Netanyahu Complains about U.S.

One sign that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are taking peace in the Middle East seriously: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is complaining about them. When Clinton called for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Netanyahu apparently groaned “What the hell do they want from me?” According to Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy, “the Israeli prime minister, looking for loopholes and hidden agreements that have often existed in the past with Washington, has been flummoxed by an unusually united line that has come not just from Obama White House and the secretary of state, but also from pro-Israel congressmen and women who have come through Israel for meetings with him over Memorial Day recess.” According to Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Institute, “What I'm beginning to see is that the Obama administration may be less concerned with actually getting to negotiations and an agreement and more interested in setting new rules and rearranging the furniture. They may have concluded that they can't get to a real two state solution with this prime minister [Netanyahu]. Maybe they want a new one? And the best way to raise the odds of that is to demonstrate that he can't manage Israel's most important relationship: with the U.S."