Analysis: U.N. rebukes of Israel permitted in U.S. policy shift

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Under President Barack Obama, the United States no longer provides Israel with support at the United Nations where the Jewish state faces a constant barrage of criticism and condemnation.

The subtle but noticeable shift in the U.S. approach to its Middle East ally comes amid what some analysts describe as one of the most serious crises in U.S.-Israeli relations in years.

"Israel became used to unconditional support of the United States during eight years of the Bush administration," said Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Last week the United States backed a Security Council statement on Israel's commando raid on an aid flotilla that tried to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine people on one of the ships were killed in the action.

The statement regretted the loss of life and demanded a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.

UNITED NATIONS "LYNCH MOB"?

Israel was still unhappy with the statement and its supporters accused Obama of abandoning the Jewish state.

In an article called "Joining the jackals," Elliott Abrams, at the Council on Foreign Relations, accused Obama of exposing Israel to a virtual U.N. "lynch mob."

"The White House did not wish to stand with Israel against this mob because it does not have a policy of solidarity with Israel," Abrams said. "Rather, its policy is one of distancing and pressure."

Abrams also criticized the White House over the recent five-year review conference of signatories to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that Israel, like nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, has never signed.

Washington backed a call for a 2012 meeting of all countries in the Middle East to discuss making the region a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction -- a plan originally proposed by Egypt with Arab backing to add pressure on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.

After allowing it to pass, the U.S. delegation criticized the NPT final declaration for "singling out" Israel, which neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons.

This statement did not satisfy commentators like Abrams, who said Obama had "abandoned Israel in the U.N. and in the NPT conference in the course of one week."

"During the George W. Bush years, Washington's siding with Israel on any issue seriously eroded what had been America's long-standing posture as an honest broker in the Middle East," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

"Obama has been trying to reclaim that status, while keeping in mind the domestic political need of not being seen as anti-Israel," he said.

Outside the United Nations, analysts say Obama tried to ease strains with Netanyahu after tensions spiked earlier this year over Jewish settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land.

He coaxed Israel into indirect talks with the Palestinians, his biggest tangible achievement in Middle East diplomacy.

But an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the jury is still out on the Obama administration's approach to the Jewish state.

"It's still difficult to decipher the intentions behind the changing U.S. policy at the United Nations, and not just in regard to the Middle East," the official said.

"If the Americans are convinced that, through adopting a softer approach ... they will achieve support from countries that heretofore opposed their policy -- they will discover that they are wrong," the official added.