Obama On Israel: We're Still Pals

It's been a drama-filled week for Israel and US relations, but President Barack Obama made one thing clear when he spoke to Fox News on Wednesday: we've still got Israel's back.

"Israel's one of our closest allies, and we and the Israeli people have a special bond that's not going to go away. But friends are going to disagree sometimes," Obama said, in what sounded a bit like a well-intentioned kindergarten lesson on friendship.

The tension began last week, when Israel dropped a bombshell during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region to help restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced a plan to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem without consulting with its Palestinian neighbors, which didn't exactly sit well with Palestine — or the US, either.

Obama condemned the move, saying "the actions that were taken by the interior minister in Israel were not helpful to that [peace] process." The US also called the plan an "insult" and US special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell canceled a planned visit the region.

But despite all that, Obama reiterated that the drama was more like a lovers quarrel than a friendship-ending fight.

"I specifically sent Vice President Biden to Israel to send a message of support and reassurance about my belief that Israel's security is sacrosanct and that we have a host of shared interests," Obama said, and made it clear that remained unchanged, even if "there is a disagreement in terms of how we can move this peace process forward."

Obama's carefully chosen words make him sound like the smoother-over-in-chief, and with diplomatic skills like that we can only hope that long-elusive peace between Israel and Palestine comes sooner rather than later.

Photo by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons.