The visit to Washington this week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes at a tense time in US-Israeli relations. Yet everyone will take great care to be extremely polite and try to say just the right thing.
It feels a bit like an awkward family gathering where no one dares mention a recent, serious row between relations and is desperately pretending there is nothing wrong. But the truth is that the recent announcement of increased settlement building in East Jerusalem, made public whilst the US vice-president Joe Biden was in Israel on an official visit, embarrassed and infuriated America no matter how much people in Washington try to insist they are still the very best of friends.
After that announcement American newspaper columnists said the American eagle looked toothless (interesting mixed metaphor) because President Obama has already had to back down once on his insistence that all settlement activity cease completely.
He won’t like that. Or the message it sent to the Arab world. And Obama’s senior aides, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are hardly likely to have forgotten that Bibi Netanyahu called them “self hating Jews” last summer.
On Monday I spoke to Sandy Berger who was President Bill Clinton’s national security advisor and he said – diplomatically – that he hopes the whole episode will make the Israelis sensitive to the fact that actions in Jerusalem can be extremely disruptive. No one wants to much more critical than that in public
When President Clinton himself first met Netanyahu in 1996 he is supposed to have said afterward “Who the f*** does he think he is? Who is the F***ing superpower here?”
His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, may have had similar emotions when she had to read the riot act to Netanyahu herself last week.
In a telephone call she apparently demanded certain reassurances and actions from Israel to make up for this incident – the details of which have not been made public.
From my conversation with Mr Berger it sounds as though they did manage to get a commitment from Israel that the upcoming proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians will now be “substantive” not just “procedural”. And that we may soon have some easing of the Israeli restrictions on Gaza.
“Let’s keep our eye on the ball” Berger told me – meaning the most important thing is to get meaningful talks on the peace process started again and not let anything distract from that. That’s what President Obama will doubtless be focusing on when he meets Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.
Fresh from his victory on healthcare reform he would love to be able to now press ahead with some substantial progress in some of his foreign policy goals.
And he always said he wanted to focus on the middle east from the very start of his presidency not just try to tackle in his last few months in office as so many other American presidents have done.
But first he has to put aside the family squabble that started in Jerusalem and hope it will be ended in Washington this week.