"Diplomatic courtesy, especially between two nations as close to one
another as Israel and the United States, demands that America wait until the
democratic process in Israel is fully completed," the report said. "However,
if the figure forming the government has the option of choosing between a
relatively hawkish composition and a relatively dovish one, the
administration could conceivably leak something about its initiatives in
order to hint that a hawkish government might have a problem with Israel's
ally."
Israeli political sources said the United States has interfered in
several elections in the Jewish state. The sources said the most blatant
examples of Israeli interference was in 1992 when then-President George Bush
invited and appeared to endorse Labor Party candidate Yitzhak Rabin.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton did the same to Labor Party candidate
Ehud Barak. Both Barak and Rabin beat their Likud Party rivals — Binyamin
Netanyahu and Yitzhak Shamir.
Netanyahu's Likud has been leading the polls in the last weeks of
Israel's election campaign. Netanyahu has called for the ousting of the
Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and a suspension of U.S. efforts to establish
a Palestinian state.
In contrast, the report said, Obama was expected to show flexibility
toward the Hamas regime as part of an effort to rebuild the Gaza Strip,
damaged from the 22-day Israel-Hamas war that ended on Jan. 18. The report
said Obama would also demand that Israel quickly adopt Arab diplomatic
initiatives as well as further restrict activity in the West Bank.
"None of these will be to the liking of any Israeli government, not even
a Kadima-headed center-left government that includes at least one right-wing
party," the report said. "Therefore, we may expect cloudy to stormy
weather -- depending on the outcome of the Israeli elections — in the
relations between Israel and the United States."
