Standing at a crossroads
Much to Obama’s chagrin, the Israeli prime minister is gearing up to address the Congress on Tuesday despite the unequivocal objection of the American administration. This situation explains much of the tension between the White House and the current right-wing government in Tel Aviv.
Since his assumption of office in January 2009, President Obama explicitly underscored his support for a two-state solution and for a peaceful deal with Iran on its controversial nuclear program. This opinion has long contrasted with that of Netanyahu’s and his right-wing supporters in the United States. In fact, the pro-Israel hawks in the United States have been unwilling to appreciate any American position that is not aligned with that of the Likud’s approach. In other words, the American administration should demonstrate an unwavering support for Israel in a changing Middle East. Therefore, Obama’s reiteration of the notion that he is committed to the strategy of prevention with regard to the nuclear program has not changed the minds of right-wing Israelis and pro-Israeli forces in America.
Both pro-Israeli forces in the United States and Netanyahu argued that President Obama would appease Iran. Their statements were not lost on the Israeli public. For this reason, the standing of Obama in Israel, according to many polls, has gone down. An average of less than 10 percent of Israelis said that Obama was pro-Israel.
It seems that their differences are coming to a crossroad. Despite the White House’s message that Netanyahu should not give a speech before the Congress, Netanyahu is in defiance.
The growing rift between the two sides cannot be more obvious. To the core, and herein lies the crux of the matter, Netanyahu give primacy to security and strength. Added to this, his ideology and too much reliance on the right-wing constituency in Israel discourage him from meeting the American administration half way on two issues: The Middle East peace process and Iranian nukes. For this reason, Netanyahu clashed with Obama almost on every issue from the two-state solution, to settlement and on the Arab Spring and on the best way of dealing with Iranian nuclear program.
At a deeper level, the insistence of Netanyahu to give his speech tomorrow (Tuesday) may shatter the already thorny relationship with White House and could come as a test of the resilience of the “special” relationship that for long has characterized Israeli-American ties. To be sure, the Israeli public is concerned about their country’s relationship with America. According to Jonathan Rynhold, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, the Israeli public’s concern is sharpened in light of the upcoming speech of Netanyahu before the Congress. In his upcoming speech, Netanyahu will severely jab at Obama’s approach to Iran. Sources close to Netanyahu leaked that he would try to kill the deal even if this ruins his relationship with Obama in the process. Netanyahu argues that Iran is to make the best out of the deal and that nothing in the deal prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon in 10 years to come. For Israelis, it seems that preventing Iran from the nuclear capability comes first as a nuclearized Iran can pose a credible threat to the survival of Israel.
Netanyahu seems willing to subordinate the ties with Obama for the sake of making sure that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapon. In two years, Obama will be an ex president and then Israel can patch up the special relationship with American then.
Obviously, no amount of push back could discourse Netanyahu from giving his long awaited speech. The administration has already begun to undermine Netanyahu, but it remains to be seen what Netanyahu is going to say to turn the Congress against Obama.
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