by Mitchell Plitnick
The obsession in politics and diplomacy with decorum–largely a relic from the past–can easily distract people from the realities of the present. Case in point, the uproar over Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest article in the Atlantic, the headline of which, The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here, would seem important enough to warrant more attention than it has gotten so far.
Instead, the whisper of an unnamed “senior Obama administration official,” who called Netanyahu a “chickenshit,” has occupied headlines. And instead of taking a strong, or even a weak stance on Netanyahu’s repeated declarations about expanding settlement activity everywhere in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the White House has only tried to distance itself from the remark, describing it as “unauthorized” and “inappropriate.”
As Goldberg himself pointed out, the fact that Bibi is a chickenshit is not entirely a bad thing. Whatever else it does, it also makes him quite afraid to back up his rhetoric with action. Even in Gaza this summer, the ongoing slaughter seemed, from Netanyahu’s point of view, to be something that spiraled much further out of control than he had intended. Indeed, his constant shifting of the mission’s goal posts indicated the lack of any sort of planning beforehand. Political pressures kept driving him on, as they do with most of his actions. But at least the “chickenshit” was never going to attack Iran despite his bellicosity, as the United States seems to finally understand.
Being less of a leader and more of a leaf blowing in the political wind is an apt description of Netanyahu, and it is strongly suggested in Goldberg’s piece. But it also applies to the Obama administration, which has repeatedly refused to use the tools it has at its disposal to create real pressure on Israel to, at the very least, desist from its actions that are obviously intended to destroy any possibility of a two-state solution. So, chickenshit cuts both ways.
Maybe Goldberg intended the chickenshit comment to overshadow the rest of his point, maybe he didn’t. But the assertion that we are in a period of crisis for US-Israel relations is a very important one. The question is: are we?
The simple answer is no, but Goldberg is not wrong in suggesting that such a crisis could occur in the near future. One can understand why Goldberg focuses so much on personal clashes. Never in the history of Israel has there been a government that so arrogantly insulted the United States so frequently. Whether it’s Netanyahu, Finance Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, or some other member of the Knesset, anti-American statements have risen to unprecedented levels.
For their part, US officials have been getting just the tiniest bit harsher in their criticism of Israel, while Israeli officials escalate their anti-US rhetoric. And then there’s the endless stories about how much Obama and Netanyahu dislike each other, with Goldberg’s in the lead. The problem, of course, as it is presented in this narrative of interpersonal conflict, is bad communication, or mismatched personalities.
In reality, none of this is really about Bibi and Barack disliking each other. They do, but that is beside the point. It is the direction that Israel has decided to go in that is the problem.
Let’s start off by noting that the degree of the “crisis” is being massively overblown. There is a much bigger problem in Europe for Bibi than there is in the United States. The Europeans are actually threatening to take some action, not just calling Bibi names in whispers to reporters. Sweden’s recognition of Palestine as a state is just a first step in a series of actions that might be on the horizon from Europe, where Israel conducts the biggest share of its trade. When the United States gets to that point, as it has on occasion in the ever more distant past, then we can start wondering if there is a crisis in relations that might cause some small shift in the status quo.
The “chickenshit” epithet can apply to Obama just as much as it can to Netanyahu. He is a president with a non-confrontational style trying to govern with what is, arguably, the most defiant and combative Congress any president has ever had to deal with. And he is dealing with an Israeli government that is pursuing a very different strategy than its predecessors. The Israel of today no longer cares about the majority of the Jewish community in the United States. This Israel, correctly, determined that its ultimate desire to completely thwart a two-state solution and maintain an apartheid system over the Palestinians would never be acceptable to most American Jews. But most US Jews weren’t the ones providing the political power and, more importantly, the funding for congressional campaigns and for settlements in the West Bank.
The Jews that do provide these things, as well as the Christians, are right-wingers, either in their general politics or at least on Middle East policy (including policy toward the entire Arab world, Iran and Turkey). They are now the only ones Israel cares about. More liberal-minded devotees are not, at this stage, providing that much support for Israel, either economically or financially. Those of them who do provide this support will continue to check their otherwise liberal values at the Israeli door. The rest are not, in the estimate of the Netanyahu government, worth the compromises that must be made to garner their support.
In this circumstance, Israel has a freer hand in its actions. While Netanyahu announces more and more building plans in East Jerusalem and other sensitive parts of the Occupied Territories, Republicans, who stand a good chance of controlling both houses of Congress, are not criticizing Israeli actions in the slightest. Instead, as one would expect, they are attacking Obama for his insufficient support of Israel.
In this context, Israeli journalist Roi Ben-Yishai, one of Israel’s best, recently reported on Israel’s “new approach” to the Palestinians. It holds few surprises. Israel is not intending to return to talks, correctly believing they will be futile, and therefore would only make things worse. Israel’s assessment will remain correct until its own positions can be moderated by pressure like that of the Palestinians over the years.
The plan is then to have the quiescent Palestinian Authority (PA) assume control over Gaza and reinforce its control on the West Bank. In other words, marginalize Hamas throughout the Palestinian body politic. Under those circumstances, Israel would end the siege of Gaza and ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank as well. The idea is that the Palestinians can then build a functional economy, which Israel believes will cause the Palestinian people to oppose actions that could draw Israeli military reprisals. I rather doubt that would be the result, but right now, the delays in Palestinian international action imply that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is cooperating with Israel and Egypt on this effort, probably in the hope that this strategy would eliminate Hamas as a political rival.
This seems like another doomed plan, one that harkens back to old Israeli beliefs that Palestinian nationalism will eventually just go away. But we must recognize that this is happening with the silent approval of the United States. Egypt, in particular, would not work with Israel on such a plan if it believed that the United States would object. More to the point, the plan is also intended to provide the US with what it wants most: Palestinian silence. What American policy has always represented is the complete lack of importance placed on the welfare of the Palestinians, or anyone else (including ordinary Israelis) in the region, for that matter. The entire issue is only relevant insofar as it affects more “important” US concerns.
So, the Obama administration will likely allow Israel to proceed with its plans, even if it doesn’t believe those plans are likely to succeed. This is evident in the lack of material response to Israel’s direct challenge to the international consensus on a two-state solution.
