Obama Wants Israel to Take its Medicine

The president isn't a popular man in Jerusalem these days, thanks to his call for a freeze on Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, and rumors that he's hatching his own Mideast peace plan. “Barack Obama is a disaster for Israel,” one liberal commentator there tells Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times. But the uproar reminds Rachman of the British rage when the US insisted on “talking to the terrorists” of the IRA.

“As it turned out, the Americans were right to insist that there was a peace deal to be made with the IRA,” he says. “They are right again on the Middle East.” A two-state solution is ultimately in Israel's best interest. It won't be comfortable, but unless they strike a real deal soon, “the long-term survival of the Jewish state will be imperiled.” Whether they admit it or not, Obama “is actually doing them a favor.” (More Israel stories.)