[SEE ALSO: Marc A. Thiessen, WaPO | Why Netanyahu is right to go around Obama to Congress]
Even friends of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are second-guessing his decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner ’s invitation to address Congress next month on the subject of Iran, over loud objections from the Obama administration. The prospect of the speech, those friends say, has sparked a needless crisis between Jerusalem and Washington. And it has put Democrats to an invidious choice between their loyalty to the president and their support for the Jewish state, jeopardizing the bipartisan basis of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Sensible concerns—except for a few things. Relations between Israel and the U.S. have been in crisis nearly from the moment President Obama stepped into office.Democratic support for Israel has been eroding for decades. It was the U.S. president, not the Israeli prime minister, who picked this fight.
Oh, and if there’s going to be a blowout in U.S.-Israel relations, is now really a worse time than later this year, when the Obama administration will have further cornered Israel with its Iran diplomacy?
Because memories are short, let’s remind ourselves of the Ur-moment in the Bibi-Barack drama. It happened on May 18, 2009, when Mr. Netanyahu, in office for just a few weeks, arrived to a White House that was demanding that he endorse Palestinian statehood and freeze settlements, even as the administration was rebuffing Israeli requests to set a deadline for the nascent nuclear diplomacy with Iran.
The result: Within a month of that meeting, Mr. Netanyahu duly endorsed Palestinian statehood in a speech at Israel’s right-wing Bar-Ilan University—roughly the equivalent of Mr. Obama going to a meeting of the Sierra Club and urging its members to get over their opposition to fracking. By the end of the year, Mr. Netanyahu further infuriated his right-wing base by agreeing to a 10-month settlement freeze, which even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged was “unprecedented.”
What did Mr. Netanyahu get in return from Mr. Obama? While the president stuck to his refusal to set “an artificial deadline,” he did concede in a joint press conference that “we’re not going to have talks forever. We’re not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing a nuclear—and deploying a nuclear weapon.”
The promise not to “have talks forever” was made six years ago. Since then, diplomatic efforts have included the 2009 “fuel swap” proposal; the 2010 Brazil-Turkey-Iran declaration; the 2011 Russian “step-by-step proposal”; the 2012 diplomatic rounds in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow; and finally the 2013 “Joint Plan of Action,” a six-month interim deal that is now in its 13th month.
Now Mr. Obama is vowing to veto the bipartisan Kirk-Menendez bill that would end the charade by imposing sanctions on Iran in the event Tehran doesn’t sign an acceptable nuclear deal by the summer—that is, after the third deadline for the interim agreement has expired. The president is also demanding that Democrats rally around him in his histrionic fit over the Netanyahu speech. This is from the same administration that, as Politico’s David Rogers reminds us, never bothered to consult Mr. Boehner on its invitation to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to address Congress in 2011.
This history is worth recalling because it underscores the unpleasant truth about America in the age of Obama. The president collects hard favors from allies and repays them with neglect and derision. He is eager to accommodate the political needs of authoritarian leaders like Iran’s Hasan Rouhani but has no use for the political needs of elected leaders like Mr. Netanyahu. He believes that it is for other statesmen to stake their political lives and risk their national future for the sake of a moral principle—at least as Mr. Obama defines that principle. As for him, the only thing sacred is his own political convenience.
This is the mentality of a peevish and callow potentate. Not the least of the reasons Mr. Netanyahu must not give in to pressure to cancel his speech is that he could expect to get nothing out of it from the administration, while humiliating Mr. Boehner in the bargain.
Mr. Netanyahu also needs to speak because Congress deserves an unvarnished account of the choice to which Mr. Obama proposes to put Israel: either accede to continued diplomacy with Iran, and therefore its de facto nuclearization; or strike Iran militarily in defiance of the U.S. and Mr. Obama’s concordat with Tehran. A congressional vote in favor of Kirk-Menendez would at least make good on Mr. Obama’s unmet promise not to use talks as “an excuse for inaction.”
Above all, Mr. Netanyahu needs to speak because Israel cannot expect indefinite support from the U.S. if it acts like a fretful and obedient client to a cavalier American patron. The margin of Israel’s security is measured not by anyone’s love but by the respect of friends and enemies alike. By giving this speech, Mr. Netanyahu is demanding that respect. Irritating the president is a small price to pay for doing so.
The first and fully anti-American President.
Carter can be excused for being plainly stupid. He had no idea what to do. Did not have any plan of action.
Now he is rewarded with $million from the Islamic states.
Clinton failed to take care of OBL and we ended-up with 9/11 and he get hundreds of million of $ from Arab states.
Barack planed the downsizing of Israel long before he got to power. He remembers fondly his Islamic childhood, he was brainwashed by communists and fanatical Palestinians (E. Said & R. Khalidi).
This is an anti-American cocktail. He openly collaborates with Islamists at the expense of our country and he will be rewarded with hundreds of million of $ too.
