Obama's Middle East Diplomacy Faces Key Test

Barack Obama's aggressive approach to Middle East diplomacy faces a key test in Israel this week amid mounting resentment in Jerusalem over U.S. policies towards Iran and the Arab world.

After months of conciliatory gestures towards Israel’s neighbors – culminating in his visit to Cairo last month – Obama is dispatching advisers to Jerusalem to press for a breakthrough in the long-stalled Middle East peace process.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, will address concerns about Iran’s nuclear program while former senator George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, is already pressing for a freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian-dominated West Bank.

Both issues have provoked angry Israeli complaints that America is reneging on agreements. Last week officials on both sides engaged in an exchange of public irritation as Israel’s concerns about a nuclear Iran clashed with Washington’s need for demonstrable progress on a peace plan.

After months of speculation that Israel is ready to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, a Pentagon official said any such move would have “profoundly destabilizing consequences.”

The official told The Jerusalem Post: “It wouldn’t just affect the general level of stability in the region . . . it would affect our interests and the safety of our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere.”

A source close to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, retorted: “Our relations with Washington are sacred, but at the end of the day it is Netanyahu’s responsibility for the lives of 5m Jews in Israel, not Obama’s.”

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