The name-calling most recently highlighted by Goldberg merely reflects these disagreements and the fact that the increasingly populist and rightward tilt not only in the Israeli government but also in its population leads to verbose criticism of US officials, up to and including the president. Responses to such insults can be countered by Israel’s power in Congress in a way that more fundamental policy differences cannot. That frustrates some American officials, but it doesn’t provoke any material US response.
If Congress persists in pressuring the administration on its Iran policy, a pressure which most understand as directed by Jerusalem, Obama may well respond through the Palestinian issue. In that case, we might see a more direct counter to Israeli policies, such as a Security Council resolution condemning the settlements or even an “Obama Plan” basing a two-state solution on the 1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem. That would be a turn of events not seen in decades, but Israel has also never worked so hard to undermine US goals on foreign policy matters as it has on Iran.
But make no mistake, if the Palestinians get any respite from the Obama administration it will be because of Israel’s meddling through Congress on the Iran issue. It will not be due to any Palestinian action, much less on the insulting attitude of Israeli officials or the personal dislike between the current Israeli leader and the president of the United States. It is, ultimately, all about policy priorities, not personalities.
]]>by Jim Lobe
After listening to the various statements, press conferences, and background briefings by “senior administration officials,” and initial reactions that followed tonight’s announcement about the interim accord between the P5+1 and Iran, it occurred to me that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may alter his recent course of repeatedly [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
After listening to the various statements, press conferences, and background briefings by “senior administration officials,” and initial reactions that followed tonight’s announcement about the interim accord between the P5+1 and Iran, it occurred to me that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may alter his recent course of repeatedly and quite publicly denouncing the agreement as a “bad” or “very bad deal.” Bibi certainly has shown a pragmatic side in the past, and I suspect we may see it again, particularly because the deal appears to be somewhat tougher than had been expected.
After all, when Jeff Goldberg tweets that “The Israeli government position that any Iran agreement is a bad agreement simply isn’t credible,” even Bibi’s new, hard-line ambassador here, Ron Dermer, has to assess seriously the implications.
So it would not surprise me, at this point at least, if Bibi says that this is not as bad a deal as he had expected and then tries to take credit for the tougher-than-exected terms that it appears to include. That’s the only way he can hope to get a serious hearing at the White House at this point. Moreover, Hollande’s endorsement of the deal has really painted him into a very tight corner. After all, he can’t claim so soon after giving the French president a hero’s welcome in Tel Aviv for Paris’s rejection of the proposed agreement two weeks ago that his “sincere” friend has just signed on to a “sucker’s deal.” And, as has been shown in recent months regarding his fears about the hardening of European opposition to — and increasing exasperation at – Jewish settlements on the West Bank, he has to be careful about giving offense to the EU3, as well as to the White House, however politically weak he may perceive Obama to be at the moment. Indeed, I suspect he may come under pressure from the Euros, Israel’s most important trading partners by far, to keep his mouth shut. Finally, this deal was made, as Wolf Blitzer put it tonight, between Iran and the “international community” in whose name Bibi often purports to speak. To continue to vehemently denounce the deal is to put himself outside that “community,” thus further exposing Israel’s international isolation. With Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain as virtually his only “allies” on this question, his position is not an enviable one.
Of course, none of this means that he won’t try to derail the deal by working with the Israel lobby (which must be very concerned about its own vulnerabilities given both the degree of public support for an Iran deal that the recent Washington Post and CNN polls have shown and comments like Goldberg’s) to get new sanctions legislation through Congress or by resorting to some kind of provocation (short of attacking Iran as he and his ministers have so often threatened to do). But, assuming Iranian compliance with the deal, including the significantly enhanced inspections provisions, I think he’s going to have to be much more discreet than he has been, at least for the time being.
On the other hand, he’s never been a particularly subtle guy.
We’ll see soon enough.
]]>by Daniel Luban
This week, as you’ve probably heard, marks the ten year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Most people who have commented on the milestone have agreed that the war was a catastrophic mistake. But why, exactly, did the Bush administration decide to go into Iraq in the [...]]]>
by Daniel Luban
This week, as you’ve probably heard, marks the ten year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Most people who have commented on the milestone have agreed that the war was a catastrophic mistake. But why, exactly, did the Bush administration decide to go into Iraq in the first place? Even a decade later, there’s still not much of a consensus — although Jim’s piece from 2003, reposted yesterday, provides as good a contemporaneous account as you’ll find. Is there anything more we can say with the benefit of ten years’ hindsight?
I tried to sort through possible war motives in a piece I wrote several years ago. (Space constraints meant that the final version was cut rather heavily, and I’d be happy to provide the original version, which included more evidence and fuller argumentation.) I argued there against the somewhat conspiratorial notion that there was a single “real motive,” concealed from the public and shared by all administration backers. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) argument was clearly far from the whole story, as Paul Wolfowitz himself conceded. But individual actors and factions within the administration had their own reasons for wanting war.
More to the point, the motives tended to overlap: most war-backers would not have said that invading Iraq was desirable to stabilize oil supplies but not to spread democracy, or to improve Israel’s security but not to deter nuclear terrorism. Rather, they tended to hold a rather utopian belief that invading Iraq would further all of these goals simultaneously. For that reason, assessing motives is more a matter of teasing out emphasis and priority than of reaching categorical judgments about which motives were or were not in play.
With all that said, however, I think we can identify at least four relatively distinct motives that played a role. I provide more in-depth evidence in my RightWeb piece, so I’ll just sketch out some of the conclusions here.
Oil. The allegation that Iraq was a “war for oil” was one of the most frequently leveled charges against it, and one that clearly has some legs. (Just yesterday, for instance, Glenn Greenwald touched on the theme.) However, the notion of a “war for oil” is an imprecise one. It can mean two different things, one less plausible and one more so.
The first (and seemingly most widespread) meaning is that the Iraq war was primarily intended to allow the US (or US oil companies) to get their hands on oil reserves located on Iraqi soil. This is largely unpersuasive. There’s evidence (some of which Greenwald cites) that US policymakers such as Dick Cheney hoped that a post-reconstruction Iraq would greatly step up oil production and provide an alternative to Saudi oil, but there’s little evidence that this was regarded as a primary reason for invasion rather than simply a welcome collateral benefit. US oil companies themselves were lukewarm about the invasion, fearing that it might destabilize the region — and indeed, they haven’t been the primary beneficiaries of oil development in postwar Iraq.
