel taking military action against Iran, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

The poll was conducted by TIPP, the polling unit of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, a U.S. research firm of both syndicated and custom Market Research solutions.

According to the poll, 43 percent of U.S. Democrats approve of Israel taking military action against Iran to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, while 40 percent disapprove. However, when Republicans were asked the same question, 74 percent voiced approval while 17 percent disapproved. Among independents, 56 percent approved of military action while 30% disapproved.

Overall, 56 percent of Americans approved a military strike, while 30 percent disapproved, according to the poll.

Poll: Lawyers in Israel disapprove Obama's treatment of Israel and doubt his ability to lead a successfull Peacfe process

(www.worldofjudaica.com/).This is the most conspicuous finding of the annual poll of lawyers in the central Tel Aviv region by the Israeli magazine “Prosecutors” (PRAKLITIM). Other findings of the poll, commissioned by Ma’agar Mohot, reveal that Benjamin Netanyahu is the preferred man for the job of Prime Minister, that Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy made the right decision in imprisoning the Emmanuel parents who refused to send their children to the school after Ashkenazim and Sephardim were desegregated, and that Israel should include international representatives in its investigation of the Turkish flotilla affair.

The poll was taken by telephone between June 21-23rd among 329 lawyers representing the greater Tel Aviv area and its outskirts. It should be noted that Tel Aviv lawyers are among the most liberal sectors of Israeli society.

The questions dealing directly with Barack Obama were the following:

In your opinion, is President Barack Obama’s Iranian nuclear policy good or bad for Israel?

An overwhelming 71% of respondents said “bad”. Only 29% said “good”. Lawyers with over ten years experience in the profession were slightly less against Obama, with only 53% answering “bad”, but only 25% answering “good”.

Analysis: Obama is playing with fire. A huge majority hold that President Barack Obama’s policy on the issue of the Iranian nuclear program is bad for Israel. This opinion is more widespread among new and salaried lawyers than it is for veteran and independent lawyers. The lack of enthusiasm, to put it lightly, for the American president’s handling of anything having to do with Israel and the Middle East, repeats itself strongly in the following questions.

What grade would you give President Obama on his general treatment of Israel today?

In response to that question, 45% said “poor” or “very poor”. 40% said “average” and only 15% gave him either a “good” or “very good” grade. Men more strongly disapproved of Obama’s treatment of Israel than women by an 18 point spread.

Analysis: Obama is bad for Israel. If someone in the American embassy is reading this article, he is hereby invited to relay the following message to the White House: US President Barack Obama, a former civil rights lawyer and Harvard Law Professor, is seen by Israeli lawyers as bad for their country. A solid majority (85%) gave an average to very poor grade to the President on his treatment of Israel.

Can President Obama successfully orchestrate a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians?

68% say no. Only 32% say yes.

Analysis: Obama can’t do it. The lawyers in Israel doubt the ability of the President of the United States, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the man who invented the slogan “Yes We Can,” to lead a successful peace process between Israel and the Arabs.

Daniel Greenfield: Obama's smiles show No change of policy, but adoption of the Clintonites approach

(Daniel Greenfield-Eurasiareview).Three months after Obama deliberately snubbed Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel was invited back to put on a good show of friendship before the midterm elections. There were smiles all around, reassuring sound bites and even some waving. The idea was to assure everyone that things were back to normal. At least until the mid-term elections delivers the Jewish vote. Just another cynical round in a very cynical administration.

The re-invitation was a concession that Obama's original approach of publicly attacking Israel in order to force concessions was not the best strategy. Not only did Obama fail to convince the American people that Israel had gravely insulted them by approving one stage of a housing project in its own capitol, while Joe Biden happened to be in town-- but the backlash that was generated even from some of his own supporters, such as Ed Koch, actually helped lower Obama's own poll numbers. But all the smiles and friendly waves don't mean that anything is fixed, it just means that the Clintonites have won the argument.

The argument between the radical voices that Obama brought in, like Samantha Power or Susan Rice, and the Clinton Administration veterans, including Rahm and Hillary Clinton herself, was over the best way to bring Israel to heel. The radicals wanted a direct confrontation, the Clintonites wanted the old policy of friendly overtones, with harsh undertones. In public everyone keeps smiling, in private everything gets ugly real fast. The re-invitation was a triumph of style over substance, the substance of the administration's policies have not changed. They are just being moderated by a desire to avoid alienating Jewish Democrats and increasing Netanyahu's popularity at home.

It was Bill Clinton who had mastered the "friendly overtones/ugly undertones" school of diplomacy toward Israel. No President had done a better job of building a pro-Israel image, while ruthlessly pressuring and intimidating Netanyahu in private into making concessions, and finally using his "experts" to overthrow his government. It's a given that Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel are highly familiar with that game plan, and are eager to run it again. The re-invitation just means that they'll have the chance to do it, by pressuring Netanyahu into signing an agreement with whoever's around to run Fatah, after the shooting stops.

It also means the agenda of the radicals, who wanted a deal with Hamas and a unilateral Palestinian State are on hold on for the moment, but not for too long. Giving the Clintonites their head, not only plays better among Jewish voters going into mid-term elections, but extracts concessions that will later be added to a Hamas state anyway, because the peace process has always been unworkable, and Fatah will fold the moment it loses American support. So the radicals can let the Clintonites have their fun, knowing that whatever Netanyahu gives to Fatah, Hamas will claim anyway-- with the support of the radicals.

Washington Times ED: Iran first, Palestinians later- Nuclear threat needs to be addressed urgently and decisively

(The Washington times).Diplomacy is the art of thinking twice before saying nothing, so the saying goes. Thus, blunt comments from United Arab Emirates Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba about the desirability of attacking Iran were unusual, especially because he hails from a part of the world where foreign policy is conducted mostly behind the scenes.

