   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts as he visits the Western
   Wall in Jerusalem on March 18 following his party's victory in Israel's
   general election. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

   President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly 18 months ago that he would
   seek “real breakthroughs on these two issues — Iran’s nuclear program and
   Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

   But Benjamin Netanyahu’s triumph in Tuesday’s parliamentary elections
   keeps in place an Israeli prime minister who has declared his intention to
   resist Obama on both of these fronts, guaranteeing two more years of
   difficult diplomacy between leaders who barely conceal their personal
   distaste for each other.

   The Israeli election results also suggest that most voters there support
   Netanyahu’s tough stance on U.S.-led negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear
   program and his vow on Monday that there would be no independent
   Palestinian state as long as he is prime minister.

   “On the way to his election victory, Netanyahu broke a lot of crockery in
   the relationship,” said Martin Indyk, executive vice president of the
   Brookings Institution and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “It can’t be
   repaired unless both sides have an interest and desire to do so.”

   Aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin, few foreign leaders so
   brazenly stand up to Obama and even fewer among longtime allies.

   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to form a new governing
   coalition quickly after an upset election victory that was built on a
   shift to the right. (Reuters)

   In the past, Israeli leaders who risked damaging the country’s most
   important relationship, that with Washington, tended to pay a price. In
   1991, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir opposed the Madrid peace talks,
   President George H.W. Bush held back loan guarantees to help absorb
   immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Shamir gave in, but his
   government soon collapsed.

   But this time, Netanyahu was not hurt by his personal and substantive
   conflicts with the U.S. president.

   “While the United States is loved and beloved in Israel, President Obama
   is not,” said Robert M. Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
   Relations. “So the perceived enmity didn’t hurt the way it did with Shamir
   when he ran afoul of Bush in ’91.”

   Where do U.S.-Israeli relations go from here?

   In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s elections, tensions between the
   two sides continued to run hot. The Obama administration’s first comments
   on the Israeli election came with a tough warning about some of the
   pre-election rhetoric from Netanyahu’s Likud party, which tried to rally
   right-wing support by saying that Arab Israeli voters were “coming out in
   droves.”

   “The United States and this administration is deeply concerned about
   rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab Israeli citizens,” White House
   press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. “It
   undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to
   our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and
   Israel together.”

   Earnest added that Netanyahu’s election-eve disavowal of a two-state
   solution for Israelis and Palestinians would force the administration to
   reconsider its approach to peace in the region.

   Over the longer term, a number of analysts say that Obama and Netanyahu
   will seek to play down the friction between them and point to areas of
   continuing cooperation on military and economic issues.

   “Both sides are going to want to turn down the rhetoric,” Danin said. “But
   it is also a structural problem. They have six years of accumulated
   history. That’s going to put limits on how far they can go together.”

   The first substantive test could come as early as this month, when the
   United States hopes that it can finish hammering out the framework of an
   agreement with Iran.

   Netanyahu strongly warned against making a “bad deal” during his March 3
   address to a joint meeting of Congress, an appearance arranged by
   Republican congressional leaders and criticized by the Obama
   administration for making U.S.-Israeli relations partisan on both sides so
   close to the Israeli election.

   If a deal is reached and does not pass muster with Netanyahu, he is likely
   to work with congressional Republicans to try to scuttle the accord.

   “The Republicans have said they will do what they can to block a deal, and
   the prime minister has already made clear that he will work with the
   Republicans against the president,” Indyk said. “That’s where a clash
   could come, and it’s coming very quickly.”

   The second test — talks with Palestinians — could be even more difficult.
   In his September 2013 address to the United Nations, Obama hailed signs of
   hope.

   “Already, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have demonstrated a willingness
   to take significant political risks,” Obama said in his speech.
   Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “has put aside efforts to
   shortcut the pursuit of peace and come to the negotiating table. Prime
   Minister Netanyahu has released Palestinian prisoners and reaffirmed his
   commitment to a Palestinian state.”

   Today, the signals could not differ more. The Palestinian Authority has
   said that after it joins the International Criminal Court at The Hague on
   April 1, it will press war crimes charges against Israel for the bloody
   Gaza conflict during the summer. Israel, which controls tax receipts, has
   pledged to punish the Palestinian Authority by freezing its tax revenue.

   The United States, which gives hundreds of millions of dollars of economic
   aid to the Palestinian Authority, would be caught in the middle. It has
   been trying to persuade both sides to stand down, but Netanyahu’s
   declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch makes
   that more difficult.

   “Now it’s hard to see what could persuade the Palestinians” to hold up on
   their ICC plans, Indyk said. “That has nothing to do with negotiations,
   but if both sides can’t be persuaded to back down, then they will be on a
   trajectory that could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority
   because it can’t pay wages anymore.

   “That could be an issue forced onto the agenda about the same time as a
   potential nuclear deal.”

   [IMG]

   Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has
   covered economics, China, foreign policy and energy.
