Gaza, Iranian Rockets and J Street

[bemildred]

Even the most apolitical tourist in Israel cannot escape noticing the contrast between an openly displayed show of opulence in a world economic crisis -- overcrowded hotels, a healthy currency, expanding exports thanks to the inventiveness of the pioneers of the new technologies -- and an inner bitterness and doubt about the possibility of peace.

A hostile media campaign against Israel in Europe, a wavering of friends and neutrals in the battle against terror and a Palestinian neighbor, though split, politically united in refusal to start serious peace talks -- all this clouds the atmosphere and faith in a peaceful solution.

The Goldstone report on Gaza is almost uniformly condemned. The very fact that European voices failed to make it clear that Hamas is condemned as well as Israel, embitters Israelis. The fact that a country loudest in its condemnations is Saudi Arabia where only recently a female journalist was sentenced to sixty lashes and her male guest in a talk show to five years in prison and a thousand lashes.

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There is a suspicion in Israel that President Obama's foreign policy, far from reassuring the Muslim world, is regarded by most regimes in the area as a smokescreen hiding a policy of withdrawal from the region. Hence it is felt that this is the moment for more and more concessions to be wrung from the United States without the need to reciprocate. That is why more of the players in the region look for cover elsewhere; thus Turkey is in the process of changing its pro-Western policy -- more drastically than is generally assumed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lord-weidenfeld-of-chelsea/gaza-iranian-rockets-and_b_343896.html