“ are appreciative of the strong and solid relationship, with the U.S. policy in the Middle East, Israelis are skeptical of American intentions - except when it comes to supporting them. But according to Mintz, whose new book, “The Polythink Syndrome,” deals with recent U.S. Of course, Israelis themselves have been much more than just spectators in the region, with a massive impact of their own. And they have watched the Middle East grow more violent and unstable in recent years, he said. Part of the reason Israelis think Americans just don’t get the Middle East, said Alex Mintz, a political psychologist at IDC Herzliya, is that they consider themselves close front-row observers of American foreign policy in the region. “He tried to please the Arab world at our expense. “Obama is very hostile against Israel,” said Effi Hasut, a 50-year-old hairdresser who was smoking on the patio outside his salon in downtown Jerusalem. That opinion was evident on the Israeli street the day of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, despite all the administration’s measures on behalf of Israel’s security that Netanyahu took pains to laud. About three-quarters of Israelis “don’t trust Obama to be a reliable ally and to deal effectively with the Iranian nuclear threat” said Eytan Gilboa, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. But most Israelis were in agreement about their premier’s message. Israelis were split on the value of Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, which was widely seen as a play to the prime minister’s right-wing base before the March 17 election. On March 3, that clash reached its climax when Netanyahu appeared before a joint meeting of Congress to warn the assembled lawmakers against their own president’s negotiations, together with other countries, with Iran ahead of a possible deal on that country’s nuclear program. The paradox that Israelis rely on - and expect - American support and yet don’t trust American judgment on Middle Eastern affairs helps explain the recent U.S.-Israel dustup in Washington. It’s absurd! We have such support there! And we say… what shall we do with this ?” So they say it - so what? Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. “They will not bother us,” he said of the Americans. On political hiatus at the time after an election defeat, the once and future Israeli leader was responding to a skeptical settler who asked how he would respond to the global condemnation that could be anticipated if he were, as he proposed, to launch a “large scale” attack on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza to counter the second intifada. “America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction.” “I know what America is,” Netanyahu, told the settlers. In a secretly recorded video of a 2001 discussion with a group of terror victims in the Ofra settlement in the Israeli occupied West Bank, now-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out this widely held perception. The naivete Israelis perceive in Americans is not just something they believe only Israel’s adversaries exploit Israelis believe they can do so, too - and do.
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