The « special relationship » is unravelling. it could only be thus.

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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1292486--obama-separates-american-and-israeli-interests-siddiqui

Toronto Star Editorial Page

Obama separates American and Israeli interests

By Haroon Siddiqu

Israel being so dependent on the United States, it is never wise for an Israeli prime minister to tangle with the American president. But Benjamin Netanyahu did it with Barack Obama on Iran — and lost. Denied American blessing to attack Iran, he attacked Gaza, for which he needed no permission from the United States. But he has been outmanoeuvred there as well. He was ordered/persuaded not to launch a ground war, even though he had mobilized tens of thousands of troops and his interior minister had said that “the goal of the operation was to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”
This is significant.

Israel’s ability to send troops wherever and whenever against the Palestinians was curtailed. Obama’s conclusion that a second Israeli invasion of Gaza in four years was not in the American interest showed that Israeli and American
interests are not always the same. But it’s taboo to say so. Obama didn’t say it, either. But he did separate the two.

An Israeli invasion would have risked America’s nascent relationship with the first elected president of Egypt. By embracing Mohammed Morsi and placing him at the centre of the ceasefire deal, Washington has
finally abandoned its old policy of nurturing puppet dictators in Cairo. It also cast aside the Islamophobic framework that proscribed “Islamists,” usually meaning those who refused to be American clients. In Egypt, that meant boycotting the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, there’s a new tune. Hillary Clinton : “I thank President Morsi for his personal leadership to de-escalate the situation in Gaza and end the violence. This is a critical moment for the region. Egypt’s new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone of regional stability and peace.”

The ceasefire may not hold. Egypt may not be able to stop Hamas from smuggling arms through the tunnels. It may not have control over non-Hamas militants. It can’t force Israel to ease its cruel strangulation of Gaza. Morsi’s own credibility and power may be eroded by his current domestic power grab. But the U.S. pivot to post-Arab Spring Egypt is irreversible. An Israeli invasion of Gaza would also have strained America’s strategic partnership with democraticTurkey. It would have complicated Obama’s goal of a negotiated end to Iran’s nuclear program. It would
have hobbled his goal of repairing relations with the Muslim world, thwarted in part by his inability to get Netanyahu to make progress on Arab-Israeli peace.

Obama could not have moved as decidedly as he has without his convincing win over Mitt Romney, whom Netanyahu preferred. Romney and pro-Israeli hawks accused Obama of being soft on Iran while “throwing Israel under the bus.” Billionaire right-wing neo-cons, some supporters of both Romney and Netanyahu, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in a virulent anti-Obama campaign. Yet the president won handily, including garnering 70 per cent of the votes cast by Jewish Americans.

A similar trend is discernible in Canada. There has been a steady rise in Jewish voices against the occupation of Palestinian lands, and against the wholesale demonization of Palestinians and Arabs/Muslims as culturally inferior. There’s increasing revulsion and resistance, especially among women and the young, to the right wing’s bullying of
the critics of Israeli policies. Thoughtful community leaders are concerned about this growing estrangement.

All this points to a growing realization that Israeli policies, especially those of Netanyahu, are leading toward a permanent colonization of Palestinians at gunpoint or to a one-state solution, in which Jews would ultimately not be a majority.

Israel’s 1980s policy of encouraging Hamas as an antidote to the Yasser Arafat-led Fatah has backfired. Assassinating Hamas leaders did not decapitate the movement, which found more radical replacements. Wars on Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah strengthened both. Disproportionate use of force and thus the disproportionate killing and maiming of Palestinians did not kill their resistance.

Talking up the moderate Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, while undermining him by grabbing Palestinian land for illegal Jewish settlements, has made him increasingly irrelevant. He will become more so if Israel thwarts his attempt in the UN General Assembly next month to gain non-state observer status. Israel is said to resist because the Palestinians might take it to the World Court in The Hague for its actions in the Occupied Territories. But if it has done no wrong, as the propaganda has it, what is there to fear ? Israel has the right to exist, indeed thrive. So do the Palestinians.
hsiddiqui@thestar.ca