At the risk of stirring up recent commenter Mike, I highly recommend this article by Yglesias (see, I don't always pick on him) in response to Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech before Congress.
The premise of the piece is that although the United States is certainly Israel's best friend in the world, providing it with massive financial aid, along with military backing, and diplomatic cover of almost incalculable value, Israel, in return, gives the U.S. . . . well, nothing but headaches. Really, there is no rational upside to the U.S. in this relationship as it has evolved. And now it has deteriorated to the point where the leader of this punk-ass country, which contains 2% of the population of the U.S., feels perfectly comfortable coming before our Congress and showering the President of the United States with disrespect. And gets away with it on a bipartisan basis.
In the meantime, I cannot think of a single benefit that we, as Americans, derive from our massive investment in Israel at this point in time. Instead, our inexplicably one-sided approach to the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict results in massive diplomatic negatives to the U.S. throughout the Islamic world and in much of Europe, makes us far more susceptible to terrorist attack than we would otherwise be, and generally fosters anti-Americanism among a significant chunk of the world's people. (But evidently, we have the hand of God upon us as a result of our unvarnished support for Israel -- so we've got that going for us, which is nice.)
The irony is that the Arab Spring, and the pursuit of a true democracy agenda by the U.S., is going to result in much greater pressure to arrive at a resolution to the Palestinian question. Popularly elected Arab governments are going to be under pressure to actually do something to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians. At the same time, despite paying lip service to it, I have no faith that Netanyahu believes in a two state solution. Indeed, everything he does seems geared at delay and denial, with the eventual hope of annexing as much land as he can while creating borders that will preclude a viable Palestinian state.
Obama does not now need the tsuris that will come from a pronounced break with the Netanyahu government -- he has an election to win and a whole host of problems to address. But once he is comfortably ensconced in the White House enjoying his second and final term in office, he will be in a position where he can be bolder in confronting the recalcitrance of the Likudniks, up to, and including the endorsement of a single, democratic state as the resolution to the problem, since a two state solution has been made impossible. And then who will Bibi run to?
