Tuesday, July 06, 2010

What Can Bibi Expect from Obama?

[Benjamin Weinthal]

Today’s meeting between Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama has the potential to repair the U.S. administration’s frosty posture toward Israel. In March, Obama publicly snubbed America’s only democratic ally in the Mideast by rejecting a joint Bibi-Obama press conference at the White House. Now Obama has an amazing opportunity to refill U.S.-Israeli relations with meaning and content. What issues are front and center on Israel’s diplomatic agenda? Stopping Iran’s accelerated quest to obtain nuclear weapons; preserving Israel’s nuclear-ambiguity policy; securing U.S. pressure on Turkey so that it recoils from its threats to sever relations with Israel; and a peace process with the Palestinians that does not entail terror attacks and violent anti-Semitic propaganda.

The president’s decision to single out Israel for criticism at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, while not mentioning Iran’s illicit atomic program, was one of the lowlights of his administration so far. After nearly unanimous congressional votes in favor of new energy and financial sanctions on Iran, Obama signed the robust anti-Iran legislation last Thursday. One of the litmus tests of a restart in U.S.-Israel relations would be a hard-hitting enforcement of these sanctions.

Straight away, Obama can penalize foreign energy companies that operate within and outside of the U.S. but continue to prop up the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khamenei. By enforcing the sanctions legislation, Obama can send shock waves through companies and governments in Europe, Asia, Russia, and Africa with the message that he takes seriously the business of Israel’s security and of the West.

— Benjamin Weinthal is a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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