"We cannot live with a nuclear Iran," he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. "I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE." Asked if he would like to see the United States resolve the Iranian nuclear issue by force, he said, "Absolutely, absolutely. I think we are at risk of an Iranian nuclear program far more than you are at risk. At 7,000 miles away, and with two oceans bordering you, an Iranian nuclear threat does not threaten the continental United States. It may threaten your assets in the region, it will threaten the peace process, it will threaten balance of power, it will threaten everything else, but it will not threaten you." Of course, once Iran completes work on an intercontinental ballistic missile, the continental United States will be directly threatened. Mr. al-Otaiba added that UAE military forces "wake up, dream, breathe, eat, sleep the Iranian threat."

Opponents of a military strike against Iran often make the case that it would lead to even greater instability in the region, something the United States cannot risk. Mr. al-Otaiba acknowledged there would be "problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what." But the possibility of a few street demonstrations does not weigh heavily compared to the national security nightmare of a nuclear Iran. "If you are asking me, am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?" he said. "My answer is still the same."

Tehran quickly denounced Mr. al-Otaiba's statement. "Such harsh and crude remarks are below the dignity of the Islamic states," said Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. Just as quickly, the UAE Foreign Ministry released a statement totally rejecting "the use of force as a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue" and claimed that the comments were "taken out of context." Hedging aside, it's pretty hard to misinterpret words such as "absolutely, absolutely."

Whether Mr. al-Otaiba's comments were a diplomatic signal or simply a moment of indiscretion is an interesting question. Either way, they reflect the rising concern in the Middle East over Iran's progress toward developing nuclear weapons and the feeble international response. The Obama administration has given the pressing Iran issue less attention than its quixotic quest for a final peace between Israelis and Palestinians, which is a misplaced priority. The Palestinian issue has been around for decades, and there is no immediate need to resolve it, even assuming that is possible. It poses no threat to the United States, and when it periodically reaches a boiling point, it can be contained. Arab states especially can live without a near-term resolution of the Palestinian issue, which does not materially affect their national interests.

As Mr. al-Otaiba made clear, a nuclear Iran would pose an immediate, existential threat to states in the Gulf region. And unlike the Palestinian problem, which can be left to simmer, the Iranian nuclear threat is on a rapidly diminishing timeline. It needs to be addressed urgently and decisively. Absolutely, absolutely.

The Bibi Report live 90 Minute panel discussion on the Netanyahu-Obama Meeting and the Peace process

National SA Arad praises Obama's commitment to Israel's security - 'US support is insurance policy'

US President Barack Obama's commitment to Israel's security is an "insurance policy," National Security Adviser Uzi Arad said Monday.

Speaking to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Arad said that the US president had "openly" confirmed that his country would not allow "Israel's security to be challenged".

"Obama's administration acknowledges Israel's need to respond to every threat it may face," he told the committee.

New conservative group will oppose Obama Mideast policy, Target Democrats in Midterm race supporting it

(BEN SMITH-POLITICO 44).Leading conservatives will launch a new pro-Israel group this week with a scathing attack on Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, the first shot in what they say will be a confrontational campaign against the Obama administration’s Mideast policy and the Democrats who support it.

The Emergency Committee for Israel’s leadership unites two major strands of support for the Jewish state: The hawkish, neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of whom are Jewish; and conservative Evangelical Christians who have become increasingly outspoken in their support for Israel. The new group’s board includes Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and Gary Bauer, the former Republican presidential candidate who leads the group American Values, as well as Rachel Abrams, a conservative writer and activist. Former McCain aide Michael Goldfarb is an adviser to the group.

“We’re the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community,” said Kristol.

While President Barack Obama and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to put the best public face on their differences after a White House meeting last week, the two leaders have had a contentious relationship. Some American backers of Israel, as well as many Israelis, remain deeply suspicious of Obama’s efforts to press Israel toward specific policy shifts and to improve American relations with the Muslim world.

The new committee declined to disclose its funding – as a 501(c)4 advocacy organization, it isn’t required to – but said it had raised enough to air its first ad, starting this week, on Fox and CNN and during a Philadelphia Phillies game. The ad attacks Sestak for signing a letter criticizing Israel’s blockade of Gaza while not signing a defense of Israel circulated by the group AIPAC, and for appearing at a fundraiser for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which it describes as an “anti-Israel organization the FBI called a ‘front-group for Hamas’.”

“Does Congressman Joe Sestak understand Israel is America’s ally?” asks the ad’s narrator.

A spokesman for Sestak, who defeated Sen. Arlen Specter for the Democratic Senate nomination, rejected the ad’s characterization.

“Joe is a strong supporter of the State of Israel,” said April Mellody, referring to the congressman’s services as a naval officer in the first Gulf War. “It’s political silly season so it’s not surprising these conservatives are trying to distort Joe’s record.”

The Emergency Committee plans to advertise in other congressional races as well, according to Noah Pollak, its executive director.

“We want to be hard-hitting – we want to get into the debate and shake things up and make some points in a firm way,” he said.

The group will target races for the House and the Senate, but there’s little doubt the larger target is the Obama administration, which Bauer told POLITICO is “the most anti-Israel administration in the history of the United States.”

A White House spokesman, Ben Rhodes, declined to comment on the new group, but provided a string of recent comments from Netanyahu on the strength of the countries’ relationship.

“I trust Barack Obama, the president of the United States, to carry out with me the policies that have joined Israel and the United States in what Barack Obama has called the unbreakable bond,” Netanyahu told CBS’s Katie Couric last week. “We have common goals, common interests, and we now have a job to do to get on with our common goal of achieving peace with security. I trust we’ll be able to do that together.”

The Emergency Committee will fit into a broadening spectrum of American pro-Israel groups, many of which have followed AIPAC’s lead in seeking to avoid open rifts with the White House and the political parties. Kristol said this group was inspired in part by the new liberal group J Street, whose ability to amplify criticism of the Israeli government showed, he said, the power of a small new group – if on the other side of the debate.

