To the United States Israel is different: both countries have a special relationship since the creation of the Israeli State in 1948. It is not an insignificant fact that during a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Mitt Romney promised that the first country he would visit if he was elected President, would be Israel.

Jim Zanotti, specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, wrote in a CRS Report for Congress dedicated to the relations between the United States and Israel: “Since Israel’s founding in 1948, successive U.S. Presidents and many Members of Congress have demonstrated a commitment to Israel’s security and to maintaining close U.S.-Israel defense, diplomatic, and economic cooperation. U.S. and Israeli leaders have pursued common security goals and have developed close relations based on common perceptions of shared democratic values and religious affinities.”

Both nations signed a free trade agreement in 1985, and the United States is Israel’s most important trading partner. Israel is the United States’ most important ally in a very conflictive area of the world, the Middle East.

But in recent years relations have become less fluid and even tense during some periods, like in 2011 when the United States government tried to press Israel to fulfill their promise of Palestinian independence within the next few months.

The United States didn’t get the expected reaction from Israel: Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response was an absolute no, so all hopes that Palestinian independence might finally come, simply vanished. This did not bode well in the White House, even though President Obama told Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, that the United State would veto any United Nations proposals to recognize Palestinian statehood.

The last diplomatic struggle between the United States and Israel concerns Iran and its nuclear program. Prime Minister Netanyahu is pressuring the United States for a stronger policy against an Iranian nuclear program, based on economic sanctions to force immediate shut-down of the nuclear program. Israel demands that Iran agree to halt all its enrichment of uranium in the country, a demand that Iran is not willing to meet. The White House also rejected the Israeli demands and decided to stick with the economic sanctions plan.

The United States’ support of Israel has caused an anti-American reaction in some Arab countries, like Jordan, Lebanon and Sudan, were American flags have been burned and diplomats have even been killed. Even with all the political and economic cost it carries, the United States will still support Israel, which is proven by the Pentagon’s announcement in May to send $70 million dollars to Israel to help it enhance its missile defense system.

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The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters on Saturday that he expects the Palestinian application for full United Nations membership to be seriously considered by the Security Council members. At a speech to the General Assembly on Friday, Abbas pressed for the recognition of an independent Palestinian State alongside the Israeli State.

The Palestinian leader has been expressing his government’s desire to move forward on the matter of independence for some time, to the great irritation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The bid for statehood reflects Abbas’s lack of confidence in the US-sponsored peace talks after 20 years without tangible results, and he is now taking a diplomatic step without the oversight of the Israel-American alliance. Furthermore, the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied land that Palestinians hope to constitute their future state is another strong incentive for Abbas’s request to act now.

In an interview with the pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Mahmoud Abbas is quoted for saying that Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is the ‘most inflexible Israeli leader he had ever known’. “With Rabin, Peres, Sharon, Olmert, and Livni, negotiations were possible,” Abbas stated according to Haaretz.com

In response to the Palestinian statehood bid, the so-called Mideast Quartet proposed an immediate restart of peace talks. The Quartet, which comprises the US, United Nations, the European Union and Russia, laid out a timeline for peace talks in which a final status agreement would be reached by December 2012, said Businessweek.com.

But the Palestinians are unlikely to accept the conditions of the proposal because it’s based on negotiations without specifying preconditions. “The Palestinians cannot negotiate any proposal that is not based on 1967 borders and does not ensure a settlement freeze in the West Bank,” said Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the president did not reject the idea of renewed direct negotiations but said he would need to consult his government in Ramallah.

In recent years, the Palestinian people have received growing sympathy from the world community as their objection to the occupation by Israel has moved from terrorist campaigns to nonviolent resistance. Especially in the West Bank has civil demonstrations secured the world’s focus on the plight of Palestinians as opposed to the negative imagery of suicide bombers.

Foreign governments and powerful NGOs have been monumental in the organization of for example “the ‘Nakba’ and ‘Naksa’ day border marches, the weekly Bil’in and Na’lin security fence protests, and, perhaps the most prominent example, the Gaza Flotilla movement,” wrote Daniel Nisman, an Argov Fellow for leadership and Diplomacy at the Inter-Disciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel for The Jerusalem Post.

This development has placed the Israeli government in a tough spot. Recently they were criticized by the UN for using ‘excessive and unreasonable’ violence during the 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla and more importantly, with the rise of non-violent movements in the West Bank, the Israeli argument against Palestinian statehood loses credibility.

Speaking of which, the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman warned that the Palestinian application would “bring us to an altogether new situation and this would have repercussions, severe repercussions,” according to Businessweek.com. Who the recipient of these repercussions will be was unclear.

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