The rightward shift in the makeup of the Knesset is a "significant setback" to President Obama's ambition to move quickly on "Israeli-Palestinian peace," the Washington Post wrote Wednesday. The D.C. daily said that key players in the Obama administration "have long and difficult memories of dealing with Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader, when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. It is no secret that U.S. officials would prefer to deal with Livni, who as foreign minister spearheaded unsuccessful talks with the Palestinians in the waning days of the Bush administration."
The gains by Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu increase the prospect that "a government uninterested in peace talks will emerge from the post-election efforts to form a governing coalition," the paper's writers estimated. "Even if Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima who has vowed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, manages to cobble together a coalition after weeks of negotiations, many experts predict she will be hamstrung by her coalition partners."
A senior administration official who spoke anonymously was somewhat optimistic, however, that Netanyahu, too, would eventually come around on the issue of a "Palestinian state." Even if Netanyahu wins, the official said, "he's grown over the years. Getting back to the talks with the Palestinians is really the only solution."
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator, compared the election result to "hanging a 'closed for the season' sign on any peacemaking for the next year or so."
"You may get a government good at war-making, not peacemaking," he said. "It's really going to create a major headache for the administration."
While Tzipi Livni has warned that electing Netanyahu would create major problems with the United States, the Washington Post analysis seems to indicate openness towards Netanyahu: "Netanyahu has deep connections to the United States, and few in Israel expect him to do anything that would jeopardize American support. With U.S. mediation, Netanyahu agreed during his tenure as prime minister to a peace deal under which Palestinians received partial control over the West Bank city of Hebron. Analysts say he could be susceptible to U.S. pressure."
Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center and politics professor at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that Netanyahu "will make great efforts to cultivate the president. Our most important relationship is with the U.S., and he understands that… Bibi lived for many years in the U.S. He knows how to speak to Americans. He'll do his best to please the Americans."