The second (and more plausible) meaning is that the Iraq war was centrally concerned with preserving the stability of US oil supplies in the broader Gulf region as a whole. Here, the evidence is stronger: such “wars for oil” have been semi-official US policy since the promulgation of the Carter Doctrine in 1980, and this was certainly a primary motive for the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam Hussein was regarded with more alarm than similarly brutal dictators elsewhere in the world largely because the risks of aggression in a geopolitically vital region like the Gulf were viewed as so much higher. Whether or not protecting the Gulf oil supply from Saddam was the primary reason for war, it was certainly an important one.
Israel. For many neoconservatives in the Bush administration, a major (perhaps the major) reason for ousting Saddam was to improve Israel’s security. Since the 1990s, when several future Bush administration figures prepared the notorious “Clean Break” report for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, neoconservatives had been preoccupied with the notion that regime change in Iraq would touch off a broader regional transformation that would disempower Israel’s opponents in the Middle East.
There are some caveats that should be made. First, although neoconservatives were the leading proponents of war, the broader “Israel lobby” as conventionally conceived did not play a particularly strong role (a clear point of contrast with the current campaign for war against Iran). Second, the fact that many in the US pushed for war out of Israel-related concerns did not mean that Israelis themselves were necessarily strong proponents — although figures on the Israeli right with strong ties to neoconservatives, such as Netanyahu himself, certainly were.
Even if neoconservatives inside and outside the administration were motivated in large part by concerns about Israeli security, this still doesn’t answer the question of how influential they were. After all, we should be wary of turning the top leadership (especially Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) into mere vessels for neoconservative designs. As suggested below, I don’t think the Israel motive was paramount in the minds of this top leadership, although it was undoubtedly present. On the other hand, we shouldn’t downplay the instrumental role that neoconservatives played in setting the terms of debate over Iraq both before and after 9/11.
Payback. “We have been hit very hard,” a Cheney adviser told journalist Barton Gellman, “and we needed to make clear the costs to those who might have been supporting or harboring those who were contemplating those acts.” Or, as Jonah Goldberg (channeling Michael Ledeen) put it more bluntly, “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” On this line of thought, 9/11 required the US to make an example out of someone to demonstrate its continued strength. The Taliban was too small and weak to serve this purpose, but Saddam — who had already been in the crosshairs for unrelated reasons — fit the bill nicely.
Many people seem hesitant to attribute the invasion to such a seemingly subjective and psychologized motive; it sounds more hardheaded to attribute it to a material interest like oil. But I think we underestimate the strength of this motive at our own peril, and that — particular for Cheney and Rumsfeld, who to my mind were the two critical decision-makers — it may even have been the primary one.
Democracy. The democracy promotion motive has become somewhat overemphasized in recent years, for several reasons. In the run-up to war, it was the motive that appealed most to pro-war liberal opinion-makers in the media, and thus received a disproportionate amount of discussion. Once the WMDs failed to materialize, the Bush administration fell back on democracy promotion as its main justification for the war, a trend that reached its height in Bush’s 2005 second inaugural address. And once the war went south, it became the easiest line of attack for critics who were eager to cast themselves as hardheaded skeptics and the Bush administration as wide-eyed utopians.
The fact of the matter is that democracy promotion was probably not the central motive for most of the war’s architects. This isn’t to say that it was always or totally insincere, however. Most notably, Bush himself seems genuinely to have bought into his own rhetoric. And although many (myself included) expected the administration simply to set up a friendly dictator to rule over postwar Iraq, this isn’t the course they followed or even really attempted. Whatever the many flaws of Nouri al-Maliki’s government, it is by no means a US puppet, and it did come to power through something resembling a democratic process (backed, to be sure, by a good bit of force).
To what extent were these four motives mutually exclusive? We should note, first of all, that the latter two flow in some sense out of the first two. The US had for decades regarded the Middle East as a geopolitically vital region, due both to its reliance on Gulf oil and its interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This intense focus on the Middle East helps explain why, in the significantly transformed post-9/11 landscape, the US seized on Saddam Hussein (rather than a figure with more significant ties to terrorism) as the proper test case for its efforts both at restoring deterrence and at democratic transformation. The hope was that success in Iraq would reverberate throughout the region.
At the same time, however, the tension between the final two motives (between payback and democracy) helps indicate some of the contradictions of the project. Thomas Friedman got at some of this tension when he suggested the “right reason” for war was “to partner with Arab moderates in a long-term strategy of dehumiliation and redignification,” but the “real reason” was “to go right into the heart of the Arab world and smash something — to let everyone know that we, too, are ready to fight and die to preserve our open society.” In typical fashion, Friedman did not bother to question whether these two goals were complementary or contradictory, and whether “shock and awe” was reconcilable with “dehumiliation and redignification.” But we’ve witnessed the various contradictions between these motives play out for ten years now.
Photo: President George W. Bush signs H.J. Resolution 114 authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell, center, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, right, also attended the signing. White House photo by Paul Morse.
]]>Well, here it is, the day after. The Israeli elections are over, but the form of the next government is not at all clear. Most likely, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Beiteinu party will form a government with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party being the main partner. This is by far the most [...]]]>
Well, here it is, the day after. The Israeli elections are over, but the form of the next government is not at all clear. Most likely, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Beiteinu party will form a government with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party being the main partner. This is by far the most likely scenario, though others possibilities exist, even a million-to-one long shot that Lapid could form a government. Labor is likely to be leading the opposition, unless Lapid surprises everyone and stays out of a Netanyahu-led government.
The new Knesset will be somewhat less tilted to the right than the last one, but this is not likely to make a big difference in terms of Israel’s approach to the Palestinians. Indeed, in some ways, it might serve Netanyahu to have a friendlier face in Lapid to cover policies that might be slightly different rhetorically but essentially the same on the ground. More than anything else, the shift in government is going to be felt domestically, in terms of greater attention to civic and economic issues. Indeed, no Israeli election in my memory compares to this one for the dominance of domestic over security issues.
