I think the neo-conservative project to make the defense of Israel our #1 national priority has failed. Too many Americans are willing to give the Arab Spring a chance, no matter what Israel's Likudniks say. Americans are also getting a little peeved about Israel calling the tune about America's Middle East policies and that goes all the way to the top of the government:
Robert Gates Says Israel Is an Ungrateful Ally: Jeffrey Goldberg
By Jeffrey Goldberg Sep 5, 2011 5:00 PM MT
BLOOMBERG NEWS
It was an extraordinary scene: President Barack Obama, sitting impassively in the Oval Office in May as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured him, at considerable length and at times condescendingly, on Jewish history, Arab perfidy and the existential challenges facing his country.
What was extraordinary wasn’t the message -- it was not an untypical Netanyahu sermon. What was notable was that Netanyahu was lecturing the president live on television, during a photo opportunity staged so that the two leaders could issue platitudes about the enduring bonds between their nations.
Shortly afterward, Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley, called the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, to communicate the displeasure of the White House in a reportedly heated way. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who watched her husband battle Netanyahu in the late 1990s, also expressed anger and frustration about the prime minister within the administration.
But it was Robert M. Gates, the now-retired secretary of defense, who seemed most upset with Netanyahu. In a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee held not long before his retirement this summer, Gates coldly laid out the many steps the administration has taken to guarantee Israel’s security -- access to top- quality weapons, assistance developing missile-defense systems, high-level intelligence sharing -- and then stated bluntly that the U.S. has received nothing in return, particularly with regard to the peace process.
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Yesterday Glenn Greenwald pointed out the Obama administration had defended Israel to the point of even refusing to criticise it for killing an American citizen in the flotilla attack.
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