The impasse was highlighted after a meeting in Tel Aviv over the weekend between General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, last week. This followed a stormy transatlantic conversation between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Netanyahu turned down Obama's request for early warning of an attack on Iran. Netanyahu suspects that Obama, fearful of soaring energy prices, will try to scuttle an attack going ahead before the US presidential election in November. He and his minister believe that US actions have been insufficient to block development of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Ron Ben-Yishai, a leading Israeli defense commentator, wrote last week on the Ynet website that "Israel and the US are on a head-on collision course unheard of in recent history." A large joint anti-missile exercise planned for April has already been cancelled, officially for "technical and logistical reasons". "All lies," said an Israeli defence official, who claimed that Washington had pulled out as an expression of its displeasure. "We were shocked," the official said. "It's been planned for the last two years."
DebkaFile, however, reversed its previous claim that the White House called off the war games after hearing comments critical of the Obama Administration's policy toward Iran by senior Minister Moshe Yaalon, reporting that the cancellation was in fact initiated by Netanyahu.
The author of the Israel Matzav blog spoke for many Israelis when he quipped: "I wouldn't even give Obama 12 minutes' notice - he'd probably call Ahmadinejad and warn him."
More in the Times of London via The Australian News.
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