Given that there’s still more to see before the full ramifications of the election are known, I’ll engage here with a few winners and losers.
Winners
Yair Lapid: Lapid comes out of this as a major power broker…for now. I suspect Bibi will try to convince him to take the Finance portfolio, because the looming budget cuts are very likely to undermine whoever takes that job. If Lapid has any sense, he will stay away from this job. Bibi might decide to make him Foreign Minister, allowing Lapid’s much more charming visage to replace both last term’s technical Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman (who had to quit when he was indicted) and the de facto one, a combination of Ehud Barak and Netanyahu. The idea is to improve Israel’s face in the international arena and stem of the criticism Israel has been facing, especially from Europe. Long-term, parties like Lapid’s, which are essentially cults of personality, tend to have a short shelf life. And Lapid doesn’t have much of a political program, as he wisely stuck to very broad, general and populist statements in his campaign. But for now, Lapid holds the key to Bibi’s ability to form a coalition, although it is possible for Bibi to form a government without him. Lapid had been doing well in polls and well exceeded those projections, so as of today, he is in really good shape.
Naftali Bennett/HaBayit HaYehudi: Many polls projected Bennett with the number of seats that Lapid got, so some see the 11 seats HaBayit HaYehudi won as a disappointment. But the party had all of three seats in the previous Knesset, and Bennett has put the national religious camp, as a distinct unit in the Israeli polity, back on the map. Bennett can now choose between a secondary role in the government or leading the rightward tug on Israel from outside the government. That’s not a bad place for him to be, long term. Bibi rebuilt Likud from that position after it was devastated by Ariel Sharon’s formation of Kadima nearly a decade ago. Either way, Bennett remains able to build himself into the face of the Israeli right for years to come.
Meretz: The only Zionist party that could remotely be called truly left-wing doubled its presence in the Knesset, from three seats to six. That’s the most seats it has won since the 1999 election. It’s still not a very influential party, but Zehava Gal-On has it back on track as the voice of the Jewish left, which has been terribly muted in Israel. Building on this momentum is likely to be just as difficult for Gal-On as halting Meretz’s downward spiral was. But she’s the best leader they’ve had in a long time, maybe ever. She is articulating a strong left-wing point of view, instead of mealy-mouthed political mumbo-jumbo, and that is bringing back leftist voters.
Barack Obama: No one will ever know how much of an effect Obama’s words to Jeffrey Goldberg, published mere days before the election, might have had on Netanyahu’s losses in this election. But count me among those who think it mattered. Yes, this was Israel’s most domestically focused election ever. And it’s also true that few Likud-Beiteinu voters like Obama. But Israelis are not fools; they know Israel needs to improve its relationship with both the White House and European leaders. Unlike most Americans, Israelis across the political spectrum know that Bibi actively interfered with the US election and, what’s worse, did so by backing the wrong horse. That has since faded from Israeli headlines, and Goldberg’s article didn’t make big news in Israel. But it did make news, and many Israelis follow the global and US media on Israel very closely. In any case, a second-term Obama will now be dealing with a chastened Netanyahu. At the very least, this was a pleasant night for Obama, and it could help support and embolden Obama if he decides to take Bibi on again.
Opposition to an Iran attack: This was actually taking shape in the election campaign. Iran was not a prominent issue at all. Israel still wants the US to take care of Iran, but the opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike among the military and intelligence brass remains just as strong as ever. A move toward the political center and, more importantly, an election that reflects looking within the country rather than outside it when identifying Israel’s biggest challenges blunts even farther the threat of Israeli action, which means less pressure on the US to act militarily. With Iranian elections looming in a few months, and the accompanying end of the Ahmadinejad era, an attack has almost certainly been pushed back, quite possibly to the point where an agreement can be reached to entirely avert one. Netanyahu’s need to use glamorous government positions like the Defense Ministry to entice coalition partners likely means Ehud Barak’s minimal chances of staying in his present job have been reduced to zero. An attack on Iran is considerably less likely today than it was before.
Losers
The Palestinians: The occupation was, at best, a minor question in Israel’s 2013 election. There were many pro forma statements from Labor’s Shelly Yachimovitch, HaTnuah’s Tzipi Livni and Lapid about supporting the two-state solution, usually with something like the Clinton Parameters outline or some such. But it was always an afterthought. Livni and Yachimovitch occasionally attacked Netanyahu for letting Israel’s global image suffer due to his intransigence on the Palestinian issue, while Lapid’s Yesh Atid platform had support for two states as its final plank. What seems to be looming is a Netanyahu who might moderate some of his public statements on the subject, but will head a government that will stick to the same policies of obstructionism that it has held to these past four years, but with a less confrontational tone when it comes to the US and Europe. That’s not a recipe for progress, but rather for maintaining the status quo while blunting the only pressure that could conceivably bring about change. If Naftali Bennett is in a prominent role in the government that might have some effect on the Palestinians (Interior Minister, perhaps) it just might mean that this new government is the same as the old one. In any case, Netanyahu remains in office, leading a party that is explicitly opposed to a two-state solution and has moved to the right. A coalition partner can push the weak-willed Bibi, but Lapid has shown little interest in this issue at all, and to the extent he has, he doesn’t sound much different from Netanyahu. Yachimovitch has stayed away from the entire Palestinian issue and Livni, who engaged it more than any other “centrist” candidate, had turned down a Palestinian offer that included most of East Jerusalem, full capitulation on the right of return and Israel keeping all three of the major settlement blocs. The Palestinians are, as usual, the biggest losers in this election, but that was always a sure thing from the very beginning.
Benjamin Netanyahu: The day Bibi announced that Likud and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party would run a joint ticket, I said it was a panicked move and a big mistake. I had no idea how big. The combined party has lost 11 seats. The merger was far from the only reason. Likud’s sharp tilt even further to the right, with the accompanying loss of some of its more pragmatic and well-known leaders like Dan Meridor and Benny Begin, chased some of their voters to Lapid. Bennett’s rise allowed some national religious voters to feel they could credibly express that identity in their vote for the first time in years, and that certainly cost Likud Beiteinu. Lieberman’s indictment and the in-fighting within his party certainly didn’t help. Bibi also ran a terrible campaign, one where he almost ignored the budget crisis that prompted his move toward early elections in the first place. In fact, he dealt very little with substantive issues at all, trying to run on slogans and his experience. And the fact is, Israel is facing the same budget cuts it was before and Bibi now has a government that will not share his priorities about where the cuts should come. His obnoxious manner in international affairs will be harder for him to maintain with less of a mandate at home. Every part of this gambit came up snake eyes for Bibi who came into this being sure that no matter what, he would still have his job and today is only barely going to hold on to it. Netanyahu has confirmed his legacy as a weak-willed leader, a venal politician and a poor strategist.
