Cut Bibi Some Slack

Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel's prime minister on March 31. Within weeks, the Obama administration launched a high-profile public campaign to confront Israel's new leader on the issue that most divides the two governments: Israel's settlements in the West Bank.

COMMENTS (0) SHARE:

Digg

 

Facebook

 

Reddit

 

More...

It was an unusual way to welcome the new leader of a close friend of the United States. Why did the Obama team veer so sharply off the normal course? Diplomacy toward an ally normally begins with building relations of trust on areas of agreement, and only later engaging discreetly on issues where there are sharp differences. Why instead did the administration team roll out a campaign of diktats, beginning May 28 in front of cameras at a press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister, virtually nailing a decree to Netanyahu's door announcing that President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions," as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it. Why so dismissively brush aside understandings crafted by the George W. Bush's administration, understandings that had achieved a significant reduction of settlement construction albeit not a total freeze? Why would an unnamed source in the administration boast to the Washington Post on June 30, "We have not changed our position at all, nor has the president authorized any negotiating room"?

One explanation for this bizarre behavior is "Yes, we can" syndrome -- the prevailing belief in Washington that this president holds 99 percent of the cards and can get people to do things beyond what normally can be achieved. Even some in Jerusalem believe that Netanyahu cannot say "no" to Barack Obama, especially on the settlement issue where there Israel has little support in Congress and even the American Jewish community is divided and paralyzed.  

The theory that Obama holds the high cards rests on the results that George H.W. Bush got when he confronted a different Likud prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, over settlements in September 1991. Nine months after Bush threw down the settlements gauntlet, Israeli voters ejected Shamir and replaced him with Labor's Yitzhak Rabin, opening the way to the Oslo accords.

But this comparison is misleading. Obama's confrontation is taking place mere weeks after the formation of a new Israeli government, not months before an Israeli prime minister has to face his voters again. What's more, Israeli voters have elected the most conservative Knesset in Israel's history. The parties of the left -- Labor and Meretz -- had 56 seats in 1992, but they have shrunk to 16 seats today. The real pressure on Netanyahu in today's Israel is from the right. If Obama hopes to invigorate the country's moribund left, he's in for a rude shock: the gains it would need to force either new elections or a different coalition more compliant to U.S. demands are daunting.

12NEXT