By John Ballard
Right Web is a program of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that
monitors organizations and individuals -- both in and out of government
-- that promote militarist U.S. foreign and defense policies, with a
special focus on the �war on terror� and the Middle East. Right Web aims
to foster informed public debate about these policies with feature
articles and profiles of individuals and organizations that examine
political discourses and institutional allegiances over time.
As the dust settles from the latest diplomatic tiff between the administration and Benjamin Netanyahu, Leon Hadar puts together a historic narrative of US-Israeli relations. With No Tea Party for "Bibi" Dr. Hadar's terse, witty summary of US policies from Reagan to the present explains how the Prime Minister of Israel got the wrong impression of what he could and could not get away with. I don't find much here to argue with.
Netanyahu was forced to play diplomatic poker with a weaker hand and against a more assertive U.S. president, who was pressing Israel to make substantial reductions to its settlement plans in East Jerusalem....
That �Bibi� arrived in Washington just in time to witness the aftermath of a historic political confrontation over the course of U.S. domestic policy was no coincidence. An obsessive consumer of Washington news and gossip�much of it filtered to him through the lens of rightwing media and phone conversations with the likes of Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer�Netanyahu likely thought he was going to meet with the U.S. president just as the Age of Obama was coming to an end.
[...]
Watching Bibi massaging his political message to Americans�including at a meeting of evangelical pastor John Hagee�s Christian�s United for Isreal in Jerusalem on the eve of Vice President Joe Biden�s fateful visit to Israel in early March�it seemed as though the prime minister was running for office in the U.S. Congress, as the distinguished representative from the state of Israel. ...
THE POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL LOVE AFFAIR between Netanyahu and the neocons goes back to the Reagan presidency and the final years of the Cold War, when Bibi served as Israel�s representative to the United Nations and then as ambassador to the United States. Members of the first generation of the neoconservative movement�including the likes of Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, and Max Kampelman�were occupying top foreign-policy positions in the administration. For Israel�s ruling Likud Party, the policies of the Republican Party seemed to offer the country time to consolidate its hold on the West Bank and Gaza as it encouraged a receptive Washington to view the Arab-Israeli conflict through a Cold War lens.
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IN 2009, NETANYAHU RAN FOR A SECOND TERM as prime minister on a platform of burying the corpse of the peace process and expanding Jewish settlements. Bibi�s winning coalition included members of the nationalist and ultra-orthodox fringe of Israeli politics. However, the coalition was not complete�Netanyahu and his neocon friends had counted on the election of their political ally, Sen. John McCain, as well as the possible selection of Sen. Joseph Lieberman as vice president (or secretary of state).
Instead of the Mac-Bibi dream team, the U.S. elections presented the Likud-neocon faction with their worst nightmare�a president who was calling for negotiations with Iran and Syria, reiterating his commitment to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and appointing Mideast advisers like George Mitchell who were not beholden to Israel (while relegating those who were, like Dennis Ross, to less influential posts).
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Netanyahu may have concluded that he had gained the upper hand in the diplomatic duel with Obama, leading him to test U.S. resolve by giving a green light to a new ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab part of the city that most observers assumed would become part of a new Palestinian state. ...
The dispute over the settlements, however, did not reach a crisis point until Vice President Biden�s visit to Israel in early March, when the Israeli government made an ill-timed announcement about the construction in Seikh Jarrah. Thus was ignited the most dramatic crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations since 1991, when President George H. W. Bush threatened to punish Israel unless it stopped settlement expansion in the occupied territories. ...
It is doubtful that current tensions between the two countries will lead to a long-term divorce. Support for Israel in Congress remains strong, and Obama and the Democrats have a huge stake in maintaining the commitment of Jewish voters. However, it is clear that Bibi�a.k.a. Congressman Netanyahu (R-Israel)�will have to reassess his failed strategy of counting on U.S. rightwing allies to counterbalance the pressure from the president. Otherwise, Israeli voters may decide to replace their �representative� to Washington with a more centrist figure.
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