BusinessWeek: End Israel’s U.S. Allowance So Both Can Gain: Celestine Bohlen

End Israel’s U.S. Allowance So Both Can Gain
March 30, 2010
BusinessWeek
Commentary by Celestine Bohlen

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations isn’t going away. If anything, it keeps getting worse, precisely because it has exposed and crystallized a gap between the goals, expectations and even the national interests of these old allies...

The advantages for the U.S. are obvious: It would save money at a time when the federal debt is zooming out of sight. The sums aren’t great -- a drop compared with the $1.4 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2009 -- but it would take some of the sting out of Israel’s stubborn opposition to U.S. policies.

Severing the financial links could also correct the perception that the U.S., as Israel’s patron, can’t be an honest broker in the Middle East.

That assumption, widely held in the Arab world, was put on the record by General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, when he told the U.S. Congress that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict “foments anti- American sentiment due to a perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel.”

Similar words have been used by James L. Jones, the U.S. national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The message is clear: Failure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians isn’t just about Israel anymore. It’s about U.S. national-security interests...