Zvi Barel discusses Israeli Obama bashers in Ha’aretz
Obama did not invent a new American policy. The United States has long held that the settlements are illegal; the same is true for the status of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The Americans are sticking to the same road map drawn up seven years ago, it’s just that Israel apparently didn’t notice that the Palestinians have fulfilled the first article in the document almost completely. Military action against Israel has stopped, even from the Gaza Strip, and an increasingly effective Palestinian force in the West Bank is taking action against terror organizations. Israel, in contrast, has not met its road map obligations and continues to argue over the terms of the agreement – as if it never adopted it. Nor can Israel rely on its demand that the Arab states normalize relations with Jerusalem: The obligation of normalization is conditioned on Israel’s withdrawal from all occupied territory.
This bash “Obama as anti-Israel” tactic is not only manifest in Israel. You can see it in the US as well, in the right-wing blogosphere, in web comments, on Twitter. Barel does not clearly articulate why exactly this tactic will back fire, so I’ll say it for them.
Despite the wishful thinking of the right in America and Israel, Obama will be President for the next eight years. It is incredibly difficult to beat an incumbent, even if s/he is incredibly incompetent and/or corrupt (cf. George W. Bush), which Obama is the opposite of both. It is even more difficult if the opposition doesn’t have anyone credible, competent or honest in a leadership position (cf. the Republican party).
I disagree with Barel’s contention that there are a “tiny number of states that have sought to oppose the United States.” There are many that have and have done so quite successfully, and I’m not talking only about giants like Russia and China. To take one example, Chavez has thumbed his nose at the US for the past eight years quite successfully. But Venezuala is quite different than Israel in several important ways. Firstly, it has oil and so the US needs Venezuala as much as Venezuala needs the US. Second, Chavez, despite strong internal opposition, also has broad internal support. Whatever the US may think of him, the majority of Venezualens like him enough to vote him in by large majoritys several times. Finally, Venezuela has many other powerful allies around the world, including China.
By contrast, Israel is totally dependent of the largess and good will of the US. It has managed to alienate most of the rest of the world, and can’t turn to anyone but the US for support. I have more than once written in this blog that Israel wouldn’t last one day without the support of the United States. Moreover, Netanyahu hardly got elected with the overwhelming support of the Israeli people. In fact, he managed to get into power by the skin of his teeth, with an extremely shaky coalition.
It is a well known cliche that is never a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you. In Israel’s case, being “anti-American” is akin to biting into your life support systems. In their lunatic right wing fantasies, these bashers (including the birthers) believe that Obama is a secret Muslim conspiring with the Arab world to wipe Israel off the map. Those of us who live in the reality based universe, know that Obama is quite close to the US views and policies vis-a-vis Israel that embody mainstream political opinion from the time of Nixon through Clinton. Hence he will never do anything that seriously threatens Israel’s vital security interests. Moreover, he will probably bring a lot less pressure to bear on Israel than the rest of the world might think necessary or prudent.
Obama does seem to have a clear grasp of the complexity of the conflict. He also seems to have a clear grasp of the only path to resolving the conflict: ending the childish yet deadly Palestinian/Israeli squabbling and implementing the world consensus on a two state solution. Let us not forget that the details of ths solution were essentially hammered out in the twilight days of the Clinton administration, and have been emobodied in the Saudi peace initiative and various subsequent UN resolutions that have the backing of every country in the world, incuding the Arab states and Israel. So Obama’s policy essentially boils down to “let’s stop dragging our feet over nonsense and get this thing done.” Hardly controversial or radical.
If the Israeli government insists on biting his hand or even overly dragging their feet, Obama would never do anything that seriously endangers Israel. But if he feels it necessary to achieve his goals, he can make the life of Israeli leaders (and Israelis in general) miserable with a thousand small cuts. Unlike all the economic issues, Obama can pursue his vision on foreign policy without (for the most part) having to placate blue balls dog Democrats or the slightly less pathetic rest of the Democratic congress people (not to speak of “moderate” Republicans – an oxymoron if I ever heard one). So an appeal to Israel’s “friends” in Congress isn’t going to stop Obama from doing what he wants on this particular issue.
In any case, who is going to make this appeal to Congress? The Jewish communal leadership seems firmly behind Obama:
Forty-five minutes at the White House was all it took to crystallize the new paradigm defining the relations among the Obama administration, the Jewish community and Israel.
As Jewish leaders left their July 13 meeting with President Obama — “glowing,” according to one of the participants — it became clear that despite some misgivings regarding the tone Obama has used toward Israel, the bulk of the organized Jewish community is in full support of his peace efforts, including his demand for a complete freeze of Jewish settlements on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Furthermore, the meeting yielded a broad understanding that the administration’s decision to take its dispute with Israel to the public sphere will not be challenged by American Jews.
“I believe the president got the impression that there is broad support within the community for his policies, and some differences on the tactical level,” said Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, after the meeting.
Not very cheery news for the Israeli and American Obama bashers.
Tags: Israeli Politics, US Politics