“There are some who say they’re pro-Israel but aren’t really,” he said, referring to J Street. “Then there’s AIPAC, which is a wonderful organization, but one that’s very committed to working with the administration so they pull some punches publicly.”

One official at an American Jewish organization welcomed the group to the degree that it would make “mainstream” criticism of Democrats, but also expressed concern that a group with such Republican origins would contribute to a deepening partisan cast to the debate over Israel, with Republicans lining up behind the Israeli government while some Democrats align themselves with Netanyahu’s American critics.

Bauer dismissed that notion.

“I encourage our Democratic friends to have a competition with us on who can be more pro-Israel, because I think it’s in the interests of the United States and not a political party,” he said. “I’m really hoping that people like Senator [Chuck] Schumer and others will aggressively speak out for Israel at a time like this.”

Rasmussen poll: 31% of Americans Expect U.S.-Israeli Relations To Worsen Over The Next Year

(Rasmussenreports).Despite President Obama's meeting last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to affirm the importance of the U.S.–Israeli relationship, 31% of U.S. voters believe relations between the two countries will be worse a year from now.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 15% think America’s relationship with Israel will be better in 12 months time. Forty-four percent (44%) expect the relationship to be about the same.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) consider Israel an ally of the United States, down from a recent high of 70% in August of last year. Only five percent (5%) feel Israel is an enemy, while 33% place the Jewish state somewhere in between.

At the United Nations and in other international forums, the United States often finds itself as one of Israel’s few defenders, but just 24% say, generally speaking, America is too supportive of Israel. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the United States is not supportive enough, while 32% say neither is the case.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of male voters expect U.S.-Israeli relations to get worse over the next year, compared to 26% of female voters.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Republicans say the relationship will be worse by then, but 50% of Democrats and 52% of voters not affiliated with either major party expect relations between the two to be about the same.

GOP voters feel more strongly than Democrats and unaffiliateds that Israel is an U.S. ally.

'Mr. President, Your Name 'Hussein' Does Not Scare Us, Your Policies Do'

Shelomo Alfassá, historian, author,writer, activist, patriot and ponderer of the world writes a open letter to Obama:

Dear Mr. President,

It was widely reported that on July 8, 2010, you mentioned that your middle name was ‘Hussein’ and that this made Israelis nervous about your commitment to the Jewish state. “Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is ‘Hussein,’ and that creates suspicion,” you told a reporter.

Mr. President, in today’s world, the name ‘Hussein’ is not exclusive to Muslims nor is it foreign to Jews or Christians that come from or live in Arab countries.

Fully one thousand years before the advent of Islam, Jews in substantial numbers resided in what are today Arab countries-this includes Mecca and Medina which were home to Jewish communities. As of 1948, the year Israel became a State, there were 856,000 Jews living in Arab countries, today, there are less than 5,000. Over the last 62 years, dispossessed by Arab governments, Jewish communities were turned into refugees.

A majority of these Jews from Arab countries relocated to Israel, where they became the majority of the population. Thus, to the majority of Israelis today, the name ‘Hussein’ would not fall on alarmist ears. Jews have the name ‘Hussein,’ as do their fathers and grandfathers. There are Jews in Israel and across the world-including the United States, that possess the name ‘Hussein.’

Mr. President, you told Israel’s Channel 2 TV that apprehension about your name could be eased if Israelis checked the roster of your top aides. You said, “My top political adviser [David Axelrod] is somebody who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors.” Mr. President, indicating that you employ a man who is descendant from a Holocaust survivor is no way to curry favor with Jews. Actually, it is less than sophisticated and devalues your response.

Mr. President, not all Jews come from Europe.

It should be remembered that the Holocaust effected Jews in Arab countries both across North African and in the Middle East. The Holocaust is erroneously thought to have only occurred in Europe-but it did not. The Germans in their attempt to kill all Jews, the world over, murdered Jews in Morocco and other Muslim countries. It is an established fact that Jews from Arab countries ended up in Auschwitz as well as transit and labor camps. During the Holocaust era, the Grand Mufti of the Arab world worked hand-in-hand with Hitler to establish plans to kill Jews, some which were successful.

Mr. President, it is not your given name of ‘Hussein’ that scares people, nor is it you having a descendant of Holocaust survivors on your staff that will win the Jews over. What will win the Jews over is when you support the Jewish people in their right for national self-defense, against an enemy that calls Jews ‘occupiers’ and often repeats the old canard that they should ‘go home’ to where they come from, 'Europe.'

Yours truly,

Shelomo Alfassa

Former U.S. Director
Justice for Jews from Arab Countries

Netanyahu's remarks at start of Cabinet meeting: I found understanding and support in US for Israel

Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the start of the Cabinet meeting today:

"Last week I held a series of meetings in New York and Washington, first of all with US President Barack Obama. I also met with senior American administration officials, media figures and Jewish community leaders.

The alliance between Israel and the US is stable and strong. It has the support of the American administration and people. My visit to the US last week gave tangible expression to strength and durability of this unbreakable bond. In my meeting with the US President, we had a comprehensive and excellent discussion in which we covered a broad range of issues.

The first issue that came up was advancing the peace process between us and the Palestinian Authority. I reiterated to the President Israel's desire to proceed immediately to direct negotiations with the PA, with the goal being to advance the diplomatic process and try to reach a peace agreement. The condition for achieving this agreement is scrupulously maintaining the security of the country and its citizens. I gained the impression that the American side as well there is the recognition that we must proceed to direct talks in order to advance the peace process. I gained the impression that the President is also attentive to the State of Israel's special security needs. On these issues we are working in concert. We hope that the PA will accede to the call to begin direct talks at soon as possible.

