Roger Cohen delivers another beauty.
The criticism of the center-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come from an unlikely source: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She’s transitioned with aplomb from the calculation of her interests that she made as a senator from New York to a cool assessment of U.S. interests. These do not always coincide with Israel’s. …
[...] Obama’s doing it in a way that means the Israeli-American friction evident in Clinton’s remarks will be a theme of his first year in office. As Lee Hamilton, the president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, told me: “Initiatives are underway that show the United States is going to have some major differences with Israel.”
He also said Netanyahu is “a little more flexible than maybe he’s given credit for.”
I’ve heard this from more than one person, that Netanyahu is more pragmatic than given credit.
Given what’s coming out of Clinton, due to what she saw in the West Bank, which reportedly inspired her recent message to Israel, we could push Netanyahu further in that direction. Let’s hope so, because our Middle East policy of recent years has only helped prolong the suffering of the Palestinians, plus done nothing for Israel’s future.
M.J. Rosenberg’s assessment is short and sweet.
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