Gaza War Sees U.S.-Israeli Relations Sink to New Depths
Barack Obama's demand for an "immediate, unconditional" Gaza humanitarian ceasefire has strained already-tense U.S.-Israeli ties and put Benjamin Netanyahu in a tight spot with hardliners in his government, commentators said.
Analysts see the U.S. president's call on Sunday as an ultimatum to Netanyahu, as the Palestinian toll from Israel's 21-day offensive in Gaza neared 1,050.
Obama called the Israeli premier to make his "request" while Netanyahu was in a security cabinet meeting, which had to be interrupted, military radio said. The meeting resumed once the call ended, but no decisions were made.
Netanyahu has yet to respond to Washington, its main ally.
But on the ground, Israel appeared to apply a fragile, de facto truce punctuated by occasional clashes and sporadic air strikes before missiles struck a hospital compound and refugee camp in Gaza City.
Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip in July 8, intended to stop rocket fire at its territory from the Palestinian enclave and to destroy Hamas's military capabilities.
In the past week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has tried in vain to reach an agreement between the two sides to put an end to the bloodshed during visits to the region.
Israeli commentators have placed the blame for this failure squarely on Kerry's shoulders -- he is a favorite scape-goat for the media and is presented as incompetent.
Kerry has been pilloried for submitting a plan for a long-term ceasefire on Friday to the Israeli government, which the security cabinet unanimously rejected.
"He's a friend of Israel, but with friends like these, sometimes it's better to negotiate with your enemies," said Nahum Barnea, writing in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot.
He wrote that the "U.S. administration has found itself on the wrong side of the table in the Gaza war, all because of the good intentions of one man: John Kerry".
The secretary of state has also been described in the press as a "bull in a china shop," and an "amateur who thinks he can solve the world's problems with his presence alone".
The news website Walla went further, accusing him of applying "the policy of the Obama administration that supports the Muslim Brotherhood" that Hamas is linked to.
The site said the United States had also "stabbed Hosni Mubarak in the back," referring to the former Egyptian president and faithful Washington ally who was ousted in a revolution in 2011.
After an interim period of military rule, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was elected Egypt's president, before he himself was ousted in July last year.
The diplomatic tensions have spilled into Israel's domestic political scene, and Netanyahu, giving the impression that he is yielding to American pressure, has not been spared the criticism too.
He has been taking flak from "hawks" in his government, making his majority even more delicate.
"We wasted time and our great army has not been able to finish its work, it's a shame," complained ex-agriculture minister Yair Shamir, the son of the ultra-nationalist former premier Yitzhak Shamir.
Yair Shamir is himself a member of the rightwing nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party.
And Housing Minister Uri Ariel -- a settler and leader of the far-right Jewish Home party -- said Israel should have launched "a much quicked, harder, more determined operation to allow the Israeli army to win".
Half-reproaching Netanyahu for giving in to pressure from the White House, Ariel suggested that "sometimes it's necessary to accept that you have to pay a political price when the safety of Israelis is at stake".
Ben Caspit, another influential editorialist, bluntly accused the premier of "cowardice," blaming him for "not having the courage to press" the army to demilitarize the Gaza Strip.
The overwhelming majority of Israelis -- nearly 87 percent -- still support their military's operations in Gaza, despite the deaths of nearly 50 Israelis, the heaviest military toll for Jewish state since its 2006 war in Lebanon.