The second issue that arose in my conversation with President Obama was the danger of Iran achieving nuclear weapons and thereby threatening not only Israel, the Middle East and the peace therein but the entire world as well. I very much appreciate the Us President's statement that he is determined to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons. I expressed my appreciation that he brought a decision on sanctions to the UN Security Council and that he signed into law aggressive US sanctions several days ago. I expressed both my hope that other countries will join in these aggressive sanctions and my assessment that if Iran indeed achieves nuclear weapons, there will be no effective containment policy against it. Therefore, everything must be done so that Iran does not achieve nuclear weapons.

The third issue that arose in our talks was the nuclear disarmament conference. President Obama and the White House reiterated the American commitment to important strategic understandings with the State of Israel in this area. The President made it clear that American policy on these strategic issues has not changed and that the US understands – as the President put it – that due to the size of the threats against it and given our history, the State of Israel is in a special situation.

The fourth issue that came up in our conversation was Gilad Shalit. I asked the President to use his full strength and influence to help us in achieving Gilad's release after four years of captivity, in which he was been denied any Red Cross visits – another war crime being perpetrated by Hamas. Immediately upon my return to Israel, my wife and I met with Aviva and Noam Shalit. I updated them on my talks on Gilad's release and the efforts to bring this about.

These and other issues also came up in my meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. I also spoke with them about the diplomatic process and Israel's security needs, and our plans to strengthen ourselves in the face of the possible plans of others in the region.

I also met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and, as I have said, with senior figures in the American media, including the editors of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, as well as other networks and analysts. I also participated in a very warm meeting organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

In all of my meetings, I found understanding and support for Israel as a whole, understanding that Israel must be supported at this special time against the attacks – including physical and political – that we have withstood in recent months. I found broad support for our decision to lift the civilian blockade on Gaza while strictly maintaining the security blockade, and the understanding that we are doing what must be done in order to prevent the entry into Gaza of weapons, missiles and rockets, out of concern for the security of Israel's citizens.

On Tuesday, I will meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. This will be our fifth meeting in one year. I hope to work with him in advancing the direct talks with the Palestinian Authority."

Netanyahu: Only US military threats can stop Iran from building nukes

Diplomacy and sanctions won't stop Iran from building a nuclear warhead, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"There has only been one time that Iran actually stopped the program," Netanyahu told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday. "That was when it feared U.S. military action."

The prime minister agreed with CIA Director Leon Panetta that sanctions would "probably not" stop the Iranians.

But Netanyahu wouldn't say whether he had discussed military action with President Barack Obama.

"I'm not going to get into the confidential discussions, and I'm not confirming anything of the sort but I am saying that the president's position that all options are on the table might actually have the only real effect on Iran if they think it's true," he said.

The prime minister was also cold to the idea of participating in an U.N. conference on a nuclear-free Middle East.

"As far as a nuclear weapons free zone, you know, when the lion lies down with the lamb, and you don't need a new lamb every day to satisfy the lion, then we might have this kind of transformation in the Middle East. But so far, you know who has been violating the nuclear non-proliferation pact, those who signed it. Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Iran violates it while calling for Israel's destruction and racing to develop atomic weapons to that end. So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel,"

Netanyahu on FNS : Obama 'understanding' of Israel's security concerns

(The Hill).Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to ease reports of rifts between the U.S. and Israel, saying he found President Barack Obama to be "understanding" of the Jewish state's security concerns while meeting in Washington last week.

Netanyahu, in an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday," was asked to compare Obama to other American presidents Netanyahu had worked with in some form or another over the past three decades.

"I don't compare people, This is something you leave for biographies. But I can tell you there is a consistent line. And all U.S. presidents, from everyone that I met including President Obama, share what the president called the basic bedrock of this unbreakable bond between Israel and the United States."

The prime minister was asked whether Obama supports Israel in the same way as presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush did.

"I can tell you that we had a conversation in this meeting in Washington the other day, and a good chunk of it -- I'd say about half of it -- was devoted to a detailed discussion of Israel's security problems, the problem that when we vacate territory, Iran and its proxy terrorists walk in with rockets," Netanyahu said.

"And I explained it in great detail, and I found the president was understanding. I found him -- he considered this problem. He understands that we need to have a solution for it. And I intend to work with him and, I hope, with President Abbas to find a solution so that we can couple security with peace, because that's the only peace that will endure, a peace based on security."

Netanyahu added that Obama "did a lot to lay to rest" perceptions that there was "daylight" between the U.S. and Israel on questions of security concerns.

Netanyahu on FNS: No Change in U.S. policy towards Israel; Obama 'might have the only real effect on Iran'

(Foxnews).Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his meeting in Washington with President Obama should lay "to rest" the idea that the decades-old alliance between their two countries has frayed.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," the prime minister described his visit as positive and productive, saying Obama expressed a sincere understanding of the challenges facing his country as he moves toward pressing for direct peace talks with the Palestinians. He would not discuss certain "confidential "aspects of the conversation, but said about half of the meeting was devoted to a "detailed" discussion of Israel's security concerns. He would not say whether Obama approved of an Israeli-led military strike on Iran.

"If anyone thought that there was a change of U.S. policy or daylight between Israel and the United States on these questions, I think he did a lot to lay that rest," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said each country has no greater ally than the other and that Obama personally expressed to him that U.S. policy had not changed.

On "Fox News Sunday," Netanyahu again stated he's ready for direct talks with the Palestinians, but said President Mahmoud Abbas needs "step up to the plate."

"I need a partner on the other side. I can't be a trapeze artist that wants to connect with the other guy and there's no one there," he said. "I need a Palestinian partner."

Netanyahu made clear that he believes President Barack Obama is the key to stopping Iran's nuclear program.

"There's only been one time that Iran stopped the program and that was when it feared U.S. military action," Netanyahu said in the interview on "Fox News Sunday," adding that Iran's nuclear program was advancing by the hour.

