Tenuous Moves For White House On Israel

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Some interesting statements.

The White House confirmed on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House on May 18, followed by the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the next week and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas two days later.

It’s tempting too read too much into the order of these visits, but from the perspective of the White House, treating these three visits as one package tells a story about the peace process.

The Israeli press is convinced that President Obama is on the cusp of retreating from the decades-long “special relationship” between the United States and the only functioning Western-style democracy in the Middle East because the new administration views the threat of an Iranian nuclear missile through different lenses than the toughies from the Bush era.

Netanyahu faces impossible politics, internally and externally. Israelis believe that the relationship with the United States is the crown jewel of their diplomacy and one thing that prime ministers can’t mess up. Alienating the Clinton administration was one major reason why Netanyahu was voted out of power in 1999.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/12/politics/onthemarc/main5009636.shtml