Israel's determination unshaken by rifts with allies

With Turkey, Egypt, and maybe even the U.S. losing patience with Israel's policies, the external pressure appears to only harden the isolated nation's resolve to go it alone.

By Edmund Sanders,
Los Angeles Times
9:23 PM PDT, September 10, 2011

Reporting from Jerusalem

Israel has always bet its survival on a few key friendships amid a world of enemies. But lately even its oldest alliances are looking frayed.

An Egyptian mob stormed Israel's Embassy in Cairo on Friday night, forcing the ambassador to flee a country that had reached a landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Turkey is threatening to dispatch warships off Israel's Mediterranean coast in the latest sign of deteriorating ties with the former Muslim ally.

Even American patience may be running thin, as seen in a comment leaked last week by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an "ungrateful ally" whose policies are worsening Israel's international isolation.

Yet rather than spur anxiety or bolster public calls for Israel to change course, the external pressure appears to be only hardening many Israelis' resolve to do what they say they've always done: Go it alone.

(More here.)