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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38076/full/38076/israelis-watching-waiting-wondering-about-u.s.-tack/ <br /><br /> <b>Israelis watching, waiting, wondering about U.S. tack</b> <br /> Thursday, May 14, 2009 | by dina kraft <br /><br /><p><strong>tel aviv  |  </strong>Start worrying. Details to follow.</p> <p>It’s an old joke about the Jewish telegram. And, according to Hebrew University political science professor Peter Medding, it’s also a way to understand the air of apprehension many Israelis have as their new prime minister heads to Washington next week for his first White House meeting with President Barack Obama.</p> <p>“What journalists and TV talking heads say one ought to take with a grain of salt. There is an underlying fundamentally strong relationship between the United States and Israel,” said Medding, a specialist in Israeli politics.</p> <p>That said, he added, “with a new administration come fears it will be different, the sense that there is a new king who might make different policies, and people want to know which way America is going.”</p> <p>A recent poll indicates Israelis are fond of Obama as a leader, but are unsure of what to make of his overtures to Arab countries, including Iran, and his judgment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</p> <p>A joint Bar-Ilan University–Anti-Defamation League survey published this month found that 60 percent of Israelis have a favorable view of Obama, with only 14 percent registering unfavorable opinions.</p> <p>But only slightly more than a third of the respondents said that Obama was friendly or very friendly toward Israel — approximately half the number who did when the same question was asked of President George W. Bush in a 2007 survey.</p> <p>Also, those surveyed were divided evenly on the question of whether or not Obama has good judgment when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian track.</p> <p>Eti Doron, 50, who owns a toy store on a busy Tel Aviv street, said she was taken aback “with [Obama] reaching out to the Arab fundamentalist world.”</p> <p>“I know someone has to take off the gloves first to see what might happen,” she said, “but when I see the headlines I think, ‘OK, maybe he’s not so pro-Israel.’”</p> <p>Israeli commentators and officials have been voicing concerns that Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu could be heading toward a clash.</p> <p>“I think that there is a sense of suspicion, a sense Washington is trying to create tension between Israel and the U.S.,” said Yakov Achimeir, a veteran Israeli journalist and commentator.</p> <p>Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist for Ha’aretz, said in a May 11 column that the change in tone from Washington has caught Israelis off-guard.</p> <p>“I would say that Israelis have been spoiled in the last eight years by [Bush], who sent a message of ‘you can get away with anything, you can do whatever you want in Lebanon or Gaza, and you don’t have to take the president of the United States too seriously,’” he said.</p> <p>Eldar thinks Israelis have yet to comprehend the nuances of recent U.S. behavior, including Obama’s invitation to Jordan’s King Abdullah II as the first Middle East leader to visit the White House and the president’s upcoming trip to Egypt without plans to also visit Israel.</p> <p>“Such acts would once have been considered a slap in the face,” he said. “But nowadays, the majority of Israelis don’t really believe in what we all call the peace process or the two-state solution or the Arab League initiative or whatever Obama believes. They believe he is naive ... that either he does not know enough about the Arabs, or if he knows — and this is the worst-case scenario — he should be considered pro-Arab and we should not take him too seriously.”</p>

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