"The president's position that all options are on the table might have the only real effect on Iran -- if they think it's true," Netanyahu said.

The prime minister said he did not think that an Iranian nuclear program could be contained, but said "people fall into that misperception." He added that Iran or "other radicals like the Taliban" couldn't be relied upon as negotiating partners.

When asked whether Israel might initiate military action, Netanyahu stressed that all options are on the table.

"The Jewish state was set up to defend Jewish lives and we always reserve the right to defend ourselves," he said.

Obama sobers up as he reaches conclusion that previous tactics didn't serve his objective

( Israel Harel Op-Ed - Haaretz).The Israeli media are shocked: U.S. President Barack Obama did not humiliate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even worse, the Washington Post reported that the opposite occurred: Netanyahu defeated Obama.

Even if the newspaper exaggerated, the outcome is still negative: Netanyahu, the eternal wanted man, emerged from the White House with achievements, and certainly not defeated as the media had hoped. And saddest of all, the settlement freeze, which the media is so eager to perpetuate, may be thawed.

The prime minister did not defeat the U.S. president. Only his enemies, only blind supporters of the Palestinians - and quite a number of Washington Post writers are in that category - could write that. Had even an iota of professional integrity found its way into their automatic support (and that of many of their Israeli colleagues ) for the Palestinians, they would have summed up as follows: There has been no strategic change in Obama's policy of two states for two peoples, and Israel must still make most of the concessions.

But as opposed to the dogmatically pro-Palestinian news commentators, Obama has reached the conclusion that his tactics (which were also dogmatic ) did not serve his objective, which is theirs as well.

Obama, as he made clear this week, is undergoing a process of sobering up. He has understood, whether on his own or with the help of others, that the person most to blame for the lack of progress may perhaps be found not in Jerusalem, nor even in Ramallah, but in Washington. And that there may have been truth in the claim that his Cairo speech, in which he toadied to the Arabs, combined with his brutal pressure on Israel had caused the Palestinians to climb such a tall tree that when they reached the top, they suffered from vertigo and lost contact with reality.

And perhaps the U.S. president also reached the conclusion that since he created this syndrome, it is his responsibility, precisely because he supports the Palestinians, to get them down from the tree. His public rapprochement with Netanyahu, which is mainly tactical, is the beginning of this process.

The Palestinians will return to the negotiating table when they realize that if they fail to do so, they will lose out, primarily on the issue of territory. For in the present situation, the more organized and efficient side, and the one with the greater resources, will be the one better able to exploit the vacuum that has existed ever since the Palestinians appointed Obama to head the team for freezing settlements and blasting Israel.

In order for them to resume negotiations, he must convince them that, just as they have recently been grumbling, he really is not doing the job according to their expectations, although he tried his best - and that if they continue to be intractable, Israel is liable to continue to expand the settlements to the geographic and demographic point of no return, even as far as the United States is concerned.

When the Adam-Psagot-Tel Zion-Ofra-Beit El-Shilo-Eli settlement bloc becomes like Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel, no Israeli government, not even a Likud one, will be able to imagine evacuating it. Nor would even a second-term Obama administration. And that is all the more true once the Kedumim-Karnei Shomron-Immanuel-Yakir-Revava settlement bloc links up with Ariel to create a huge Israeli geographic and demographic space in the northern West Bank. (And that is what is going to happen - because the Palestinians do not really want, or some say are unable, to recognize Israel even within the 1967 lines. )

And if Obama, a true opponent of the settlements, did not mention a continuation of the settlement freeze, that is a sign that he is using continued Israeli expansion as yet another means of pressure. By so doing, he has begun to restore his administration to a sane worldview that takes the abyss of Arab rejection of the Jewish state into account.

For Obama did hear the following things from Netanyahu, and not for the first time ("And I believe him," Obama said to the cameras. Isn't that humiliation? Would he talk that way about a European head of state? ): He wants peace, and he knows that in return he will have to pay a high price. In effect, he has already paid the biggest part of it, which to him may be even more important than the territorial price, in his speech at Bar-Ilan University. The leader of the Jewish state recognized - a historic recognition - the Palestinians' right to a state of their own in the Land of Israel, the homeland of the Jews.

Only someone who hates him with a passion, or does not understand the historical, religious, substantive and political significance of this recognition, could accuse Netanyahu, who took a giant step toward the Palestinians, of foot-dragging. And Obama, who has apparently begun to understand that the Palestinians will not make a similar declaration, has begun to sober up. Let's hope he continues to do so.

Netanyahu with support of senior Cabinet Ministers to carry out more confident-building measures

(Haaretz).Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to embark on a series of meetings with the forum of seven senior ministers in an effort to agree on a package of confidence-building measures aimed at convincing Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to agree to direct negotiations with Israel.

The confidence-building measures have the strong support of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor, and are partially backed by Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon. However, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is opposed to any further goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians before the start of direct talks.

During the meeting between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday at the White House, the American leader stressed that in addition to administration pressure on the Palestinians to agree to direct talks, the Israeli leader must prepare a package of measures that would broaden the presence of PA organs in the West Bank. O

Following the meeting with the U.S. president, negotiations began between Israeli and American officials on a package of measures. On Tuesday, Netanyahu met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington and then with Special Envoy George Mitchell and his aides. On Thursday morning, Mitchell and his aides visited Netanyahu at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York, to continue talks on a package of measures for the Palestinians.

Senior Israeli officials say that the next package of measures will include the following:

1. Netanyahu is looking into the possibility of completely ending, or minimizing entirely the activities of the IDF in Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The U.S. administration and the PA have described this issue as critical. The aim is to enable Palestinian security forces to operate in Ramallah, Tul Karm, Jericho, Bethlehem, Salafit and Qalqilyah throughout the day without IDF interference.

