Obama to warn Netanyahu: 'No more blank cheques'

I can only hope this article serious. Excuse the long quotes, please if you are at all interested in the subject, go read the whole thing. Gravy train might just be over!

Barack Obama is to deliver a blunt warning to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the era of the blank US cheque is over.

So about time:

The President will use a meeting with Mr Netanyahu in Washington on Monday to tell him that from now on Israel must earn its privileged relationship with America.

Mr Obama will make clear that he will not allow his foreign policy objectives to be dictated by the Jewish state’s interests, and that its leaders must resume working for peace with the Palestinians.

The President has already fired warning shots across the bows of the Israeli government to signal that he will not be pushed around by Mr Netanyahu’s newly elected right-wing coalition. Many within Israel’s government are openly hostile to two key aspects of American policy on the Middle East: statehood for the Palestinians and engagement with Iran.

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, said: “Netanyahu is caught between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the president’s determination to achieve a two-state solution and the hard place being his political base which opposes it. He’s inching toward the Obama position but trying to avoid saying the words, ‘two-state solution.'”

snip

But Mr Obama’s hand in confronting Mr Netanyahu was strengthened last week by a new Zogby poll revealing that voters who backed him in the election overwhelmingly support a policy which amounts to “get tough with Israel” – ending illegal Israeli settlements within Palestinian territory and establishing a Palestinian state. Jewish voters, 78 per cent of whom voted for Mr Obama, are among the strongest supporters of the plan.

Mr Obama has already shocked Israeli officials by publicly declaring that a two state solution was in America’s national interest – a clear sign that Washington will no longer automatically leap to support Israel regardless of the impact on the US.

The Obama administration has also broken a long-standing taboo against discussing Israel’s nuclear weapons, by calling for Israel to declare and give up its weapons arsenal, said to number around 50 warheads. A senior State Department official said the US wants Israel to sign the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and commit to disarmament. What he has not done yet, is query the $3 billion in military aid which US taxpayers send Israel every year, although that could yet happen given the straitened times.

But Israel is meanwhile rattled by Mr Obama’s willingness to attempt dialogue with Iran, seen by Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman as the biggest threat to the Jewish state.

snip
But alarm bells rang in Jerusalem earlier this month when it was reported that he had warned that efforts to stop Iran would depend on peace talks with the Palestinians.

Though protective towards Israel, both advisers are said to consider that for many years American policy has been skewed by hard-line allies of Israel who do not represent the majority Jewish American viewpoint. Both spent months during the presidential election campaign trail helping to brief Mr Obama on the intricacies of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and both are convinced of the need for a two-state solution.

snip

But there was concern in Israel when Mr Obama moved to allow US aid to flow to members of the Palestinian unity government who were backed by Hamas – a sign that the Obama administration may be prepared to talk to enemies it considers terrorists, if circumstances change.

Mr Obama also sent his CIA chief, Leon Panetta, on a discreet mission to Israel two weeks ago to warn Mr Netanyahu not to lose patience over Iran’s progress to nuclear weapons – and above all, not to launch preemptive air strikes against suspected nuclear enrichment facilities.