WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama heads into his second term weighed down by an American government snarled in partisan gridlock, but also by an unproductive relationship with the leader of Israel, the bedrock U.S. ally in the tumultuous Middle East.
And the puzzle that is the U.S.-Israeli relationship under Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is only growing more complex.
“It’s troubled. It’s the greatest dysfunction between leaders that I’ve seen in my 40 years in watching and participating,” said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who served under six secretaries of state in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He was deeply involved in negotiations involving Israel, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinians.
“I don’t think we are headed for a showdown,” he said, “but the relationship will continue to be dysfunctional.”
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