Norman H. Olsen, a former senior United States Foreign Service officer who served in the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, writing in the Christian Science Monitor:
[Netanyahu’s] policies may be misguided, but his intellectual honesty may prove salutary. The Israeli right and its American supporters have a hard time claiming Israeli moderation and reasonableness when Netanyahu and his ministers openly oppose a two-state arrangement; affirm the blockade of Gaza, preventing reconstruction there; tout settlement expansion; brag of undermining US efforts to talk with Iran; and threaten an attack on Iran – across US-controlled Iraqi airspace – that could jeopardize US troops and interests throughout the region.
In lifting the veil on Israeli policy and the criticism-stifling fiction of US-Israeli mutual interest, Netanyahu leaves the US open, finally, to voice and pursue its own positions and interests.
Finally, Washington can say, clearly and forcefully, that Israel’s occupation harms US interests; that an attack on Iran is unacceptable and will get no US support, even in the UN Security Council; that settlement construction must stop and barriers be removed; that meetings are no substitute for progress; that Palestinians must be granted the opportunity – a real one – to form a viable state; and that the time has come for one of the world’s wealthiest countries to be weaned off American largess.
