IT IS extremely rare for a US administration to show displeasure with Israel, so when the White House waited until Sunday night to confirm that President Barack Obama would see prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday evening, it sparked a rash of commentary on deteriorating US-Israeli relations.
Visits by Israeli prime ministers are usually photo opportunities intended to reconfirm closeness between the two countries.
In a further sign of the chill in relations, photographers and cameramen were excluded from last night’s meeting in the Oval office.
Mr Netanyahu is in Washington on a three-day visit. The main purpose of his journey was to address the 2009 general assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Mr Obama was to have delivered a speech to the assembly today, but cancelled it to attend a memorial ceremony for the 13 people who were shot dead at Fort Hood, Texas, last week.
Last night Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu were expected to discuss Mr Abbas’s possible departure, the Iranian nuclear programme and the possibility of relaunching peace talks.
The New York Timesreported that Israeli officials are hinting they'll consider a military strike against Iranian facilities if Iran abandons a deal reached in Geneva last month to send uranium abroad for processing.
Mr Obama had made peace between Israelis and Palestinians a top priority of his administration, appointing former senator George Mitchell as his special envoy on his second day in office. It was the US who initially put a freeze on illegal Israeli settlements a precondition for resuming peace talks. Arab public opinion and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas enthusiastically embraced the demand.
Mr Obama had hoped to announce the relaunch of negotiations during the UN General Assembly in September, but a photo opportunity with Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu was the most he could obtain. Mr Abbas felt humiliated because he had sworn not to meet Mr Netanyahu again before the Israelis stopped building settlements.
Worse still in Arab eyes, Mr Obama backtracked on his earlier demand, saying negotiations had to restart regardless of the settlements.
The damage was compounded on October 31st when secretary of state Hillary Clinton called Mr Netanyahu’s promise to limit settlement expansion “unprecedented”.
Mr Abbas expressed his frustration by announcing last week that he will step down at the time of Palestinian elections in January. The Israelis and Americans are not likely to find a more compliant partner; Mr Abbas has done virtually everything they wanted, including condemning Palestinian “terrorism” and the uprising that started in 2000.
Since coming to office last March, Mr Netanyahu has added a new condition: he wants the Palestinians to recognise Israel “as a Jewish state”.
Nine months after his hopeful foray into Middle East peace-making, Mr Obama has reached an impasse. To the immense annoyance of the Palestinians, Mr Netanyahu now blames them for the deadlock. “We are ready to talk and the Palestinians aren’t. It’s as simple as that,” he told reporters travelling with him to Washington.
The New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman sums up the situation as the Palestinians wanting a deal without negotiations, and the Israelis wanting negotiations without any deal.
The White House has shown support for J Street, a new and more progressive American Jewish lobby group that is trying to loosen the hold of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on US politics. Mr Obama sent national security adviser James Jones to deliver the keynote address to J Street’s convention two weeks ago.
In a sign of AIPAC’s efficacy, the House of Representatives last week voted 334 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone report on war crimes in the Gaza Strip.