Obama Increases Pressure on Israel’s Prime Minister

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in Washington under intense pressure following President Barack Obama’s speech last Thursday, May 19, during which he endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. This is the seventh meeting between the two leaders, and the prime minister has already been criticized for his immobility when it comes to the changes that have been taking place in the Middle East over the past few months.

When the Palestinian movement of Fatah, which administers the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, announced an agreement last month with the Islamic organization of Hamas to form a national unity government, Netanyahu felt he had received a gift on the eve of his visit to Paris and London. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, could have chosen between peace and Hamas, but preferred the wrong side, according to the Israeli government. This was, indeed, the message that the prime minister wanted to spread to the world as he began to find himself faced with a scenario in which Israel is becoming increasingly more isolated and in which he is personally being criticized by Israeli commentators for a lack of ideas.

Netanyahu had previously referred to the lack of Palestinian unity as a demonstration of weakness. Now, if a united Palestinian government is confirmed, the Israeli prime minister could be facing an even bigger crisis. At the beginning of this week, before Obama’s speech, Abbas had made it clear that if peace talks were not re-initiated he would go to the U.N. General Assembly in September to seek the international recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

The U.S. does not understand the reality, says Israel.

Despite the visit, Israel’s prime minister maintains a tense relationship with the American president and said that Obama’s ideas regarding the Palestinian state will leave Israel with “indefensible” borders. “There is a feeling that Washington does not understand the reality, doesn’t understand what we face,” said an official of the prime minister’s entourage during the trip to the American capital.

Netanyahu justified his harsh reaction to Obama’s speech by saying, ‘‘there are some things which can’t be swept under the carpet.”