John Lyons, Middle East correspondent | August 01
THERE's an old Hebrew saying that you shouldn't try to dance at all the weddings. It's important to pace yourself and keep yourself for weddings that really matter.
For Israel right now, a lot of possible marriages are on the horizon -- a proposed forced one with the Palestinians, a more interesting one with the Syrians and one that appears to be just fantasy with the Lebanese.
But the one that really matters to Israel is to renew its vows with the US after a rocky few months.
As international pressure increases for a resumption of talks to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel is at the doors of several potential weddings.
What is driving all the manoeuvring is the Obama administration's efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
After an extraordinary week of meetings between Israeli and US officials in Jerusalem, Israel's game plan is clearer.
The Weekend Australian has drawn on a range of sources, including Israeli government sources familiar with the negotiations, to assess the likely course of the next year.
First, it is abundantly clear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees Iran as infinitely more important than the Palestinian conflict.
Apart from the row over Jewish settlements in the West Bank, this is the biggest difference between Israel and the US, evidenced this week when US special envoy George Mitchell met Netanyahu.
While President Barack Obama and European leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as their No 1 foreign policy concern, inside Israel it is dwarfed by the Iranian issue.
Much of this week's meeting between Netanyahu and Mitchell, one source said, was taken up with Israel's desire to discuss an option it is serious about -- a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The source said the US response to Netanyahu was loud and clear -- there can be no attack on Iran while the US still has troops in Iraq. The Americans believe the response from Iran through proxies in Iraq would be "murderous" in US lives.
Washington still has 130,000 troops in Iraq and there will be a significant US presence for two years, so the White House would not want to see any strike on Iran for at least two years.
The US will inevitably face a backlash from any Israeli attack; Israel would require not just US intelligence and support but the US-backed Iraqi regime would need to allow Israeli warplanes to fly over Iraq.
It's clear that while the international headlines are about differences between the US and Israel on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the main game is whether Israel and Iran, the Middle East's two most bitter enemies, may be at war with each other within a year.
This is a prospect weighing heavily on Washington: a war between Israel, a nuclear power, and Iran, a would-be nuclear power, has dreadful implications.
The US is nervous about what Israel might do to Iran. Two months ago, Obama sent CIA chief Leon Panetta to Israel when suggestions reached Washington that Israel was preparing to attack Iran. The new administration in Washington was wondering whether Israel would act in secrecy, but Israel assured Panetta there was no imminent attack.
Israelis see the Iran issue as urgent -- a matter of survival that needs to be dealt with within two years, before Tehran's nuclear program nears completion.
In contrast, the Palestinian conflict has been going on for so long, since the formation of the Israeli state in 1948, that Israelis sometimes seem perplexed as to why the US sees such urgency.
For most Israelis, life is good at the moment, far better than the lives of most Palestinians in the West Bank and certainly better than those in Gaza. The economy has not suffered much from the global crisis; like Australia, Israel's banking system is well-regulated, and not a single Israeli bank has gone under in the past year.
And, most important for Israelis, security is good. Unlike in 2002 and 2003, when suicide bombings were regular events, Israelis are able to go about their daily lives with a level of normality.
Unlike Palestinians, many Israelis feel no pressure to settle the conflict. Indeed, as every month goes by more Jewish settlers are establishing themselves in Palestinian territory, satisfying Israel's powerful religious groups who argue that biblical references to the lands of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) give them the right to live there.
From a strategic position, should Israel ever have to sit down with the Palestinians to talk peace, every extra settlement gives them greater leverage to keep the settlements they really want, such as Maaleh Adumim and Efrat.
Obama may want to try to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in the next three years, but in Israel few expect their PM to sit down with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas this year.
Israel's basic message to the US is clear: if you resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, then we'll try to resolve the Palestinian issue.
Source: The Australian
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