Shelly Yachimovitch/Labor Party: Some will say that Labor was revitalized in this election. Surely Yachimovitch will spin it that way. But this was a big bust. Keep in mind, Kadima had essentially supplanted Labor’s role in Israeli politics. In 2009, Labor won 13 seats, but this was splintered when Barak formed his Atzmaut party, leaving Labor with only eight seats. So, Yachimovitch can claim she doubled Labor’s representation, but that’s nonsense. With Atzmaut disappearing and Kadima either missing the Knesset (which is still possible) or winning only two seats, there was a major opportunity for Labor to regain the center. They finished second, in large measure because Yachimovitch is not an inspiring leader. She has almost nothing to say about security and international issues, which matter to the centrist voters in general. On economic and social issues she has more appeal, but has not proven herself to be a strong leader who can build support for her ideas, nor as someone whose ideas on implementing a social-democratic program are particularly advanced. The election result reflects the lukewarm reaction Yachimovitch produces, as opposed to the charm that Lapid reflected, despite his not having much better ideas than Yachimovitch.
Yisrael Beitienu: Avigdor Lieberman maintained his reputation as a loudmouth by predicting that Likud-Beiteinu would win 40 or more seats in the election. Oops. Lieberman also lost his position as the voice of a “new right” to Naftali Bennett. Still dealing with criminal charges of corruption, Lieberman might yet get a prominent Ministry due to his position as the #2 on the Likud-Beiteinu list, but that is less of a sure thing than that position should imply. Lieberman still holds the Russian community, but his appeal beyond that is diminishing. Yisrael Beiteinu rose to prominence by appealing to the larger right wing. That is receding at a breakneck pace and it will be heading back to being an ethnic party. It won’t disappear, but its days of being the kingmaking party are over.
The Republican Party: Netanyahu’s major setback mirrors, in many ways, the losses the Republicans took in the US in November. Bibi’s party moved further right, and like the GOP, it went further right than mainstream voters wanted. Bibi ran his campaign in a similar way to Mitt Romney’s as well, and it had a similar feel: lots of style, little substance and less reason for those not already beholden to him to vote for him. But most importantly, the whole Netanyahu-neocon-GOP nexus has been rebuked in both countries. The Republicans tried to define themselves as the “pro-Israel” party, but both American Jews and Israelis made it clear that they don’t agree and don’t want to see the issue turned into partisan football. In some ways, that is unfortunate. It would be useful to get rid of the “bipartisan consensus” and have a real debate about the US’ special relationship with Israel. But the GOP attempt to own Israel through its close ally Netanyahu has, at this point, failed.
Photo: A Likud-Beitenu supporter. Credit Pierre Klochendler/IPS.
]]>This week, Jeffrey Goldberg gave cover to Mitt Romney’s critique of public discussion about the consequences of going to war with Iran in Bloomberg News.
Goldberg wasn’t giving Romney a platform for his messaging; he agrees with the Republican nominee’s assessment:
Romney’s more potent criticism of Obama has more to [...]]]>
This week, Jeffrey Goldberg gave cover to Mitt Romney’s critique of public discussion about the consequences of going to war with Iran in Bloomberg News.
Goldberg wasn’t giving Romney a platform for his messaging; he agrees with the Republican nominee’s assessment:
Romney’s more potent criticism of Obama has more to do with statements made by Obama’s underlings. It is true, as Romney wrote, that administration officials have discussed publicly the risks of an American (or Israeli) attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. There are risks, of course — potentially catastrophic ones — of attacking. But it doesn’t help the American negotiating position to publicly telegraph to the Iranians these sorts of doubts.
Goldberg reiterated his stance in the Atlantic:
President Obama has been undermined from time to time by his own team on the Iran question — whenever a senior official of his administration analyzes publicly the dangers of a military confrontation to the U.S., we should assume the Iranian leaders breathe a sigh of relief, and make the calculations that Obama is bluffing on military action.
Not everyone agrees with Romney and Goldberg, whose flawed reporting about the alleged threat from Saddam Hussein in 2002 was referenced by US hawks to advance their case for war on Iraq. Indeed, prompted by Israel’s latest Iran-pressure campaign, the editorial board of USA Today urged for a real discussion about the military option’s consequences:
But the choice between hot and cold wars is exactly what needs to be discussed before the U.S. risks launching itself into another military morass. Look at the daunting consequences, and you see why Israelis are so divided:
But can the cons of publicly discussing an easily devastating war be more harmful than concealing the discussion from the public? Ali Gharib answers in the Daily Beast:
Were the administration not willing to publicly discuss the potential consequences with its public, then the threats better be a bluff—because to launch this war without a national dialogue would be a monumental disservice to American democracy, not to mention irresponsible. The stakes are simply too high: an eminent group of foreign policy heavyweights recently said an attack could spark an ”all-out regional war“; former top Israeli security officials say strikes could be counterproductive, spurring Iran to build the bomb, and justify it. That’s to say nothing of the incredible potential these scenarios—deemed likely by experts—hold for spilled American blood and treasure.
As does Ben Armbruster in ThinkProgress:
…having a thorough, thoughtful, honest and open discussion about the consequences of going to war with Iran only helps us and our allies. Democracies debate policy openly and freely, which actually could serve as a model for those Iranians looking for change. Openly discussing and knowing the consequences of attacking Iran doesn’t mean that President Obama won’t follow through with his policy of using all options available, including military force, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It means that he, his administration and the American people will be more informed about what the aftermath of a military attack would look like.
“If we’ve learned anything from the past decade of war in the Middle East, it’s that debates over our national security strengthen our policy and our democracy. Doing the opposite weakens it,” Rubin said.
