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Analysis: The Obibi effect
By July 1998, two years after Binyamin Netanyahu had been elected prime minister, the impression that he and US president Bill Clinton were at loggerheads was so widespread that PBS's Jim Lehrer asked Clinton the following question: "The word around... is that you and Netanyahu really just don't like each other very much. Is that right?" Clinton's response was telling. "I don't think so. It's certainly not true on my part."
Source: JPost, Analysis by Herb Keinon,
By July 1998, two years after Binyamin Netanyahu had been elected prime minister, the impression that he and US president Bill Clinton were at loggerheads was so widespread that PBS's Jim Lehrer asked Clinton the following question: "The word around... is that you and Netanyahu really just don't like each other very much. Is that right?"
Clinton's response was telling. "I don't think so. It's certainly not true on my part. But we have had differences of opinion on occasion in approach to the peace process. And then there - you know - there's been a little smattering in the press here, there, and yonder about those differences and whether they were personal in nature. But for me they're not personal in nature.
"I enjoy him very much, I like being with him, I like working with him," Clinton added. "I really believe that he is an energetic man, and I think that within the limits of his political situation, I believe he's hoping to be able to make a peace and to get to the point where he and Mr. Arafat can negotiate that."
Indeed, there is nothing to guarantee that Livni would have a better relationship with Obama than Netanyahu.
The opening gambit of Obama's Middle East policy, his selection of George Mitchell as his Mideast envoy and his decision to dispatch him here even before the Israeli elections, demonstrates that Obama is set on wading knee-deep into the Middle East process right off the bat.
And the conventional wisdom is that he will wade in holding firm to a belief in a two-state solution that will necessitate massive Israeli concessions, as well as a Syrian-Israeli agreement that would necessitate an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
But in Israel circa January 2009, that policy - at a time when many here don't believe previous withdrawals have been a resounding success - is going to run up against a degree of push-back regardless of who is in the prime minister's chair, Livni or Netanyahu.
It is not necessarily the personality of the prime minister that will cause the friction, but rather US and Israeli interests and policies that may be entering a new era where they will increasingly be out of sync.
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