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Israel Faces a Hard Sell in Bid to Shift Policy

[New York Times] Ethan Bronner - The new government of Israel is seeking to reorient the country's foreign policy, arguing that to rely purely on the formulas of trading land for peace and promising a Palestinian state fails to grasp what it views as the deeper issues: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state and the rising hegemonic appetite of Iran. Israel's effort to switch the discussion to Iran is likely to be met in Washington with the assertion that it is precisely because of the need to build an alliance to confront Iran that Israel must move ahead vigorously with the Palestinians as well as with the Syrians. "It will be a lot easier to build a coalition to deal with Iran if the peace process is moving forward," said a senior American official. When a senior American official was told that the Israelis did not view the Iranian and Palestinian problems as linked, he replied, "Well, we do." Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to tell President Obama at their meeting in Washington on May 18 that ultimately the goal was a Palestinian state, but that such a state was far in the future because Palestinian institutions and economic development required a great deal of work - as well as investment from Arab states - and that Palestinian education and public discourse needed to be more oriented toward coexistence.
2009-05-04 06:00:00
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