By Michael Wilner, JPost—
Hillary Rodham Clinton is preparing to dramatically shift the tone and tenor of relations with Israel away from a publicly disputatious posture adopted by the Obama administration, according to several of her top aides, who in conversation with The Jerusalem Post outlined, for the first time, her detailed plans for the alliance should she win the White House on November 8.
On the question of Iran, on the challenge of Middle East peace and in bilateral relations between the two countries, Clinton sees an opportunity to turn the page after eight years of turbulence – to bring disagreements in from the cold, back behind closed doors, and to rebuild trust between their leaders and peoples.
Her team describes a former diplomat eager to reassert where Israeli and American interests converge. President Clinton’s focus, they say, will be to reconstitute an environment in which Israelis are willing to follow US leadership, motivated by the belief that tactics from the last administration proved counterproductive to its well-intentioned pursuit of peace.
Their description of Clinton’s vision amounts to a notable rebuke of a sitting president of the same party, whose legacy relies on her success.
“Reestablishing trust is going to be relatively straightforward for her,” Martin Indyk, director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014, said in an interview. “I think President Obama got off on the wrong foot with the Israeli people, and I think that secretary Clinton is determined not to do that.”
IF BARACK Obama ever had a shot at earning the trust of the Israeli people, it may have been extinguished as early as June 4, 2009, in Cairo. Read more:
http://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/Hillary-Clinton/The-coming-shift-Hillary-Clintons-plans-for-Israel-and-Iran-471000