Page 2 of
2 DISPATCHES FROM
AMERICA Are the US and Israel heading for a
showdown? By Ira
Chernus
To keep the show going, they must
have enemies. So they seek out confrontations and,
at the same time, "actually welcome isolation", as
the venerable Israeli commentator Uri Avnery says,
"because it confirms again that the entire world
is anti-Semitic, and not to be trusted".
"For the sake of his target voter," writes
another Israeli columnist, Bradley Burston, "it's
in Netanyahu's direct interest for the world to
hate Israelis" and for Obama to be "fed up and
furious with Israel. That is, at least until
Election Day."
Obama owes the Israeli
prime minister nothing after the recent US
election season in which Netanyahu practically
campaigned for Mitt Romney and publicly demanded
that the US threaten an
attack on Iran - a demand
that the administration publicly rebuffed. The
president might finally be fed up, and so in a
mood to ratchet up private pressure on the
Israelis.
If Obama is planning to put more
heat on them, he will undoubtedly wait until after
their election. Then, in the late winter months of
2013, before spring comes and Netanyahu can revive
the possibility of an attack on Iranian nuclear
facilities, the president might well provoke a
showdown.
He has good reason. If he can
secure a definitive halt to settlement expansion,
he can bring the Palestinians back to the table
with a promise to press Israel to negotiate
seriously for a two-state solution. In a chaotic
region where the US seems to be losing ground
weekly, Washington could score sizeable foreign
policy points, especially in improving relations
with regional powers Turkey and Egypt.
And
faced with Netanyahu's new post-election
government, Obama would find himself with a new
diplomatic weapon in his arsenal. Suppose - an
administration aide might suggest to an Israeli
counterpart - the US publicly reveals that it's
allowing, perhaps even pushing, other nations to
isolate Israel.
Some Israeli hawks would
undoubtedly welcome the chance to proclaim Obama
as Israel's greatest enemy and demand that
Netanyahu resist all pressure. But Israeli
centrists - still a large part of the electorate -
would be dismayed, or worse, at the thought of
losing Washington as their last bulwark against
international rejection. The fear that Israel
could become a pariah state, blacklisted,
embargoed, and without its lone invaluable ally
would be a powerful incentive. They'd insist that
Netanyahu show flexibility to avoid that fate.
Netanyahu would find himself caught in a
political battle he could never hope to win. To
avoid such a trap, he might well risk yielding in
private to US pressure, with the understanding
that the two allies would publicly deny any change
in policy and the US would continue to offer
effusive public support. (The Israelis could
always find some bureaucratic excuse to explain a
halt - even if termed a "delay" - to settlement
expansion.)
Battle on the home
front That prospect should be tempting for
Obama, but he has domestic political risks of his
own to weigh.
There's a common
misconception that the administration worries most
about "the Jews". The latest polls, however, show
73% of US Jews supporting Obama's policies on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly as many want
him to propose a specific plan for a two-state
solution, even if it means publicly disagreeing
with Israel. Nor is there too much reason to worry
about Jewish money, since most Jewish contributors
to the Democrats are liberals who are pro-Israel
but also pro-peace.
Nor are Christian
Zionists the big problem. They do have some clout
in Washington, but not enough to make Obama fear
them.
The administration's main worry is
undoubtedly the Republican Party and especially
its representatives in congress. Recent polls by
CNN, the Huffington Post, and Pew indicate that
Republicans are roughly twice as likely as
Democrats to take Israel's side, while Democrats
are about five times as likely to sympathize with
Palestinians. Men, whites, and older people are
most likely to support Israel unreservedly in the
conflict.
In the US presidential campaign,
Republicans were eager to play on the traditional
American belief in Israel's insecurity: an
innocent victim surrounded by vicious Arabs eager
to destroy the little Jewish state. Obama, the GOP
charged, had "thrown Israel under the bus".
But the issue never gained real traction,
an indication that the domestic political climate
may be changing. Another small sign of change: a
relatively weak measure threatening a cutoff of
funding to the Palestinians, which in the past
would have sailed through congress, recently died
in the Senate.
If Obama and the Democrats
come out of the "fiscal cliff" process looking
strong, they will feel freer to put real pressure
on Israel despite Republican criticism. The more
they can keep that pressure hidden from public
view, while mouthing all the old "we stand with
Israel" cliches, the more likely they are to take
the risk.
In such a situation, Israeli
right-wingers might well give their GOP allies
enough evidence to rip off the mask. Then, Obama
would have to speak more candidly to the American
people, though his honesty would surely be well
tempered with political spin.
Our goal, he
might say, has always been to make Israel secure,
something long ago achieved. We've ensured that
Israel maintains such a huge military advantage
over its neighbors, including its Iron Dome
missile defense system, that it is now effectively
safe from any attack. And we'll continue ensuring
that Israel maintains its military superiority, as
we are required to do by law.
But now at
long last, he would continue, we are showing our
friendship in a new way: by bringing Israel and
its Palestinian neighbors to the negotiating table
so that they can make peace. Israelis shouldn't
have to live eternally in a fortress. We refuse to
condemn them to that kind of future. We are
instead taking steps to help them be free to
flourish in a nation that is genuinely secure
because it has made peace. Some may call it tough
love, but let everyone understand that it is an
act of love.
Whether Obama believed such
talk or not would hardly matter. Public theater
deftly meshed with private diplomacy is the key to
peace. And confrontation in 2013 could be the
first step on the path toward it.
Ira Chernus is a TomDispatch
regular and professor of religious studies at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the
author, among other works, of Monsters To
Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin
and the online collectionMythicAmerica:
Essays . He blogs at MythicAmerica.us.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
