The new US president´s dramatic global policy shifts have easily dwarfed the knotty Israeli-Palestinian peace issue handed down from one US president to the next over decades. Barack Obama´s outstretched hand to Venezuela´s Hugo Chavez, Iran´s best friend in the Americas, on April 17, at the summit of American leaders in Port of Prince, made the talk surrounding Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell´s mission to Jerusalem and Ramallah this week sound eerily like voices from the past.

After talking to Mitchell, Israel´s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak tried the usual bromides: They protested that Jerusalem´s ties with Washington and Jerusalem were as strong as ever and they would work together toward an agreed solution for the Palestinian problem.

But those words were lost in the black Iranian cloud hanging over the relations.

Barack Obama has set his sights and heart on friendship with the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran and their radical allies. The name and policies of the occupant of the prime minister´s office in Jerusalem do not matter - any more than Tehran´s determination to complete its nuclear weapons program in defiance of the world, or even its first A-bomb test in a year or two, for which intelligence sources report Tehran is already getting set.

Washington may believe it can live with a nuclear-armed Iran – a decision probably taken first under the Bush presidency. But Israel cannot, and may have no option but to part ways with the Obama administration on this point. As a nuclear power, Iran will be able to bend Jerusalem to the will of its enemies: Israel will be forced to unconditionally give Syria the Golan plus extra pieces of territory; tamely accept a Hamas-dominated Palestinian West Bank louring over its heartland and let the Lebanese Hizballah terrorize Galilee in the north at will. All three will make hay under Iran´s nuclear shield.

Israel will be stripped of most of its defenses against a radical Islamic Republic anointed by Washington as the reigning regional power and dedicated to its destruction.

Israel is not the only country in peril.

Unlike Israel, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has stuck his neck out, backed quietly by Saudi Arabia, as the only Middle East ruler to stand up to the threat Iran poses to the region directly and through its surrogate, Hizballah. He is openly critical of Washington´s courtship of the revolutionary Islamic republic.

Cairo´s Al Ahram Saturday, April 18, accused Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hizballah, Hamas, al Jazeera TV of a conspiracy to overthrow Egyptian government.

The US president is not daunted by the radicalism or enmity of his new friends. At the Summit of All Americas, Obama greeted Hugo Chavez first, 24 hours after the Venezuelan ruler said: "The United States empire is on its way down and it will be finished in the near future, inshallah!"

Using the Muslim blessing to underline the wish for America´s downfall was no bar to the smile and handshake, any more than Chavez´s close personal and political bond with Iran´s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both have called US leaders devils; the latter has sworn to "wipe Israel off the map."

The Venezuelan ruler recently severed its ties with Israel for no provocation and will host a delegation of Hizballah (internationally branded a terrorist organization) in Caracas.

The only point relevant to President Obama is that Hugo Chavez is co- architect of the joint Russian-Iranian campaign to displace American influence in the southern hemisphere. The US president has opted for winning America´s enemies over with smiles and embraces rather than punishing them like George W. Bush.

Syria is another object of Obama´s charm offensive for extremists regardless of Bashar Assad´s blunt statement Friday, April 17, to the pro-Hizballah Lebanese publication al Akhbar that Damascus will not loosen its strategic ties with Tehran or stop supporting the Lebanese Shiite group [with arms] because Hizballah is dedicated to fighting Israel.

For the first time in years, the administration this week sent a high- ranking delegation to Syria´s independence day celebrations at Washington´s Mandarin Oriental Hotel, headed by Jeffrey Feltman, former ambassador and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs.

The thaw in relations has gone so far that some Washington wags are calling Assad´s capital "Syria on the Potomac."

The American storm besetting the Middle East is leaving Israel´s most vital interests way behind, so that the condition Netanyahu put before Mitchell for progress in peacemaking - that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state, instantly rejected by Palestinian Authority leaders – aroused scant attention in Washington or anywhere else. The Israeli government´s claim that it needed a few weeks to review its policies was taken as a bid to buy time.

Even if the Israeli prime minister should suddenly turn around and line up with Obama´s quest for a Palestinian state alongside Israel and the 2007 Annapolis declaration, and freeze construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the US president would not digress from his course.

As Netanyahu will find when he meets Obama in Washington early next month, Israel is no longer a prime factor in US global policy because America´s Middle East allegiances and alliances have been fundamentally reshuffled. Even Tzipi Livni at the helm in Jerusalem would not divert Obama from his détente with Ahmadinejad, Assad and Chavez.

To gain points with these new friends, Obama´s White House is not above nudging Israel to please them. This week, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Jewish leaders whom he met in Washington that if Israel wants America´s help for thwarting Iran´s nuclear program, it must first start evacuating West Bank settlements.

This was of course cynical claptrap.

Even if every single settlement were to be removed, the Obama administration would not help Israel strike Iran´s nuclear facilities because this would interfere with its drive for friends in the anti- American radical camp.

After ceding Tehran´s uranium enrichment program (and therefore its drive for nuclear arms), Washington would have to forcefully oppose Israeli military action against Iran for the sake of consistency.

US defense secretary Robert Gates made no bones about the administration´s total opposition to any Israeli military action. He went to almost absurd lengths this week to play down the Iranian nuclear threat and Israel´s ability to handle it.

So what options are left to Israel at this juncture?

1. To bow under the Obama tempest until it blows over, in keeping with the old proverb which says that the trees bowing in the wind remain standing. The question is will Israel´s trees still be standing when the storm has passed and, if so, in what strategic environment?

2. To follow the example set by Likud´s first prime minister Menahem Begin in 1981. He stood up to Ronald Reagan´s fierce objections and sent the Israeli Air force to smash the Iraqi nuclear reactor before it was operational, which Saddam Hussein never rebuilt. By following in Begin´s footsteps before it is too late, Netanyahu would change the rules of the game regionally and globally.

(The London Times reported from Jerusalem Saturday that the Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran´s nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government. Two civil defense drills have been scheduled to prepare the population for missiles that could fall on any part of the country without warning.)

3. Israel could go for a more modest target, one of Iran´s faithful surrogates – Syria or Hizballah – to warn Washington that a larger operation is in store for their boss. If the Gaza offensive against Hamas last January was meant to send this message, it failed. Hamas is still the dominant Palestinian power and Barack Obama was not diverted from forging ahead with his policies of rapprochement with Iran and other radical world leaders. (Copyright 2000-2009 DEBKAfile. 04/18/09)