Obama vs. Netanyahu?

Via Andrew Sullivan, Haaretz’s Aluf Benn reports on some preemptive Obama administration brushback to members of Congress who’d take an anti-peace process position at the (real or presumed) behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In recent weeks, American officials have briefed senior Democratic congressmen and prepared the ground for the possibility of disagreements with Israel over the peace process, according to information recently received. The administration’s efforts are focused on President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, which now holds a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The preemptive briefing is meant to foil the possibility that Netanyahu may try to bypass the administration by rallying support in Congress.

On the one hand, these kinds of stories are often overblown — no disrespect to Benn. But assuming it’s true, isn’t it in Israel’s interest to do whatever it can to avoid a chill in relations with the United States?

The United States is Israel’s great-power protector on the world stage, an absolutely indispensable ally. If the Obama administration is signalling to Israel that things won’t go well if it starts lining up Capitol Hill pressure, shouldn’t the Israelis consider it to be in their best interest to take the hint?

Mark C. Eades

I suspect that if Bibi Netanyahu attempts to bully the Obama administration he may they may find Congress far less willing to go along than in the past. It seems to me that there is a trend in Washington and among the U.S. public these days toward a realization, at last, that America's interests and Israel's are not necessarily identical. During Israel's latest killing spree in Gaza there seemed to be far less noise about Israel's "right to defend itself" coming out of Congress than we have all grown accustomed to hearing. In the Israeli press many have observed that America's traditional obeisance to Israel appears as though it may be on the wane, particularly as America moves to the left and Israel moves to the right. In the U.S. press Netanyahu's coverage since his victory in the recent Israeli election has ranged from lukewarm to negative, leaning more negative since his foreign minister appointment of far-right settler leader Avigdor Lieberman, whose extreme views and growing influence in Israel worry many moderate Israelis. Netanyahu is well-known as an arrogant thug who treats U.S. presidents as though they were his personal errand boys and for using his many friends in Congress against the White House to manipulate U.S. policy in the Middle East. Should he attempt to do the same with the current administration, he will find our new president a more-than-worthy opponent. Others have underestimated Obama in the past.

Thomas

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington, ~page 269 of The 5000 Year Leap.

“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson

bob

You're positing a vision that is too manichaean. Israel does indeed need the US, but they're also smart enough to know that they can play on differences in the President's and Congressional visions of the situation in order to gain the needed 'fluidity' in the US position to weather political visions they don't particularly care for.

Spencer Ackerman

Good point.

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