Indeed, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” didn’t work out so well in 2003.
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In making his case against Iran in his United Nations speech, Benjamin Netanyahu held up a crude graphic intended represent an Iranian bomb. The Israeli Prime Minister drew a line with a red marker to emphasize the urgent need for action against the Islamic Republic and sound the alarm bells.
Instead, the [...]]]>
In making his case against Iran in his United Nations speech, Benjamin Netanyahu held up a crude graphic intended represent an Iranian bomb. The Israeli Prime Minister drew a line with a red marker to emphasize the urgent need for action against the Islamic Republic and sound the alarm bells.
Instead, the rendition of an “Iranian bomb” that Bibi chose to make his case–which most likely would earn no more than a C if submitted as a fourth grade science project– is eliciting giggles and guffaws, inviting comparisons with the Acme devices used in Road Runner cartoons.
Robert Mankoff of the New Yorker launched a caption contest for the photo of Bibi and his bomb sketch. As of this writing, Mankoff has received 164 online entries. Mankoff’s own contribution to start it off: ”And, what’s worse, if Wile E. Coyote ever gets hold of this, the Roadrunner is toast.”
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, after sardonically skewering both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Barack Obama for their speeches in a segment dubbed Bore Games, asks, “Isn’t anybody going to give us the red-meat rhetoric and pop comedy we’ve come to expect from the United Nations?” There’s a cut to Netanyahu, drawing his red line. “Bibi, bubby, what’s with the Wile E. Coyote nuclear bomb?” Stewart asks. “Are you gonna pretend you don’t know what a nuclear bomb looks like? You’re Israel! Go downstairs and look in the basement!”
Even the Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, plenipotentiary pundit on the Iranian threat to Israel, tweeted that “Netanyahu didn’t even draw his Wile E. Coyote red line in the right place” opined that Netanyahu had trivialized and undercut whatever point he thought he was making:
Netanyahu shouldn’t have waved around that cartoonish drawing on the podium of the United Nations. It made him look unserious, and a man in his position can’t afford to look unserious. I’m hearing ridicule of that stunt from people in the United States government who are a) militant on the subject of Iran, and b) needed by Israel to carry-out effective anti-proliferation efforts. Don’t confuse massive press coverage of his ACME bomb chart with approval of his ACME bomb chart. A non-Wile E. Coyote chart with a red line would have been more useful than this.
ComPost blogger Alexandra Petri asked in the Washington Post:
Was this a poor choice of a ridiculous-looking, over-simplified bomb cartoon, created decades before the invention of the Internet by someone who had a limited understanding of bombs? Or was it a calculated choice of a ridiculous-looking, over-simplified picture, created decades before the invention of the Internet by someone with a limited understanding of bombs — in order to create the one indelible image of the afternoon that everyone would be talking about?
But maybe Netanyahu was indeed sending a message about how the strategic logic behind Israel’s relationship with Iran.
In his book Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times Of An Animated Cartoonist, Chuck Jones, Jones suggests that he and the other artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E. cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules. As identified and enumerated on Wikipedia, these rules are:
- 1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going “meep, meep.”
- 2. No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products. Trains and trucks were the exception from time to time.
- 3. The Coyote could stop anytime — if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.” — George Santayana).
- 4. No dialogue ever, except “meep, meep” and yowling in pain.
- 5. The Road Runner must stay on the road — for no other reason than that he’s a roadrunner.
- 6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters — the southwest American desert.
- 7. All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation. There were sometimes exceptions when the Coyote obtained other items from the desert such as boulders to use in his attempts.
- 8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote’s greatest enemy (e.g., falling off a cliff).
- 9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
- 10. The audience’s sympathy must remain with the Coyote.
- 11. The Coyote is not allowed to catch or eat the Road Runner.
Reading these rules carefully, and substituting Israel for Road Runner and Iran for Wile E. Coyote, it’s difficult not to conclude that (with the exception of #10, since Iran receives no sympathy from anyone) the Israeli Prime Minister has indeed chosen an apt metaphor–what looks like an Acme bomb straight out of a Road Runner cartoon to describe a relationship that seems to follow the same rules: “No dialogue ever” and “The Coyote is not allowed to catch or eat the Road Runner.” There’s at least one rule Netanyahu would like to change–the one about “no outside force” being able to harm the Coyote.
Perhaps when President Barack Obama told Steve Kroft of Sixty Minutes
When it comes to our national security decisions, any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out any noise that’s out there”
the noise he meant was meep! meep! ?
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The different language used in the latest public row between Israeli and US officials is actually quite telling. The notion of a “deadline” rejected by Hillary Clinton suggests a time frame beyond which the Iran talks are declared useless, kicking into gear a shift to the attack mode. A “red [...]]]>
The different language used in the latest public row between Israeli and US officials is actually quite telling. The notion of a “deadline” rejected by Hillary Clinton suggests a time frame beyond which the Iran talks are declared useless, kicking into gear a shift to the attack mode. A “red line”, on the other hand, requires the specification of a point in technological advances, the crossing of which would elicit an attack.
Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from his government have used the term “red line” several times. It was inspired by Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s rather vague notion of the “zone of immunity,” which presumably has to do with circumstances under which Israel would judge Iran’s key nuclear facilities so fortified as to make the country’s “capability” to build a bomb immune to attacks. In other words, a red line is when a military attack on the country would become ineffective or impossible.
But, true to form, Israeli officials have been quite vague in terms of exactly what would constitute nuclear capability. Indeed, despite all the talk regarding red lines, no one really knows what the Israeli threshold is. Meanwhile this vagueness is critical to the argument that Obama is not doing enough to assure Israel. Just take a look at this exchange between two hard line supporters of Israel:
Goldberg: Come back to red lines. What would your red line be if you were the Israeli prime minister, and what would your red line be if you were the American president?
Satloff: Thankfully, I am neither, just a humble think-tank director. The rub is that America and Israel have similar and complementary interests but not identical interests; the threshold for risk to be borne by a great power thousands of miles away and a small though potent regional power in the neighborhood are different; and therefore the red lines the Israeli prime minister and American president will lay down will necessarily be different. Especially at this hyper-politicized moment, when President Obama is allergic to the idea of deepening foreign entanglements, it is highly unlikely that he could begin to approach the sort of commitment-to-use-military-force-when-Iran-crosses-a-certain-enrichment-threshold that PM Netanyahu would like to hear.
