America's generals are sick of paying a heavy price for the current Israeli government's uncompromising attitude towards the Palestinians. Now they have squared up for a battle royal with the once mighty AIPAC lobby.
Led by America's favourite General David Petraeus, the military high command has let it be known that US interests are being hurt (and American oldiers are dying) across the region and on many levels by Israel's bad behaviour.
Glen Greenwald has an excellent take here
The rather extraordinary dust-up between the U.S. and Israel has, among other benefits, shined a light on two of the most taboo yet self-evidently true propositions: (1)our joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel is a significant cause of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fuels attacks on Americans, and entails a very high price for the U.S. on multiple levels; and (2) many American neoconservatives have their political beliefs shaped by allegiance to Israel.
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And Andrew Sullivan is good on the revolting generals as well
Petraeus sees what so much of Washington refuses to see: that Israel's year-long contempt for Obama, initiated by the Gaza campaign, entrenched by Netanyahu's victory and compounded by continued settlements and last week's humiliation of Biden is a problem. More then a problem, Israel's total impunity for its intransigence is becoming a liability for the advance of US interests around the world. Petraeus was so disturbed by a recent trip to the Middle East that as Foreign Policy's Mark Perry first reported he asked a team of top CENTCOM officers to brief Admiral Mullen, and asked that the region be made part of his command:
Here's Perry:
The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus's instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders.
The tectonic plates are suddenly shifting underneath US Israeli policy and the racket caused by the ensuing earthquake has many in Washington running for cover.
With the pro-Likud lobby AIPAC lobby - which once had the power to strike fear into the hearts of American politicians i- on the back foot and the Upstart and liberal "two-state and we mean it" J-Street lobby ascendant, all bets are off on what is going to happen.
The Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren has complained that US-Israeli relations are at their "lowest ebb" in 35 years, but isn't that an astonishing admission of failure by the man whose job it is to keep them in good shape.
Tempers have been fraying for some time between Israel and Washington and last weeks announcement of approval for the construction of 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem only two days after the Palestinians had agreed to go into proximity talks with the Israelis, caused Joe Biden to finally snap.
White House where US Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (in the basketball top) is still doing his best with some nimble verbal footwork as he avoids answering tveteran White House reporter Helen Thomas who asks a question to that all too few journalists do: Why does the US support Israel when it continues to violate international law by building settlements in the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem?
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