I remember someone telling me that it always stinks from the head! It does.
@ Eric R.:
Eric, I have no use for social fakery of any kind. Therefore, I never manifest sympathy, which typically is minor-league stage acting that provides the sympathizer that which he or she imagines as merit points based on what is little or nothing more than a long-standing social custom. Because I like consistency, I do not attend funerals other than those of my own relatives, and I would prefer not to have anyone attend mine, when my time comes.
Internationally, that means I really, truly do not give a damn what the Russians are doing to break up Ukraine. Above and beyond that, there is my consideration of the certainty that Russia can utterly smash Ukraine any time and under any circumstance it chooses.
Moreover, I think that in the long run — and maybe sooner than later — Russia will carve up that country and take back all the parts that are populated extensively with Russians. And when — not if — that time comes, I want Israel on the winning side, which, I am certain, will be Russia. Because good relations with great Russia are infinitely important to Israel and the Jewish nation than with any one of Russia’s pipsqueak former Soviet Socialist republics.
The same applies to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which made the fundamental error of joining the USA-dominated NATO. If and when general war comes, the USA will not begin a nuclear war with Russia to save any or all of them.
The Russians have learned the arts of national patience over the 12 centuries of medieval and modern history. I think the West in general, and my USA will learn national patience the hard way. But in eastern Europe, Russia and the Russian nation will bide their time and they will win.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ NormanF:
I know that last year at the UN, Israel upset the Obama Administration (Aw, poor Bammy!) by being absent at a UN vote to condemn Russia.
On the other hand, Israel should have at least some sympathy for the beleaguered Ukrainians — and yes, I am VERY aware of their history of anti-Semitism (but let’s be honest, it’s not like it was any better in Russia.).
Even given their history, today — outside of the war torn cities of Luhansk, Donetsk and Mariupol, Jews are probably safer these days in both the Ukraine and Russia than in the EU.
@ Eric R.:
@ NormanF:
Eric, I have no sympathy for Ukraine, in which the Ukrainians of 1941-1943 gave extensive assistance to Hitler’s Nazi mass murderers in turning eastern Europe into one of the worst killing grounds of the Jewish nation. Equally important to me, however, is that I want Putin’s action to show NATO for the empty shell that it is, and to help break up the European Union, which, from the standpoint of the Jewish nation and Jewish state, must be regarded as an enemy entity.
Therefore, I fervently hope Putin’s reviving Russia will crack Ukraine like a rotten walnut and take back the southern, southeastern, and eastern parts — which historically formed the Novorus that belonged to the Russian state before there even was a United States of America. As far as I am concerned, and so too for a lot of American conservatives, the USA has no strategic interest in eastern Europe, and is playing a dangerous game working to foment trouble on Russia’s western borderlands. If this keeps up, the time will come when Russia shall retaliate with similar counteractions in Latin American states as far north as Mexico. I have a long memory, Eric, and I distinctly remember that Khrushchev put nuclear-tipped rockets in Castro’s Cuba mainly as a response to the USA putting nuclear-tipped missiles into eastern Turkey near Russia’s borderlands in the Caucasus area.
Norman, I am highly pleased that Netanyahu is planning a visit to Russia. I want Israeli relationships to be grown with as many as possible of the Eurasian powers, led, of course, by Russia, China, and India. That means enhanced industrial and commercial trade relationships now, but possibly mutual defense arrangements some time in the future. Because these are the powers that will dominate the world’s largest single land mass in the not too distant future.
None of this should necessitate or even imply weakened Israeli relations with the USA. But Israel is an independent state, and the Jewish nation has no real allies of note. Both state and nation must have sufficient independence to insure they are nobody’s lapdogs.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ Eric R.:
Netanyahu intends to visit Russia after the elections. Israel is not joining Western sanctions against Russia and its considering inking a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Community.
See more here:
http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150130/1017550093.html
Israel is not as beholden to Obama’s America as people like to think.
Bibi has to back this up with some other action.
As much as I think Putin is a tyrant (who has managed to pull off the impossible and make me at least somewhat sympathetic to the beleaguered Ukrainians), the fact is that he is a good counterweight to the idiocy of the Obama Administration.
Yes, I know about his support of Assad. But I think a high profile visit by Netanyahu to Russia, perhaps with some trade and even defense related agreements, might shock the idiots of the Obama Administration.
Israel need to play realpolitik, not moralpolitik, since the morals of today’s world are so incredibly warped.
Arnold Harris, I assume you agree with me on this one. 🙂
Israel has to show it can stand up for its own interests even it when it angers an American President.
No one likes a doormat. Netanyahu does not have to apologize for being against a US-Iran deal; he simply has to show why that would be bad for the US, its allies and for the world.
Its not simply an argument about the Jews and Israel. In his address to Congress, Netanyahu will be able to make that case to the American people and their elected representatives.