WASHINGTON Before the negotiations begin, Israel and the US have to get the negotiations out of the way.
President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are meeting in Washington next week, culminating weeks of coded back and forth on Iran and on resuming Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
When they meet, the two leaders and their advisers are likely to break the code and set red lines for each side: Israel on Iran, the US on Palestinian statehood.
Josh Block, the spokesman for AIPAC, said the sides were set up for a smooth visit.
This is the first conversation at the highest levels between two very close allies, he said. Its an opportunity for two leaders to build on existing personal rapport and to chart a unified course.
Another pro-Israel insider questioned whether the sides had actually managed to reach that point yet, suggesting the mutual pronouncements on the critical issues were still vague and lacking in the concrete details needed for policy foundation.
Theyll meet, theyll give speeches, theyll talk past each other, the official predicted.
Insiders in each administration, off the record, credit the other side with making the right noises.
Although the Obama administration has not outlined its Iran policy yet, Israeli officials say they are pleased with the signals coming from the White House.
They include Obamas extension of existing sanctions and backing in the Congress from Obamas Democratic Party allies for toughened measures, which the president can use as a sword of Damocles should Iran resist his diplomatic outreach.
Even better, from the Israeli point of view, is that the Obama administration has extracted a commitment from Russia to indefinitely suspend its delivery of the S-300 anti-missile system, which would have posed a serious threat to Israels capacity to target Irans suspected nuclear weapons program.
Delivery of the system, according to US and Israeli thinking, would have served as a disincentive for Iran to dismantle its nuclear program.
It helps that Dennis Ross, the Obama administration official shaping the Iran strategy, toured the region recently accompanied by military officials as well as diplomats.
That was seen as a tangible sign that the Obama administration is serious when it says that nothing, including the military option, is off the table when it comes to containing Irans weapons plans.
OBAMA administration officials say Netanyahu has shown seriousness about accommodating Obamas push for renewed talks with the Palestinians.
At last weeks AIPAC conference, the Israeli leader retreated from campaign promises to focus only on Palestinian economic development, saying he placed equal importance on the security and political tracks.
Under Netanyahu, Israeli officials also are tamping down skepticism about US-led efforts to bolster Palestinian security forces.
Gen. Keith Dayton, the US general who heads the program, last week said he felt the program now had Israels respect, and he was ready to almost double the number of personnel from 1,600 to 3,100.
That, he said, would reduce the IDF footprint in the West Bank. Notably, AIPAC has signed onto US efforts to provide the funds for the program.
And this week, ahead of his Obama summit, Netanyahu is meeting with two regional allies that the US considers critical in advancing peace with the Palestinians: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II.
We wish to expand this peace first and foremost with our Palestinian neighbors, Netanyahu said Monday, May 11, at his meeting with Mubarak in Sharm el Sheik after effusively praising the Egyptian leader.
We want to see Israelis and Palestinians living together with the prospect of peace, security and prosperity.
The problem is that communication between Israel and the US in symbols and not through frank exchanges in the past has created misunderstandings that hamper cooperation.
Over the years, Israels understanding of a settlement freeze often has been much more flexible than that of the US including, at times, annexing territory adjacent to settlements. At times that has fostered bitter feelings between the two capitals.
In recent weeks, there have been similar tensions because of a failure on both sides to make parameters clear. Netanyahus government has suggested it is committed to Palestinian statehood by re-committing to the seven-year old road map peace process, but has not said so outright. That has led to frequent and emphatic commitments to statehood from Obama officials.
Conversely, the failure by the Obama administration to specify what it will do should diplomatic outreach to Iran fail has sparked a flood of leaks in the Israeli press about Israeli government anxieties over whether Israel might one day need to go it alone in facing Iran.
The vacuum has led Israelis to wonder whether routine statements from US officials about wanting every nuclear state to join the non-proliferation treaty mean that the Obama administration is taking aim at Israels nuclear program.
Such questions need not be answered in the light of day, but should be addressed, even if Netanyahu and Obama need to clear the room of advisers to do it, said David Makovsky, who has just co-authored a book with Ross on past failures in Middle East peacemaking titled Myths, Illusions and Peace.
If they dont know where theyre going, each one may assume the worst of the other, he said. It requires complete candor on these two questions: What Israels intentions are with the PA with a final deal, and what will the US do if diplomacy with Iran fails.
HEBREW University political science professor Peter Medding says that some Israelis have the jitters as their new prime minister heads to the US next week for his first White House meeting with President Obama.
What journalists and TV talking heads say one ought to take with a grain of salt. There is an underlying fundamentally strong relationship between the US and Israel, said Medding, a specialist in Israeli politics, cautioning against a seeming air of apprehension.
That said, he added, with a new administration come fears it will be different, the sense that there is a new king who might make different policies, and people want to know which way America is going.
A recent poll indicates Israelis tend to be fond of Barack Obama as a leader, but are specifically unsure of what to make of his overtures to Arab countries, including Iran, and his judgment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The joint Bar-Ilan University-ADL survey which was published this month, found that 60% of Israelis have a favorable view of Obama, with only 14% registering unfavorable opinions.
But only slightly more than a third of the respondents said that Obama was friendly or very friendly toward Israel approximately half the number who did when the same question was asked of President Bush in a 2007 survey. And those surveyed were divided evenly on the question of whether or not Obama has good judgment when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian track.
Eytan Gilboa, the Bar-Ilan political science professor who helped oversee the survey, noted that young people and religious Jews, especially the fervently Orthodox, tended to be more suspicious of Obama than other Israelis, according to the poll.
The attitudes of the young people did surprise me, said Gilboa, who speculated that their thinking reflected a hardening of the youngs political outlook, many of whom supported the nationalist Avigdor Lieberman (now foreign minister) in the recent elections.
Perhaps young people are more cynical about politics. They want clear messages, he said, and are not impressed by the charisma and rhetoric of Obama.
