President-elect Barack Obama could be surprised to discover that the first foreign policy challenge he faces may not come from traditional adversaries, such as Iran or Russia, but from a perceived friend, Israel. If the Likud candidate for Prime Minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, wins Feb elections in Israel Obama may find that this ally can be very prickly. Recall Jimmy Carter’s difficulties with Menachem Begin and George H.W. Bush’s troubles with Yitzhak Shamir. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush apparently decided the best way to get along with Israelis was to unashamedly accommodate Israel, regardless of collateral consequences to US foreign policy.

Netanyahu, who has already served a term as Israel’s Prime Minister, has a history of political confrontation. He may decide to challenge Obama early on, as he did with Bill Clinton. Domestically, it would be easy because during the election, many Israelis viewed Obama sceptically. Some whispered that he was pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab. Netanyahu became famous for his early opposition to the US-backed peace platform of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his successor, Shimon Peres. He was elected in 1996 after a series of suicide attacks that killed scores of innocent Israelis.

On election night, when results came in, Netanyahu’s Likud partisans were celebrating victory amid cheers of “we beat them, we beat them, we beat Labor.” Netanyahu reportedly put a different spin on the celebratory chants, reminding his supporters that the more significant victory was the one over Washington’s ability to dictate the terms of Middle East peace. Educated in America, Bibi’s fluency in English — married to his earlier hard-line anti-Palestinian rhetoric — made him the darling of right-leaning American Jews, as well as some Evangelical Christians. The latter looked at him and concluded he was one of them.

Israel demands elimination of the perceived Iranian threat. If the Israelis were to unilaterally bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, but were only partially successful, the Israelis might force a reluctant Obama to finish the job, thus involving the United States in yet another military engagement in the region at least as serious as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would not be the first time right-wing Israelis manoeuvred an American president into a war of dubious purpose.

Bibi’s commitment to peace with the Palestinians has long been halting and contradictory. Persuading Netanyahu to follow a new American president’s fresh leadership in the

Middle East will not be easy if for no other reason than that Jerusalem and Washington’s interests simply do not run on parallel tracks. During the Clinton years, Netanyahu was urged to take serious risks to secure peace. He rebuffed that pressure, once reportedly expressing fears of being assassinated.

Bibi is now the battle-hardened veteran of other failed peace negotiations. Compared with Obama, Netanyahu surely fancies himself a senior statesman and a realist. But so far during Israel’s election campaign, he seems primarily occupied with trying to “occupy the centre” rather than offering any fresh vision. Again, he is deferring any constructive policy for a Middle East settlement to someone else. — The Christian Science Monitor