In short, the only clues we have are that the Israeli red line is “necessarily” lower than the US’s red line and that it entails Iran crossing into a “certain enrichment threshold.” To boot, instead of answering the question about the Israeli red line, the onus is placed on the Obama administration since it “has not drawn a red line based on a clear definition of what preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon really means in practice”.
The bottom line: the Israelis have a red line that is lower than the US’ and this red line has something to do with nuclear capability and enrichment. But it is the Obama Administration that is faulted for not clearly defining what “acquiring a nuclear weapon” means!
It is easy to see how the framing of the game in terms of red lines has the making of a very bad marriage for the Obama Administration, which Robert Satloff condescendingly concedes is “allergic to deepening foreign entanglements” as though it is not also the mood of the country. By remaining deliberately ambiguous about the Israeli red line, the stage is set for a rather bad relationship in which one side is always the needy and nagging party while the other cannot stop the nagging no matter how much it gives, short of a military attack on Iran.
It is in this context that Clinton’s clever switch of language to deadlines becomes significant. No more rhetorical maneuvers regarding conflicting thresholds that no one is willing to define. The red line Netanyahu wants is actually a time frame for US military action and this is not what the Obama Administration, or any US administration for that matter, should be willing to give to anyone; not even to its highly insecure and demanding partner.
]]>In March, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius suggested that sanctions and “covert actions” should be used to “sink” the Iranian government rather than bombs. Six months later, Ignatius — like Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Goldberg – is offering suggestions for slowing Israel’s alleged march to war with [...]]]>
In March, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius suggested that sanctions and “covert actions” should be used to “sink” the Iranian government rather than bombs. Six months later, Ignatius — like Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Goldberg – is offering suggestions for slowing Israel’s alleged march to war with Iran (I say “alleged” because there is still serious debate about whether Israel would actually follow through on its threats).
After noting that negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are expected to resume in the next few weeks, Ignatius argues that “bridging” proposals can help the involved parties avoid the roadblocks from the last round of talks. One such proposal comes from Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian negotiator who is now based at Princeton:
He told me this week that in addition to capping enrichment at 5 percent, Iran might agree to a “zero stockpile” of this low-enriched fuel. A joint committee with the P5+1 would assess Iran’s domestic needs, and any enriched uranium would either be converted immediately to the needed fuel rods or panels, or it would be exported.
In exchange, Mousavian argues, the P5+1 would recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium and would gradually lift sanctions.
This intriguing proposal lacks official Iranian support, but it would address Israel’s biggest concern and would surely interest U.S. officials. Mousavian also notes Iran’s willingness to allow much wider inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into what are known as “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program. This transparency proposal would allow the IAEA to monitor any possible breakout, but U.S. officials caution that, if the Iranians decided to go for a bomb, they could simply expel the IAEA inspectors and make the dash.
Ignatius also reiterates a point made in March by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen: the United States needs to establish a “hotline” with Iran. (Mullen had called for the US to utilize “any channel that’s open” for engagement with Iran, noting that “Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union”, and in July, 11 former US intelligence officials also urged the President to establish a “direct communications link between U.S. and Iranian naval commanders in the Persian Gulf”.)
]]>Here’s a final thought, based on the all-too-real possibility that negotiations will remain deadlocked and Israel will decide to take unilateral military action. In the resulting fog of war, there will be a need for reliable communications in the Persian Gulf and a hotline with Tehran. Establishing these communications links is an urgent priority, as the rumors of war continue.
Immediately after the terror bombing of a busload of Israeli youth in Burgas, Bulgaria, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a “senior U.S. official” expressed certainty about Iran’s responsibility. Since then, the White House has backed away from that position, after Bulgarian investigators warned against that assumption [...]]]>
Immediately after the terror bombing of a busload of Israeli youth in Burgas, Bulgaria, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a “senior U.S. official” expressed certainty about Iran’s responsibility. Since then, the White House has backed away from that position, after Bulgarian investigators warned against that assumption before the investigation is complete.
Similary, it is generally assumed that Iran and Hezbollah were responsible for the terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, because US and Israeli officials, journalists and commentators have repeated that conclusion so often. It was the first reference made by those who were most eager to blame the Burgas bombing on Iran, such as Matthew Levitt and Jeffrey Goldberg.
But that terrorist bombing 18 years ago was not what it has come to appear by the constant drip of unsubstantiated journalistic and political references to it. The identification of that bombing as an Iranian operation should be regarded as a cautionary tale about the consequences of politics determining the results of a terrorist investigation.
The case made by the Argentine prosecutors that Iran and Hezbollah committed that 1994 terrorist bombing has long been cited as evidence that Iran is the world’s premier terrorist state.
But the Argentine case was fraudulent in its origins and produced a trail of false evidence in service of a frame-up. There is every reason to believe that the entire Argentine investigation was essentially a cover-up that protected the real perpetrators.
That is what I learned from my ten-month investigation in 2006-07 of the case, the results of which were published in early 2008.
William Brencick, who was then chief of the political section at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires and the primary Embassy contact for the investigation of the AMIA bombing, told me in an interview in June 2007 that the US conviction about Iranian culpability was based on what he called a “wall of assumptions” — a wall that obstructed an objective analysis of the case. The first assumption was that it was a suicide bombing, and that such an operation pointed to Hezbollah, and therefore Iran.
But the evidence produced to support that assumption was highly suspect. Of 200 initial eyewitnesses to the bombing, only one claimed to have seen the white Renault van that was supposed to have been the suicide car. And the testimony of that lone witness was contradicted by her sister, who said that she had seen only a black and yellow taxicab.
That is only the first of many indications that the official version of how the bombing went down was a tissue of lies. For example:
- The US explosives expert sent soon after the bombing to analyze the crime scene found evidence suggesting that at least some of the explosives had been placed inside the community center, not in a car outside.
- The engine block of the alleged suicide car which Police said led them to the arrest of the Shi’a used car salesman and chop shop owner who sold the car, was supposedly found in the rubble with its identification number clearly visible — something any serious bombing team, including Hezbollah, would have erased, unless it was intentionally left to lead to the desired result.
