US-Israel Relations

A Unity Pledge That Backfired (Proving Its Point)

Gary Rosenblatt
11/15/2011
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

Speaking at the annual Anti-Defamation League meeting in New York last week, a senior official of the Obama White House warned that “harm could come” from turning differences over Mideast policy between the U.S. and Israel into “election-year talking points.”

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Maybe it's not a good time for an Obama visit to Israel, after all

Submitted by James Besser on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 07:03

An interesting item yesterday by Jerusalem Post blogger Shmuel Rosner, who  analyzes some of the wreckage of last week's Netanyahu-Obama meeting.

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Obama's Israel interview, and the U.S.-Israel emotional gap

Submitted by James Besser on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 10:31

What is it about the Israeli psyche that talks about a U.S.-Israel alliance, but really demands an America that lavishes love on the Jewish state? And what is it about American policymakers that make them so blind to this need?

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Bibi’s Back in Town

Rabbi Gerald Skolnik
07/09/2010
Rabbi Gerald Skolnik
Special to the Jewish Week

What a difference a few weeks make, eh?

It was only a month or so ago that Israel’s relationship with the United States government was in serious trouble. First it was the visit of Vice-President Biden to Israel that was marred by Israel’s ill-timed announcement of new housing starts in East Jerusalem. President Obama was said to be furious. Then it was Israel’s handling of the Gaza flotilla that seemed to anger everyone in the world who was awake and breathing at the time.

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Obama, Netanyahu to Focus on Move to Direct Talks

07/02/2010
Ron Kampeas
JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Proximity talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have addressed "core issues" and President Obama is ready to move to direct talks, White House officials said.

Ben Rhodes and Daniel Shapiro, two senior staffers on the White House national security council, spoke Friday afternoon with reporters ahead of a summit Tuesday between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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The New Guy On First Avenue

02/07/2003
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer

When Dan Gillerman was in the fifth grade, a reporter for the school newspaper asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
"I want to be Israel's ambassador to the United States," Gillerman recalls replying.
Last month, Gillerman, 58, who was born in Tel Aviv and still has a home there, became Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.

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U.S.-Israel Train Wreck Diverted

11/08/2002
James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

U.S.-Israel Train Wreck Diverted

Israel could be headed toward an even more right-wing government, but that may not result in a diplomatic collision with the Bush administration.

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Misdirected Road Map

11/01/2002
James Besser
Washington Correspondent

Misdirected Road Map

The ink wasn’t even dry on the draft U.S. “road map” for creation of a Palestinian state before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian adversaries were deriding President Bush’s proposal.
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns completed his swing through the region this week to explain the plan, and there were few hints of optimism in Washington as officials monitored the flurry of negative stories that followed Burns from capital to capital.

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Amb. Danny Ayalon: Articulate Voice for Israel

09/06/2002
James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Israel’s new ambassador in Washington says he is an optimistic man, and by one measure Danny Ayalon is indisputably right.
Many of his Israeli government colleagues bristle with warnings to the Palestinians or grim assessments of the state of what used to be called the “peace process.” Ayalon, a professional diplomat who also has served as political adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, looks for opportunities to make the point that peace with the Palestinians is possible.
And not necessarily in the distant future.

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Bush, Sharon Don’t Press Differences

05/10/2002
James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Bush, Sharon Don’t Press Differences

By all accounts Tuesday’s White House meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush went well — in large measure because the two leaders did not press their differences, including a big gap over Yasir Arafat’s role as an ongoing peace “partner” and the administration’s determination to press ahead with Palestinian statehood.

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