by Zhang Yanyang, Huang Heng

    JERUSALEM, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Israel's parliament approved the government of second-term Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Tuesday.

    As one of Israel's largest government in history being sworn in, Israeli analysts expected the more dovish U.S. President Barack Obama's administration would be unlikely to increase pressure on Israel's most right-leaning regime in over a decade.

    BOTH FOCUS ON ECONOMY

    The economic issue will no doubt be the prime concern of both new Israeli government and the Obama administration in the first place.

    "The change from Bush administration to the Obama administration is not a usual transition," Menahem Blondheim, professor of American Studies at Hebrew University told Xinhua.

    "The economic problem is so dominant. Clearly everything will take shape according to the success and the momentum of the administration in terms of taking care of the economic problem," he said.

    He noted that the Obama administration still had to establish a clear perspective and program concerning international affairs in general and the Middle East in particular.

    "Between economic and international policy, the proportion in terms of looking at economic matters is skewed and things are very much on hold," Blondheim said.

    The outcome of the elections of Israel's 18th Knesset on Feb. 10 positioned the country's ruling centrist Kadima party and the right-leaning Likud led by Netanyahu in a head-on race.

    When Kadima, which had won the elections by a single mandate, failed to cobble together a coalition, President Shimon Peres gave Netanyahu the nod to form the country's new government.

    Netanyahu, who served as Israel's 9th prime minister from June 1996 to July 1999, would also face troublesome economic problem after Tuesday's inauguration.

    The Jewish country's state budget was already headed to a deficit of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars this year, as a result of falling tax receipts and the costs resulting from Operation Cast Lead and other past and future demands from the defense establishment, according to local daily Jerusalem Post.

    Meanwhile, Netanyahu, who has helped lift the Israeli economy out of a recession while serving as finance minister from 2003 to 2005, hoped to boost the Palestinian economy as part of his plan to use "financial peace" as a catalyst to "diplomatic peace."

    NO INDICATION, NO FRICTION?

    Even though Netanyahu promised to remain a "partner in peace" with the Palestinians, some analysts speculated that the new prime minister's reluctance to endorse the outgoing cabinet's commitment to the 15-month-old, U.S.-sponsored Annapolis peace process could cause some friction with President Barack Obama's administration down the line.

    U.S. Secretary of State Clinton Hillary had said during her first visit to the Middle East in early March that she intends to follow her husband former President Bill Clinton's efforts to try to clinch a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

    Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, said in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that the January stand-off in Gaza was a failure, a waste of time, resources and lives, which, as a consequence, left Israel in a position where it is far less able to make peace.

    Given that the military operation against Hamas failed to stop rocket attacks on Israel, he said Netanyahu's stand against an independent state may strengthened and creating more of a rift in U.S.-Israeli relations.

    But other analysts argued that, as Obama administration had not made any clear statements of intent concerning its policy on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and did not give any clear indication of its ability to change the conditions on the ground, Israeli new government had no choice but "wait and see."

    Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, told Xinhua that "the Obama administration is not going to change (Lebanese) Hezbollah or Hamas. It is not going to change the Palestinian (National) Authority. You have to give evidence that something is ripe for change, and that local factors will go along with it."

    U.S. SUPPORT IS FUNDAMENTAL

    Blondheim believed that there would not be any significant change in the relationship between Israel and the United States under the new Netanyahu-led government.

    "There is a lot to the political circumstances built on the deep-seated affinities between America and Israel," Blondheim said. "The support for Israel as a democracy and its national experience, which resonates ideologically and politically with Americans, is pretty fundamental."

    He noted that the Obama administration did not represent a sweeping ideological transformation on the basis of which issues are addressed.

    "The systemic approach is different but the fundamental values that energize American politics cannot be revolutionized or dramatically transformed," he said.

    Moreover, Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat, blamed some analysts to make a lot of noise and a lot of smoke trying to block the U.S.-Israel ties.

    He noted that many of the issues being scrutinized as obstructive to the elusive peace process under the right-wing Netanyahu government were approved by the so-called centrist Kadima administration.

    "They are jumping the gun in predicting a future problem. There was an announcement of a settlement expansion in the Etzion block (E1 Project) that was approved by then Defense Minister Ehud Barak and was obviously an initiative by Barak and Olmert," Ben-David told Xinhua, referring to the historical settlement in the Judean hills east of Jerusalem.