When best friends stray

The past three years have seen the ‘special’ relationship between Israel and the United States deteriorate in ways unseen since at least the George H.W. Bush presidency. While American subsidies and loan guarantees, along with American military technology, continue to flow to its client state, the personal antipathy between the countries’ two leaders is a fact that has helped  make Israel a partisan issue. But just as significantly, the divergence between America and Israel’s interests has been growing more pronounced in recent years, particularly where Iran is concerned. By all accounts US President Barack Hussein Obama is not regarded sympathetically in Israel, where his part-Muslim heritage is a source of suspicion in a country where Muslims are second-class citizens. Furthermore, his early exposure to members of the Palestinian and Arab-American communities in Chicago reinforced the pre-election impression that he would be less indulgent than both presidents Bill Clinton and George