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Obama and Israel

I find it unsettling that people are apprehensive of Obama's foreign policy as it pertains to US-Israel relations. Many have declared Obama's willingness to negotiate with Iran as a lack of commitment to Israel. While I can understand Israeli/Jewish people's initial reservation to endorsing a man with a Muslim sounding name, I disagree with the idea that he will be any less of a friend of Israel. Here are my reasons for not fearing diplomacy and Obama.
  1. Diplomacy and negotiation rarely hurt. A policy of refusing to negotiate leads to dead ends in a world that desperately needs paths for peaceful resolutions. While Bush's commitment to Israel is very strong, it has appeared very blind and stupid to a fault. Most people would agree that Israel's security is worse off now than it was in 2000 mainly because Bush's Iraq policy has strengthened Iran which poses the greatest threat to Israel.
  2. It is ironic that while the Bush administration is busy not talking to Syria, Israel has gone ahead and started fairly promising negotiations with Syria.
  3. It is ironic that while the Bush administration largely dismisses diplomacy against terrorist nations (Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria), the one notable foreign policy success they had was achieved through diplomacy with North Korea.
Thomas L. Friedman's article articulates the relationship between Obama and the Jews much more intelligently. He also discusses an equally significant component of this equation which is the [im]balance of power, or the shift thereof. In a world transitioning from the one-superpower state of the last 20 years to a more diverse balance of power, cowboy diplomacy fails even more disastrously. That's why the diplomacy and negotiation Obama advocates is critical to the future of the US and the world. An America weakened and isolated due to bad foreign policy decisions will not be able to give Israel any sense of security.

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