As you may have heard, there are some strains in the U.S. relationship with Israel. According to this report in The Jerusalem Post, the America-Israel Friendship League has sent an open letter to President Obama voicing their concerns about the relationship. According to the report:
The organization affirmed Obama’s commitment to relations between the two countries. But it urged the US president to reconsider his apparent intention of pressing Israel to abandon its longstanding Jerusalem policy, particularly regarding construction there, as a precondition to talks with the Palestinians […] The organization stated that such construction had not encumbered previous negotiations with the Palestinians nor peace treaties achieved between Israel and its neighbors during that period. Israel’s right to build in Jerusalem, it wrote, was recognized in the 2004 agreement between former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former US President George W. Bush, which “[Obama’s] administration has apparently decided not to recognize.”
While we have to concede that open letters rarely have an impact on official policy, it’s a noteworthy example of the high level of public concern about the state of our relationship with Israel. The FPA’s Israel blogger Ben Moscovitch notes that despite claims of a crisis in U.S. – Israel relations, Hillary Clinton’s video message below sends a strong signal of support for Israel’s 62nd anniversary:
