Israel turning into a 'burden' on U.S.?
http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=37523915
The Washington Post
3:00 AM EST June 5, 2010
Since its creation more than six decades ago, the state of Israel has been at times a vexing ally to the United States.
But it poses a special challenge for President Obama, whose foreign policy emphasizes the importance of international rules and organizations that successive Israeli governments have clashed with and often ignored.
His dilemma has come into clear focus after Israel's military operation this week, in which commandos boarded a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters, killing nine civilians, among them a 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Turkish descent.
The head of Israel's foreign intelligence service warned parliament the next day that the country is "gradually turning from an asset of the United States to a burden." An Irish aid ship was steaming toward Gaza on Friday night despite Israeli warnings that it would be stopped.
Israel 'is a problem'
Israel has a unique set of security threats and national ambitions that have fostered policies inconsistent with Obama's broader agenda, including his push to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and repair U.S. relations with the Islamic world.
That has forced him to carve out exceptions for Israel that undermine the consistency he seeks in dealing with allies and antagonists alike.
Those differences have also made it hard for Obama to speak unequivocally in support of Israel during difficult times. Asked by CNN's Larry King on Thursday if it were "premature then to condemn Israel," Obama said, "I think that we need to know what all of the facts are."
Israeli officials "look at the world quite differently from the way from this president does, and they are not willing to just fall in line because he is the president," said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who advised Obama's campaign and now teaches at Princeton University. "Israel and the United States are seeing the threat environment in the region - and the ways to deal with the threat environment - in increasingly different ways.
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