Obama Means End Of "Blank Checks" For Israel: Clinton Ambassador

AFP:

Israel can no longer expect "blank cheques" from Washington once president-elect Barack Obama's administration takes over in January, a former US ambassador to the Jewish state said on Sunday.

"The era of the blank cheque is over," said Martin Indyk, director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute who is considered close to incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Read the whole story: AFP

Comments

[coreyishere]

"She vowed to work for peace and stability in the Middle East. " Translation: Pressure Palestinians to sign off on some agreement that legitimizes the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, thereby creating the illusion of a "compromise." And of course, if the Palestinians refuse we can always blame them for not taking the "opportunity" for peace we gave them.

[hillarybillary]

We need to stop this ruse that Israel is our friend! A friend that you have to pay to be your friend and yet will still go and do whatever they please is not a friend.
Bomb Iraq, bomb Syria, bomb Iran, train the Georgian military leading up to the Russian conflict to gain political access to their oil pipeline.
Israel will do whatever is good for Israel and the US has nothing to say about it except to keep paying them money for who knows what reason. Israel will keep taking actions that suck the US into military conflicts and suck out economy into a depression.
Israel is one of the most advanced technological countries in the world with thriving military and technology industries that have positive trade surpluses with the US, one of the most advanced militaries in the world, and btw 110+ nukes.
it's time that our politicians stop bowing down to AIPAC as all the leading presidential candidates did repeatedly during the campaign culminating with Hillary saying she would do ANYTHING for Israel including "Totally Obliterating" Iran, and stop bowing down to closed meetings of wealthy influential Jewish communities and Rabbis in LA, Florida, Chicago, and New York to name a few, and stop visiting Israel so they can be photographed with yamakas prostrate at the wailing wall. the Jewish community makes up only 2.5% of our population. what other communities do our politicians prostrate themselves to?

[betz55]

Cut US aid to Israel, period. The US must stop pandering to Israel and it's destructive policies.Cut off aid and stop the loan guarantees.Demand peace and fair settlement with the Palestinians and extract the US from Israel's damaging,h­armful,and negative policies. The US must make it clear to the Israelis that the settlements and the occupation must go.

Israel is not a third world country. It is a theocracy that uses US monetary aid, which requires no accountability,to oppress the Palestinians, perpetuate apartheid,and build illegal settlements in the occupied territories.Israeli policies are not longer in line with US policies,and,as a result are making the US more of a target than ever in the Islamic world.

Each year US aid to Israel gives each man, woman, and child the equivalent of over $1500.00 each while cutting programs in the US due to "funding".Why on earth are American taxpayers forced to give 10 billion dollars yearly to Israel when our own people are homeless or soon to be, have no jobs, no healthcare.There is no justification for forcing the U.S. public to pay for health care,education, and housing for the Israelis while our own people go without. None.

Why don't we put it to vote and see how many American want to continue supporting

[AndrewInToronto]

The frequent mention here that Israel must become a "leader" in the peace process for me is odd. I would phrase it that the Israeli government must stop being that which undermines the process and respects UN resolutions as any other nation is expected to do so. If memory serves, the United States invaded a certain country on the grounds that it was not living up to the spirit of its obligations to the UN inspectors.

[4everdem]

Why are we giving money to Israel? Let them stand on their own. We give out all this "Aid" while we create a huge deficit that we, the taxpayers are responsible for.

[harriettubman]

Don't forget Israel is a racist country too. ALL countries have their form of racism. Hussein hated the Kurds. Japanese and Koreans detest one another. Black Israelites are treated horribly in Israel. Even people who've done their historical research to prove who they are have been ostracized by Jews. What is it? Jews don't want to recognize that there were black Jews too?

The painting of the Last Supper was painted by a white person. Who can prove what color Jesus's Apostles were? Jesus is described in the Biblle with curly hair and skin of bronze. Does that sound like a white person? Middle Eastern people were very dark with curly hair thousands of years ago. The Discovery channel's research showed ancient pictures of what Jews looked like back then and they were brown people. We see a lot of brown folks in the Muslim countries too.

I hear great stories about Jews in the 50s, 60s. they were some of the only people with apt buildings who would rent to black people. Let's hear more stories about those kinds of people instead of the selfish people we read and hear about today.

[BrownEyedGurl]

Genesis 12: 1 - 4

Israel must be protect at all costs. President-elect Obama must know this by now.

[melfaun]

must not know your biblical history... see NT

[blueskybigstar]

I do hope this is true, but do not easily trust its source. How much money have we given them over the years? We have completely financed the apartheid system there.

[on2them]

It's about time, should have happened years ago.

[Wolfgang]

It's not going to happen. Obama knows that any politician who goes against AIPAC is a Dead Man Walking.

[thecanadian]

The short story suggested that this story came out because someone was "close to Sen. Clinton"
Is this leak time already for the SoS camp?

[Crake]

This is great news!

[PhilipTaylor]

Israel must become a leader in the Middle East Peace process!
That involves Israel and the Palestinian State finding common grounds.

America has "SHALLOW" pockets NOW and yet we need strong cooperation with and from Israel in stabilizing the Middle East as we remove troops from Iraq.

corrected

[GlenRast]

Israel will never give up land on the West Bank unless forced to. It's the billions in US aid that allow the Israeli government to pay settlers to occupy the illegal settlements in the West Bank.No West Bank settlement is self supporting. Withdrawal of US money would force the Israeli government to make economic choices between maintaining the settlements or cutting domestic programs.

[AndrewInToronto]

I agree. It has always struck me that the public debate is framed in such a way that makes it appear that the United States government has no influence in Israeli policy towards the Palestinian Territories...but as Glen points out, economic pressure is a huge leverage tool it has. The Israeli government is the largest recipient in bilateral aid from the US and has been for years. The grotesque tragedy is that as a result, the Palestinians have been persecuted with official American financial and military backing.

[PhilipTaylor]

Isreal must become a leader in the Middle East process!
That involves Isreal and the Palistinian State finding common grounds.

America has "SHALLOW" pockets NOW and yet we need strong cooperation with and from Isreal in stabilizing the Middle East as we remove troops from Iraq.

[beanchihuahua]

Nothing against Israel, but if this is true then GOOD. It's time that our country starts to take care of itself. There's too big of a decicit to fork over billions to countries that can sustain themselves and then some.

[Frenbar]

The sky will darken with flying pigs before Obama withholds one dime of the billions we give Israel annually.