2. Israel will enable the Palestinian police to broaden its activities beyond Area A, which is under PA security control. They would be allowed to set up six new police stations in Area B, where the PA is currently responsible only for civilian affairs, and possibly also have some authority over civilian matters in Area C.

3. Israel will lift more road blocks in the West Bank.

4. Israel will transfer to Palestinian control a portion of land that is currently in Area A, under full Israeli control, in order to build a road connecting Ramallah and a new city currently in the planning stage, Rawabi.

In talks with the Americans, Israel demanded that the PA must also carry out confidence-building measures ahead of direct talks. Obama accepted Israel's argument partially, and would like to see an end of the anti-Israeli campaign on the diplomatic front that the PA is conducting at the UN and the International Court in the Hague.

It is still unclear what the Palestinian view of the package of measures is, and whether they will agree to direct talks as a result of these. At the PM's bureau, as well as the White House, the assessment is that a substantive package of measures will serve as a catalyst for direct talks in several weeks.

The Netanyahu lesson - Obama adopts new style: Add Honey in communication with World Leaders

(CSMonitor's Editorial).Barack Obama is well known for big speeches, not small talk. But in recent weeks, the president has turned on the charm with world leaders, trying to create warm personal ties for the cold purposes of furthering American interests.

The latest example was his cozy hosting of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House. Only a few months ago, the two men were stern and steely toward each other, a result of policy differences and what appeared to be an Israeli slap at Vice President Joe Biden in March. But during a recent White House visit, Mr. Netanyahu was showered with praise. Mr. Obama referred to their “excellent one-on-one.”

Perhaps the president now believes that a bit of honey in his communications with Israeli leaders – as well as with many other foreign officials – will achieve more than the vinegar of criticism.

Obama’s same glad-hand approach was on display last month with Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev. The two lawyerly leaders, who have already met often, went out for burgers at an American diner, chatting it up like two regular guys. No doubt their newfound trust in each other helped quickly resolve the touchy issue of Russian spies being caught in the United States. The later swap of spies-for-spies on a Vienna airport tarmac did, in fact, go rather smoothly.

Perhaps after 18 months in office and meeting so many top leaders, Obama is more confident in expressing himself in more personal ways with dictators and democrats alike rather than relying mostly on the power of ideas and professorial persuasion.

He came into office promising diplomatic engagement with American adversaries. It was an approach that helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize, even if he referred to his own achievements toward that end as “slight.” Indeed, his out-stretched hand to Iran and North Korea has been roundly rebuffed. Just the same, the fact that he attempted to warm up ties with them has only helped create more international support for tougher measures against them.

In May, the president’s National Security Strategy cited his hope for a soft-sell tactic in diplomacy. The document states that the US must “create opportunities to resolve differences, strengthen the international community’s support for our actions, learn about the intentions and nature of closed regimes, and plainly demonstrate to the publics within those nations that their governments are to blame for their isolation.”

Obama’s biggest experience in private life before becoming a politician was as a Chicago community organizer, where he learned the potential for relying on niceness in relationships. Sometimes that niceness, of course, can go overboard, such as the time Obama appeared to bow to the Saudi king. But at least he’s discovered that public quarrels with world leaders can often backfire, as the one with Netanyahu did.

An American president must not only carry a big stick and walk softly; he must sometimes talk nicely, too, winning over people with honey more than with vinegar.

New York Jews Welcome Netanyahu Despite 105F Heat Wave; Dov Hikind: "My question is: Who is the real Barack Obama?"

(INN)."Welcome to New York City, Mr. Prime Minister" was the rallying cry of the day as several hundred zealously pro-Israel supporters gathered outside the Council on Foreign Relations on Manhattan's upper east side on Thursday afternoon, July 8th, despite the blistering heat, to greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he delivered an address on Israel's role in the global community.

"The State of Israel wants peace and has done everything in its power to achieve it, but the only thing standing in the way are such purported "peace partners" as Hamas and Hezbollah who have vowed to obliterate Israel with the help of their financial backers such as Iran", said Avi Posnick, New York City chapter chairman of Stand With Us.


"My question is: Who is the real Barack Obama?" declared New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) who represents the 48th assembly district in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Hikind, a featured speaker at the demonstration is also a longtime Jewish activist. "There is nothing like an election year that would serve as an impetus for the President of the United States to actually treat the Prime Minister of Israel with respect" Hikind declared. "It is Hamas who has publicly proclaimed its commitment to violence and it is Israel who has many every effort towards a long range peace with the Palestinians including making the most painful decision to evacuate Jewish residents of Gush Katif in 2005" he said.

Holding aloft signs saying, "Israel Has a Right to Defend Herself" and "Iran Is The Impediment to Peace", the demonstrators waved Israeli flags and chanted "Am Yisroel Chai" (the nation of Israel lives) as a formidable contingent of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas apologists stood directly across the street in opposition.

"Don't believe for even a moment that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza" said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "There is no shortage of food and medicine in Gaza. Every week Israeli allows tens of thousands of pounds of food and other essential staple items into Gaza", he said. "We, too, want to end the 'siege' on Gaza. We, too, want to end the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people of Gaza by the Iranian proxy terrorist organization Hamas. We, too, want to see a 'free' Gaza. A Gaza that is free of rockets, missiles and deadly explosives that are smuggled in by the kinds of people who were aboard the IHH sponsored flotilla" he intoned.

Referring to the counter-protestors, Hoenlein said, "Despite the signs they hold that designate themselves as humanitarians, the clearly stated objectives of these people is the annihilation of Israel. We must let the world know that those who are enemies of Israel are also enemies of freedom, democracy, justice and liberty and they threaten Western civilization as we know it."

Cajunrooster/ Benjamin Netanyahu is a straight shooter

(cajunrooster-Hubpages).There are some people who make me stop what I am doing to listen to what they have to say. Last night was such a night as Benjamin Netanyahu was on Larry King Live

Mr. Netanyahu is a man that I will drop everything to listen to what he has to say.

I am not really much on either side in the Palestinian\Israeli conflict. I side more with Israel since they do seem to act a little better than the Palestinians. Israel gets a bit heavy-handed at times in their response to violence against them but I guess you can’t ask them to throw rocks at people when they have guns that work quite well!!

I will also say this about this conflict and it would be hard to argue with what I am going to say. Israel always responds to Palestinian attacks. You know they are going to do that. Israel never just attacks the Palestinians first. They never shoot rockets into Gaza for instance unless they are fired upon first. Israel does not send homicide bombers into Gaza and the West Bank. That’s why I generally side with Israel. They would live in peace if the Palestinians would allow them to. But, you punch Israel you are going to get knocked out.

That’s why I like to listen to Mr. Netanyahu talk. He’s all business. He is very measured with his words. He tells you like it is and does not mince his words. He does not like Iran and he knows Iran has vowed to destroy Israel. So he is always on guard against them. Mr. Netanyahu articulates his positions carefully. He knows the gravity of his words and what they mean for the entire Middle East. He’s tough. You are not going to pull the wool over his eyes or take advantage of Benjamin Netanyahu.

I know this little blog is going to elicit some response from both sides of this issue. Read my words carefully. I am not saying Israel and Mr. Netanyahu are right all the time. They are wrong plenty of times. They do us disproportionate force most of the time. That’s not the purpose of this blog. I am saying I like Benjamin Netanyahu because he is a straight shooter. He will tell it like it is. Not many world leaders have that kind of character. Mr. Netanyahu is one of the best.

Stephen P. Cohen /Obama-Netanyahu Meeting: A Victory for Both Sides and New Energy To Move the Peace Process Forward

(Stephen P. Cohen-Huffington post).Many sophisticated experts confidently predicted that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu would have another failed meeting this week. It was not a failed meeting. Many analysts declared the meeting a victory for Netanyahu. This may be true. But it was also a victory for Obama. Both of them achieved a goal that many considered beyond their reach.

Both leaders decided to give up their attempts to intimidate each other and, instead, to cooperate in order to achieve some results while the two men are still in office. Both leaders reached the conclusion that the special relationship between their two countries, which began on the very day of Israel's establishment with President Truman's recognition of Israel in the first hour of its existence, must be bolstered.

The combination of reasons which initiated this relationship remains surprisingly robust and solid. Israel was the first democracy created under the new United Nations and after the emergence of the Cold War. Truman understood what some State Department Middle East hands could not grasp: that Israel would be a strategic asset to the United States, supporting America through the Cold War and many other conflicts. He further recognized that Israel's presence in the Middle East, though opposed by America's Arab allies in the region, would still be an important bastion of American values and American military strength. The United States, Truman realized, would not have another ally in the Middle East as loyal and as militarily effective.

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu decided this week to forcefully declare, once again, these basic facts of their countries' relationship. They resolved to not allow their continuing disagreements about the peace process's specific issues, including very important concerns, to grow into a crisis in the special relationship. They both acknowledged that, in the era of Iran's nuclear ambition, of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic radical threats, and during a period of what is likely to be transitions of leadership in several important countries in the region, they would not permit themselves to veer off the main course.

By reinforcing the special relationship they provided the new energy required for moving the peace process forward now, so that an agreement will be reached on some issues before November 2012. I expect that direct talks will resume before the 2010 United Nations General Assembly in September. It would be made possible, not only by the economic improvements in Palestinian life engendered by effective Palestinian leadership, but also by an undeclared continuation of the Israeli settlement freeze without further provocations against the Palestinians in Jerusalem. I also anticipate that we will even see the first meeting of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu before the end of this calendar year.

Ari Shavit / Bibi, King for a day - Netanyahu's struggle paid off, but must maintain the Hard-won credit

(Ari Shavit -Haaretz).A week ago Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's condition was nearly desperate. The Turkel committee became a committee with teeth liable to bite the prime minister, while State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' scrutiny of the flotilla affair threatened to wound the prime minister. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman started making threats again and Defense Minister Ehud Barak continued to make trouble. Many observers are predicting that the government will start to disintegrate by September. The man who is conducting an intimate dialogue with history has realized that by next summer, he may well become an obscure and marginal historical footnote himself.

There were also other troubles. In private, Netanyahu was told he was surrounded. After all, the international community is closing in on him; he lost Turkey, is losing Europe and is liable to lose the United States. If he doesn't break through the noose, his fate is sealed.

Worse than that were the words of the defense minister. Very, very quietly, without anyone knowing about it, Barak laid a pistol on the table. The man on whom Netanyahu depends - politically, diplomatically, strategically and emotionally - made it clear he will not stay with him forever. If Netanyahu does not make U.S. President Barack Obama a real offer, he will remain all alone under siege.

A week has gone by and things have turned around. Netanyahu is king. The White House is welcoming him with flowers, smiles and unprecedented affability. Blair House, Oval Office, press conference. The man who was anathema in March is given a royal reception in July. After a long period during which the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel were adversaries, they are now falling all over each other.

And this is not just atmosphere, not just manners and politeness. Netanyahu is extracting from Obama a series of diplomatic achievements: an unambiguous commitment to Israel's unique needs, acknowledgment that Israel has to defend itself from the violent neighborhood in which it lives, a promise not to detract from Israel's defense capability. And by implication: recognition of Dimona. Recognition of the Iranian threat. Recognition that the way to Israeli-Palestinian peace is through direct talks.

After 18 wasted months during which Obama was the president who exerted pressure, he has become the president who embraces. Obama is embracing the State of Israel and the prime minister of Israel. What happened?

Three things have happened. On one level, Netanyahu waged a struggle. And the statesman who is depicted as susceptible to pressure did not succumb to the American pressure of this past spring. He fought back. The price for what Netanyahu did was felt by Obama in Chicago. The Israeli leader applied hidden pressure to the American leader, which made it perfectly clear to him: No more.

