Thursday, March 19, 2015

America and Israel: Going through a rough patch? Hopefully it's only temporary...

In any country, the government and politics are hard topics. In Israel, forget about it. With the coalition system and the dozens of parties, everything is confusing. There are the big-idea things, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hamas, Iran, and to me, all that is somewhat easier to understand. One of the most important (and complicated) parts of Israeli politics is Israel's relationship with America and Barack Obama. In Aaron Klein's article, "Senate targets Obama meddling in Israel election," Klein analyzes the (probably false) report that Obama potentially bribed some parties or organizations in Israel to ensure that Netanyahu was not reelected. Pretty ridiculous.

First of all, it was Fox News that reported the situation. Secondly, Bibi won, and Obama strongly denied it immediately. So the details of the investigation and the article aren't all that important. What's important, is the message we can take away from this whole thing: Israel and America's relationship is not doing so well. And it's not good. Since before Israel's foundation, America has been absolutely crucial for Israel's success and survival, and I believe it will continue to be necessary for the two countries to have a good relationship going forward. This is not to say that Israel is helpless or can't survive on its own, but I think anyone would agree that it would be much safer and better for Israel to maintain the U.S. as its top ally. And with silly stuff like this in the media, and everyone talking about how Bibi and Obama hate each other, it seems like that relationship is deteriorating. And that's not good for either side. 

1 comment:

  1. You're right, the relationship is bad and only is getting worse. The two of them hate each other which is bad for both the countries. And any effort Obama made to make sure Netanyahu did not work. But there had to be something to spark this idea. A cause as to why such an assumption could be made.
    The assumption isn't good for either country as the relationship is weakened. However, Netanyahu isn't too found in pleasing Obama as Obama has stated that he prefers the Muslims.

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