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No Way to Treat an Ally

(New York Jewish Week) Gary Rosenblatt - In January 2011, with the U.S. trying to convince the Palestinians to withdraw or moderate a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, President Obama called PA President Mahmoud Abbas to make a deal. Obama offered to support a UN investigation regarding settlements, renew a U.S. demand for a full-scale freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and was prepared to declare a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed swaps. All without prior consultation with Israel, according to former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, as described in his new memoir, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide. "By endorsing the Palestinian position on the 1967 lines," writes Oren, "the White House had overnight altered more than 40 years of American policy." Oren, charged with maintaining a positive public facade, is privately seething over the administration's treatment of his country as less ally than obstacle. Repeatedly, he describes how Israel is blamed for the lack of progress on the peace front while the Palestinians are given a pass. In an interview, Oren explained that on the vital issue of the nuclear agreement with Iran, "they're saying 'trust us.'" "First they [the administration] told us all options are on the table, and now they're saying there never was a military option. This deal is not just a bad one, it is singularly dangerous, and it is our duty and right to speak out. And as an IDF war veteran whose son [in the IDF] was wounded, I am deeply offended when we are cast as warmongers."
2015-06-17 00:00:00
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