- Representatives of the Menem government twice offered large bribes to the used car dealer in custody to get him to finger others, including three police officials linked to a political rival of Menem. The judge whose bribe was videotaped and shown on Argentine television was eventually impeached.
Apart from an Argentine investigation that led down a false trail, there were serious problems with the motives attributed to Iran and Hezbollah for killing large numbers of Jewish citizens of Argentina. The official explanation was that Iran was taking revenge on the Menem government for having reneged, under pressure from the Clinton administration, on its agreements with Iran on nuclear cooperation.
But in fact, Argentina had only halted two of the three agreements reached in 1987 and 1988, as was revealed, ironically, in documents cited by the Argentine prosecutor’s report on the arrest warrant for Iranian officials dated October 2006 (unfortunately never made available in electronic form). The documents showed that the Menem government was continuing to send 20 percent enriched uranium to Iran under the third agreement, and there were negotiations continuing both before and after the bombing to resume full nuclear cooperation.
As for Hezbollah, it was generally assumed that it wanted to avenge the Israeli killing of its “ally” Mustafa Dirani in May 1994. But when Hezbollah really wanted to take revenge against Israel, as it did after the Israeli massacre in Qana in 1996, it did not target civilians in a distant country with no relationship to the conflict with Israel; it openly attacked Israel with Katyusha rockets.
It is not clear yet who committed the latest terrorist bombing against Jewish civilians in Burgas, Bulgaria. But the sorry history of that Buenos Aires investigation should not be used to draw a premature conclusion about this matter or any other terrorist action.
]]>Four years ago, there was some hope in Washington that J Street, the self-proclaimed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” Jewish lobbying group, could someday provide a counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
No one expected J Street to seriously challenge AIPAC after just four years. But the organization’s track record to date [...]]]>
Four years ago, there was some hope in Washington that J Street, the self-proclaimed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” Jewish lobbying group, could someday provide a counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
No one expected J Street to seriously challenge AIPAC after just four years. But the organization’s track record to date gives some cause for concern with regard to the direction its heading in.
J Street has had some controversial missteps in its time. For example, its waffling on the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2008-09, and its dissembling response when it was revealed that left-wing magnate George Soros had been one of its key initial funders.
This time their investment in Peter Beinart presented a hurdle for them. Beinart published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for what he regrettably termed “Zionist BDS,” which is simply a new name for a policy long advocated by left-wing groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and more center-left groups like Americans for Peace Now. It basically advocates for the boycott of settlement products, services and venues.
Just a few days before Beinart appeared as one of the key figures at their conference, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami gave an interview to Iran/Israel hawk Jeffrey Goldberg where he strongly criticized Beinart’s stance. The result, which became apparent when the issue came up during one of the plenaries, was to split the conference audience over the issue.
This was not the only controversial event. J Street’s decision to feature former Israeli prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought criticism from Palestinian human rights groups, mostly in Gaza, who were concerned about this honor being bestowed on someone who they consider a war criminal. This also caused some problems for J Street’s ally group, B’Tselem, which works with many Palestinian human rights groups and was a participating organization in the conference.
One can argue about the pros and cons of these moves by J Street. But of greater concern is the question of whether J Street is really able to impact matters on Capitol Hill.
At AIPAC’s conference this year all the leading Republican presidential candidates (except for Ron Paul) spoke and were warmly welcomed. President Obama himself spoke to the crowd, as did his Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta. Leading members of Congress, including Mitch McConnell, Carl Levin, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Cantor and others were also featured.
For its part J Street got Anthony Blinken, who is Joe Biden’s senior foreign policy aide, and key Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, whose role has virtually no connection to Middle East policy. That might not seem so bad until you consider that Obama sent his National Security Adviser, Jim Jones, to J Street’s first conference, and Middle East point man, Dennis Ross to its last one.
There is a clear decline in Obama’s regard and concern for J Street being reflected here.
Congress is no different. Yes, there was a congressional panel at J Street’s conference. But the attendees, all Democrats, are not among those who are particularly influential on issues regarding Israel. Representatives Eddie Bernice Johnson, Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Chellie Pingree and David Price spoke at the conference, but will take little influence on J Street’s issues back with them to the House of Representatives.
Some have noted that J Street’s conference this year was more about connecting with Israel and establishing more firmly, in centrist eyes, its pro-Israel bona fides.
Indeed, there certainly was a more distinctly Israeli feel about this conference. The most morally clear and persuasive speaker, to my ears, was newly-elected chairwoman of the left-Zionist Meretz Party, Zehava Galon. And there were several Knesset members present, some of whom are, like Amram Mitzna, fairly prominent.
Yet in the end all the Knesset members were from either the Labor Party or Meretz. Those two parties together control only 11 of the Knesset’s 120 seats.
It’s true that the Israeli embassy reversed their previous stance and sent an emissary to this year’s conference. Ehud Olmert said, and J Street contends, that this is very important and perhaps it is. But one could also see it as a calculation which concludes that J Street is not much of a threat to the Netanyahu government’s efforts in the US, and that the attempt to ostracize J Street does more to boost their position than a condescending speech like Baruch Binah’s does.
Olmert’s appearance might be considered significant as well. Yet Olmert has faded from public view in Israel because of the scandal which forced him from office three years ago. While the issue is certainly not one that is uncommon in Israeli politics, Olmert is the only Israeli Prime Minister to leave office due to such a scandal, and he is facing indictment.
Shimon Peres, who made the trip to appear at AIPAC, sent J Street a pep talk by video.
So what are the prospects for J Street’s future?
J Street has one reason to exist, and that is to change the playing field in Washington, to establish a real force that serves as another option to AIPAC and can cover elected officials who wish to support the policies that AIPAC opposes.
I’ve been to all three of their conferences, and each of the last two have felt like that goal was farther away than the one before. Polls suggest J Street represents the view of a silent majority of Jews and non-Jews, certainly among Democrats, and probably among old-time, realist-style Republicans. But it sure doesn’t seem that way from the ground or at their conferences.
Most importantly, it doesn’t look that way from Capitol Hill or Pennsylvania Avenue.
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