On another level, the Americans realized one-sided pressure on Israel is dangerous. It hurts them, keeps peace at bay and undermines stability in the Middle East. Even if Israel can be irritating, it is a fact. And even if Netanyahu arouses wrath, he is the only game in town. If there is peace during the Obama years, it won't be Tzipi Livni's peace. Nor will it be Yair Lapid's peace. The peace will be solely Netanyahu's.

On a third level, Israel demonstrated its seriousness. For many months, the two government engaged in an ongoing and in-depth working dialogue. The Israelis made it clear to the Americans that they are serious. In order to receive diplomatic and strategic credit, they deposited guarantees in the hands of their discussion partners - guarantees that will need to be put into effect in the coming months. That which sweetened the prime minister's visit to the White House is liable to embitter his life at home.

Thus the royal visit to Washington is not the end of the story. The Americans gave, and the Americans are expecting to get. Netanyahu must not let himself become confused. Now he is king for a day, maybe for a summer. However, if he does not immediately take advantage of the hard-won credit he has been granted in order to come out with an Israeli diplomatic initiative, his situation will become desperate again. Turkel and Lindenstrauss are still out there. So are Lieberman and Barak, as well as Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The noose is still closing in on Netanyahu, and it is his obligation to slough it off.

Obama interview on Channel 2: I think Netanyahu may be very well positioned to bring Peace

(Haaretz).President Barack Obama told Channel 2 News on Wednesday that he believed Israel would not try to surprise the U.S. with a unilateral attack on Iran.

In an interview aired Thursday evening, Obama was asked whether he was concerned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would try to attack Iran without clearing the move with the U.S., to which the president replied "I think the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is sufficiently strong that neither of us try to surprise each other, but we try to coordinate on issues of mutual concern."

Obama spoke to Channel 2's Yonit Levy one day after what he described as an "excellent" meeting with Netanyahu at the White House. The two leaders met alone for about 90 minutes Tuesday evening, during which time they discussed the peace process with the Palestinians, the contested Iranian nuclear program, and the strategic understandings between their two countries on Tehran's efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.

Netanyahu promised Obama during their meeting that Israel would undertake confidence-building measures toward the Palestinian Authority in the coming days and weeks. These steps are likely to include the transfer of responsibility over more parts of the West Bank over to PA security forces.

During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that "some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion."

"Ironically, I've got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate," Obama said.

"I think that sometimes, particularly in the Middle East, there's the feeling of the friend of my enemy must be my enemy, and the truth of the matter is that my outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West," Obama went on to say.


Obama added that he believed a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians could be achieved within his current term. "I think [Netanyahu] understands we've got a fairly narrow window of opportunity… We probably won’t have a better opportunity than we have right now. And that has to be seized. It’s going to be difficult."

The American President entirely sidestepped the question of whether the U.S. would pressure Israel to extend a current 10-month moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements, failing to give a clear answer. The moratorium is set to expire in September, and Netanyahu has announced that he would not extend the timeframe. The U.S., however, views continued Israeli settlement construction as a serious obstacle to peace efforts.

When asked whether he thought Netanyahu was the right man to strike a peace deal with the Palestinians, the U.S. President said that "I think Prime Minister Netanyahu may be very well positioned to bring this about," adding that Israel will have to overcome many hurdles in order to affect the change required to "secure Israel for another 60 years"

In a separate interview with another Israeli media outlet, Obama proclaimed that he was not "blindly optimistic" regarding the chances of a Middle East peace agreement.
Israel is right to be skeptical about the peace process, he said in another yet-to-be-aired interview that was taped on Wednesday. He noted during the interview that many people thought the founding of Israel was impossible, so its very existence should be "a great source of hope."

Netanyahu at CFR: Israel won't extend construction freeze; We've done enough,Let's get on with the talks"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel would not extend a construction moratorium in the West Bank past September and that he believed a peace agreement with the Palestinians could be reached within a year.

"I think we've done enough. Let's get on with the talks," he said, when asked in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations whether he would extend the limited freeze he put in place to coax the Palestinians into peace negotiations.

At the forum, Netanyahu repeated a call to the Palestinians to move from indirect talks that began in May under US mediation to face-to-face negotiations on statehood.

"I think we should seize the moment. And it is a challenging moment and an important moment. We have the ability to negotiate a peace," Netanyahu said at the international affairs think tank in New York.

"And I'm prepared to take risks," Netanyahu added, while stressing that would not entail any move that could jeopardize Israel's security.

"But we have to get on with it. We should just stop all the delays and start now, next week, in two weeks - get the talks going. Because only if we start them, we can complete them."

Netanyahu said he intended "to confound the skeptics and critics." But he added: "I need a partner."

"I'd like President Abbas to make, if not his Bar-Ilan speech, I'd like to hear the Bir Zeit speech in which he says these things very clearly. And I'd like to meet him and make peace"

The future of settlements, he said, would be addressed in the so-called final status talks with the Palestinians.

On the subject of Iran and its uranium enrichment program, which Israel regards as a grave threat, Netanyahu was supportive of recent Obama administration moves. "The statement that the president has made that all options are on the table is probably the most effective pressure that you could direct at Iran," Netanyahu said, addressing the possibility of using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. "They have in the past backed off when they thought the U.S. would act in a more forceful way."

Addressing recent strains in U.S.-Israel relations, Netanyahu emphasized Israel's strategic value to the United States. "In the heart of the Middle East, Israel is the source of the greatest stability," he said, "the service that Israel does in the Middle East is below the swirl of public debate, is real and much appreciated by the governments that are actually acting to stabilize the Middle East, chief among them the United States."

PM Netanyahu in Exclusive 1 Hour interview on CNN - Larry King Live

Netanyahu addresses Jewish leaders in NY