[Blitzer:] All right, this just coming into THE SITUATION ROOM from Lipscomb County, Texas, the sheriff's officer there now confirming that another Texas pipeline, an explosion and fire has just occurred. Three people are injured. An unknown number of people are unaccounted for. That's all the information we have right now. We don't have any pictures of this yet, no video, but we're watching this Texas pipeline explosion in Lipscomb County. We will get more information and share it with you. Much more information coming up on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as well. But there's other important news we're following, including more now on that raid on the Gaza flotilla. Is it helping to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States? I spoke about that and a lot more with Israel's ambassador here in Washington, Michael Oren. I want to read to you from "Haaretz" the other day, the Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. And I will read the first couple sentences. Mossad chief Meir Dagan said on Tuesday that Israel is progressively becoming a burden on the United States quote "'Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden,'" said Dagan, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee." You know there are some officials here in the Obama administration who believe that what you're doing now is creating a burden to the United States, as opposed to a strategic asset to the United States.
[Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador To The United States:] First to Meir Dagan's quote, which was taken out of context. And he was quick to say to give you the correct context, he was saying that there were certain people in Washington who thought this. He does not think that Israel's become a liability to the United States...
[Blitzer:] But there are officials in Washington who believe that Israel's becoming a liability.
[Oren:] I don't encounter anybody in the Obama administration who remotely thinks that. There are some people in think tanks running around here in this city who may think that. In the Obama administration, all I do is encounter a tremendous amount of appreciation for the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States, to say nothing of the democratic alliance.
[Blitzer:] Because General Petraeus was testifying. He seemed to suggest that, as you know, the U.S. military's Central Command.
[Oren:] And he, too, said he was taken out of context. He said that a solution to the ArabIsraeli conflict would ease the general conflict between the Middle East and the West. And we certainly agree with that. We sign on to the desire for an end to the conflict between ourselves and the Palestinians, the Arab world, the Muslim world.
[Blitzer:] Here's what the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer wrote in "The Washington Post" over the weekend: "Israel and the United States are seeing the threat environment in the region the ways to deal with the threat environment in increasingly different ways. And for the United States, that means Israel is a problem as an ally heading in a very different direction." You know Dan Kurtzer.
[Oren:] I know and I like him and I respect him.
[Blitzer:] He's no enemy of Israel. He's no opponent of Israel.
[Oren:] Not at all. Not at all.
[Blitzer:] Is that a factually accurate statement that he makes?
[Oren:] It's not. And here's an example we had this week of Israel's interception of this flotilla, the conflict with the 70 paid mercenaries from a radical Islamic organization that encountered our soldiers, beat them. And, during that period and I'm telling from the inside I was involved in this from 2:00 in the morning last Monday morning I never heard a single word of criticism from anybody in this administration. I never heard a word of rancor. No one came to me saying, why are you approaching it this way, instead of that way? The whole approach was, we see we have a problem. Let's work together to try to better facilitate the blockade, because the last thing anybody wants to happen is to have Hamas access to tens of thousands of rockets. It's the it's a dire threat to Egypt, a dire threat to Israel. It's the end of the peace process.
[Blitzer:] A lot of people in Israel don't like President Obama, do they?
[Oren:] I think that President Obama is widely misunderstood in Israel. And I think that, once the president comes to Israel and reaches out to the Israeli people, I think he will prove to be as popular, if not more popular, than any previous president.
[Blitzer:] When's he coming?
[Oren:] Yes. You have to ask that to people in his White House, not the Israeli Embassy.
[Blitzer:] Have they rescheduled Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington yet?
[Oren:] We're looking forward to a visit in the near future.
[Blitzer:] Within weeks?
[Oren:] In the near future.
[Blitzer:] All right, Mr. Ambassador, you have got a lot going on. Thanks very much for coming in.
[Oren:] Thank you.
[Blitzer:] It's very clear what the oil spill's impact on the surface of the Gulf is, but what's going on really right now under the water? And could BP end up making a profit on all that leaking oil it's collecting? We are going to tell you what they're doing with it. Plus, John King, he is on the beach in Alabama right now telling us why at least one business owner is pleased with BP's actions.