Thomas Friedman: Tel Aviv owes it to the US to bow to Obama's request

Some of Israel's worst critics are fond of saying that Israel behaves like America's spoiled child. I've always found that analogy excessive.

Say what you want about Israel's obstinacy at times, it remains the only country in the United Nations that another UN member, Iran, has openly expressed the hope that it be wiped off the map.

And that same country, Iran, is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Israel is the only country I know of in the Middle East that has unilaterally withdrawn from territory conquered in war - in Lebanon and Gaza - only to be greeted with unprovoked rocket attacks in return.

Indeed, if you want to talk about spoiled children, there is no group more spoiled by Iran and Syria than Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. Hezbollah started a war against Israel in 2006 that brought death, injury and destruction to thousands of Lebanese - and Hezbollah's punishment was to be rewarded with thousands more missiles and millions more dollars to do it again. These are stubborn facts.

And here's another stubborn fact: Israel today really is behaving like a spoiled child.

At a time when the US president has made it one of his top priorities to build a global coalition to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon, he took the very logical view that if he could advance the peace process in the Middle East it would give him much greater leverage to get the Europeans and UN behind tougher sanctions on Iran.

At the same time, Barack Obama believed - what a majority of Israelis believe - that Israel can't remain a Jewish democracy in the long run if it continues to control 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

Given what Obama has done, and is trying to do, it is hardly an act of hostility for him to ask Israel to continue its now-expired ten-month partial moratorium on settlement-building in the West Bank in order to take away any excuse from the Palestinians to avoid peace talks. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been either resisting this request or demanding a payoff from the US for a brief continuation of the freeze. He is wrong on two counts.

First - I know this is a crazy, radical idea - when America asks Israel to do something that in no way touches on its vital security but would actually enhance it, there is only one right answer: "Yes."

It is a measure of how spoiled Israel has become that after billions of dollars in US aid and 300,000 settlers already ensconced in the West Bank, Israel feels no compunction about spurning an American request for a longer settlement freeze - the only purpose of which is to help the US help Israel reach a secure peace with the Palestinians. Just once you would like Israel to say, "You know, Mr President, we're dubious that a continued settlement freeze will have an impact. But you think it will, so, let's test it. This one's for you."

Yes, I know, Netanyahu says that if he did that then the far right-wingers in his Cabinet would walk out. He knows he can't make peace with some of the lunatics in his Cabinet, but he tells the US that he only wants to blow up his Cabinet once - for a deal. But we will never get to that stage if he doesn't blow it up now and construct a centrist coalition that can negotiate a deal.

Second, I have no idea whether the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has the will and the guts to make peace with Israel. In fact, when you go back and look at what Ehud Olmert, Netanyahu's predecessor, offered Abbas - a real two-state compromise, including a deal on Jerusalem - and you think that Abbas spurned that offer, and you think that Netanyahu already gave Abbas a ten-month settlement freeze and Abbas only entered serious talks in the ninth month, you have to wonder how committed he is.

But the fact is that the team of Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad have built a government is the best the Palestinians have ever had. Given this, Israel has an overwhelming interest to really test whether this Palestinian leadership is ready for a fair and mutually secure two-state solution.

That test is something the US should not have to beg or bribe Israel to generate. This moment is not about Obama. He's doing his job. It is about whether the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are up to theirs. Abbas is weak and acts weaker. Netanyahu is strong and acts weak. It is time for both to step it up.