Haaretz’s Amir Oren applies more pressure on the Netanyahu gov’t, saying that the US-Israel alliance is as old as a Phantom jet and must be retrofitted in the context of the new Middle East, and that Netanyahu’s policies are "eroding" Israel’s strength. He is reading the Petraeus tea leaves and saying.
Meanwhile David Ignatius at the Washington Post sees the writing on the wall in Washington: Obama is sick of "incrementalism" and will seek to impose a peace plan by the fall to end the "festering" Palestinian issue.
A political battle royal is likely to begin soon, with Israeli officials and their supporters in the United States protesting what they fear would be an American attempt to impose a settlement and arguing to focus instead on Iran. The White House rejoinder is expressed this way by one of the senior officials: "It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both."
That means a donnybrook between the Israel lobby and the realists, and the fall of the Netanyahu gov’t. Note that Ignatius reports that Obama has been influenced by his meetings with former national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft, Zbig Brzezinski, and Colin Powell, and Obama’s adviser Gen’l James Jones, who said at J Street that Israel/Palestine is the epicenter.
