Directly or Indirectly the US Puts Pressure on Israel

• 03.26.2015, 18:50
• Greta Avetisyan
•  Near East,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World

The post-election situation in Israel, the Iranian nuclear talks and in this regard the reactions of the international community continue developing and becoming more and more interesting. Especially the recent announcement by Netanyahu, when he apologized for saying that Arab citizens were voting in "droves", makes us think that in this post-election period something is going on, which forces Israel to pull back from what he has said during his campaign. To have a full picture, one should also remember the change of Netanyahu’s stance on two-state solution in pre- and post-election period. So what were those factors that contributed to such developments and changes? Was it only an election game to receive more votes and everything goes according to the plan or is there something else? Nothing should be excluded... Of course, for any country that has conflict, in the case of Israel also, during the election campaign the security issue was ranked above the social problems. No Palestinian state, no territorial concessions, no right of return of the Palestinians to the territory of Israel… These were the main points around which Netanyahu built his whole campaign and these were the points that persuaded the majority of Israelis – people, who are for long decades in conflict with Palestinians and live in an atmosphere of fear- to vote for Likud party. By doing this, of course, Israel could not fail to think about the consequences of these announcements. In this context, most probably, it was the factor of the Iranian nuclear deal and relatively tense relations with the US that did not hold Israel back, just vice versa. Israel did everything (both Netanyahu's announcements during his campaign, and his speech in the US Congress) to show that it is not satisfied with what its ally is doing or is ready to do in regard with Iran.

If we come to the post-election period, then the changes of Netanyahu's stance should not be considered something surprising or unpredicted. After winning the elections, at the same time showing its discontent towards the Iranian nuclear deal during the election campaign, as well as receiving much criticism for his announcements, Netanyahu started bringing the situation into balance. The need of such balance was felt after Obama's announcement that the US will reassess its relations with Israel, if the latter does not commit itself to the two-state solution. Obama’s this announcement should have been taken seriously due to several factors –  on the one hand the tense situation in the Middle East, the threat from the Islamic State and on the other hand the seemingly positive developments of the Iranian nuclear talks. To put it simpler, bigger problems than there are in the Middle East can in no way be in the interests of the US.

All these shows that, really, there is a kind of tension in the US-Israeli relations and directly or indirectly, which is difficult to say, the US puts pressure on Israel to do things which could not have been planned by Israel beforehand, no matter how much we say that Netanyahu’s pre-election stance was well-planned and that he understood it quite well his plan would not work long in the current geopolitical conditions.