Is Obama treating Netanyahu like Hamas?

Mon, 06/08/2009 - 11:55am

By Christian Brose

Jeffrey Goldberg thinks President Obama has a regime change policy toward Israel. I would put it a bit differently. To me, Obama's approach to Israel seems to resemble Bush's approach to Hamas. By which I mean, insisting that an elected government (in both cases, clearly not the administration's preference) either make fundamental changes to its behavior -- or collapse under the weight of its own domestic political contradictions and inability to govern.

There are differences, to be sure -- the most obvious being that Hamas is a terrorist organization (among many other things), and Israel obviously is not. (Obama has never conflated the two.) And of course, the Obama administration is engaging regularly with the Netanyahu regime and reaffirming the U.S. alliance with Israel. It's also true that Obama is insisting that Hamas meet the same three conditions that Bush did in order for the United States to have any dealings with it, and he has never stated publicly that he wants Netanyahu's government to fail if it won't change its behavior on settlements. But then again, Bush and company were careful not to say that about Hamas either.

Still, what Obama seems to be doing with Israel is much the same as what Bush tried to do with the Hamas government: demand a major change in behavior as a condition for diplomatic progress that, if not met, presumably bears consequences. And though Obama has brushed off talk of consequences at this time, he hasn't rejected the idea. Indeed, his advisors have speculated on background about what measures might be considered, including less forthcoming U.S. support for Israel at the United Nations.

The simple act of pushing a foreign government, be it friend or foe, to change its behavior in ways that benefit U.S. interests, however you define them, is not inherently illegitimate. It wasn't when Bush pressed Hamas, and it isn't now when Obama is pressing Israel. That's just diplomacy. It would be illegitimate if Obama were jeopardizing Israel's security, but demanding a settlement freeze is not that. What's distasteful is that the Obama administration is publicly lecturing a U.S. ally at the same time it insists that public lectures don't get us anywhere -- advice that seems only to apply thus far to non-allies like Russia, China, Egypt, and other authoritarian states with fragile sensibilities.  

And that's the real question: Will this work? Clearly, the Hamas government has neither changed its behavior nor fallen, but this doesn't prove that one or the other won't still happen. One hopes that it will, since Obama seems to be pursuing the same approach. When it comes to Israel, though, it needs to prepare for the day that it will withdraw from the vast majority of its settlements in the West Bank, and I think Israeli leaders take the greatest risks to make peace when they are confident that the United States is firmly behind them. Right now I don't think that dynamic exists.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether Netanyahu's major speech next week can help him square this tough circle he's in.

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What If?

by Zathras on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 2:28pm

Sympathetic though I am to the point about lecturing in the abstract, the point in practice here is incomplete without comparison to the alternative.

This alternative has been given more than a full trial by a succession of American administrations that have stated that West Bank settlements are unhelpful and watched as they were built and expanded anyway. This inevitably gave most people in the region the impression that the American government did not mean what it said on this issue, and moreover that Israeli governments could make commitments to Washington about settlements while still accomodating pro-settlement factions in Israeli domestic politics, the latter trumping the former every time.

The Obama administration is clearly betting that Netanyahu's government will yield on settlements rather than risk an open rift with the United States. It's the right bet to make -- negotiations will be stillborn as long as West Bank settlements continue to grow as if they were already part of Israel proper -- but Obama would face his own credibility test if Netanyahu decided to try hanging tough.

Suppose Netanyahu stuck with the pro-settlement crowd in Israel and refused to back down on the "natural growth" loophole. It would be an option he would have to consider, since anti-settlement Israelis probably wouldn't have much use for him as prime minister, and if he were able to make it stick within Israeli politics Obama would have to make a choice I don't think his administration has quite worked out yet. Would he respond by doing nothing, engaging in a war of words with Tel Aviv, trying to attach conditions on American aid to Israel, or attempting something else?

Obama has already taken greater risks with the pro-Israel groups in the United States than any of his recent predecessors did on settlements, and it's a relief to have a President not content to subcontract American policy in the region to the Israeli government. Obama has not, however, yet been forced to show his cards. He's raised Netanyahu, hoping that time will convince the Israelis that his hand is stronger than it may actually be.

Bad Comparison

by wolfboy on Tue, 06/09/2009 - 4:13pm

Well yes, Obama's treatment of the Israeli government is just like Bush's treatment of Hamas, give or take support for an armed insurrection to overthrow the government. Of course you acknowledge that there are differences and that your real point was not to draw a comparison (why then did you feel it necessary to suggest a comparison in the first place?).

Your suggestion that the chances of Israel making peace would be better right now if they felt that the US was firmly behind them seems, I must say, rather delusional in light of Netanyahu's unwillingness to even endorse a two-state solution in concept.

Come on - the US should have cracked down on settlements a very long time ago. Better late than never.

Israel has had little desire

by J Thomas on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 9:00pm

Israel has had little desire to make peace when the USA was firmly behind them. There's no reason to think they'd feel more peaceful if the USA was not firmly behind them. It's just something to deal with.

For israel, the risks from peace are far greater than the risks from war -- provided no arab nation ever gets nuclear weapons. So it makes sense to put all the emphasis on making sure that no arab or muslim nation ever gets nukes, and forget about peace. But the USA is far better off with a middle east peace. We'd be better off if no middle east nation had nukes, but we can't put many of our eggs in that basket.

It looks like an impasse to me. I don't see a good way out of it. A good way out would be for the israeli people to want peace enough to risk the danger they'd become just another nation that doesn't deserve or need a special alliance or special aid. (Israel as "just another nation" might entirely lose its morale.) It doesn't seem plausible to me that they'd do this.

A bad way out would be for the US people to suffer a terrorist incident etc and decide that israel is completely justified in whatever they do and deserves our total support no matter what. That might be all too plausible if we got say a dirty bomb attack on DC, or perhaps san francisco, with maybe an iranian passport left behind when the suicide bombers are all vaporised.