President Obama blamed for bad US-Israel relation

Israel’s former ambassador to the United States Michael Oren believes that mistakes made by President Barack Obama deteriorated Washington’s relations with Tel Aviv.

In an article published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Oren outlined a number of reasons behind the worsening ties.

He said the US president supported Iran and the Palestinians instead of Israel since he took office six years ago, adding that Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both made mistakes, but only Obama did so "deliberately."

“Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear power, without consulting Israel,” Oren wrote.

The former envoy also noted that President Obama in 2011 altered 40 years of US policy regarding the Israel-Palestinians conflict by endorsing the 1967 lines with land swaps as the basis for peace-making.

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip. However, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians want the borders of the future state of Palestine to be based on the pre-1967 lines.

“If Mr. Netanyahu appeared to lecture the president the following day, it was because he had been assured by the White House, through me, that no such change would happen,” he said.

“Israel was also stunned to learn that Mr. Obama offered to sponsor a UN Security Council investigation of the settlements and to back Egyptian and Turkish efforts to force Israel to reveal its alleged nuclear capabilities,” Oren added.

He said Netanyahu’s only premeditated misstep was his speech to Congress against a nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers.

Oren blasted Obama for insisting that Iran was a rational and potentially very successful regional power.

He concluded that there is a need to set the record straight because the past six years have seen successive crises in US-Israeli relations.