Will Cuba deal be bad for Israel?

Jewish-American aid worker Alan Gross arrived home to celebrate Chanukah after five years in a Cuban prison, prompting the Jewish world to both celebrate and breathe a collective sigh of relief. But analysts say Gross’s humanitarian release and the subsequent U.S.-Cuba prisoner swap have little to do with the prisoners and everything to do with the Obama administration’s final two years — and the reverberations might be felt as far away as the Middle East.

U.S.-Cuba relations, which are being thawed by a loosening of travel and trade restrictions, have been a stitch in America’s side ever since the U.S. put its first embargo on the Caribbean nation in 1960. Each year from its 46th to 60th sessions, the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the American commercial, economic, and financial embargo, with only Israel voting against the condemnation.

Now, with two years left in office and a below-average approval rating (according to Gallup polling), President Barack Obama is “looking for a legacy,” said Washington-based lawyer Robert Muse, who has decades of experience in U.S. laws relating to Cuba.

Muse explained that many presidents choose to seek their legacies in the realm of foreign affairs because such moves are met with significantly fewer challenges and constitutional hurdles than those relating to domestic affairs. In 1972, for example, Richard Nixon was the first president to visit the People’s Republic of China, which at the time the U.S. considered a foe. That visit ended 25 years of estrangement. Muse said that although Nixon was swept from office shortly thereafter with the Watergate affair, he is always credited with China.

Piero Gleijeses, professor at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said he attributes rapprochement with Cuba to Obama’s “new lease on life” since the Democrats’ defeat in November’s midterm elections gave him the “political courage” to tackle tough challenges that previously seemed “too politically costly. … Now he seems more lively and confident.”