Obama Weighs Israel in the Balance
posted at 2:42 pm on June 6, 2009 by CK MacLeod
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In the wake of President Obama’s “Address to the Muslim World” in Cairo, and an extended series of U.S. statements and decisions bearing on the U.S.-Israeli relationship, Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post is reading the writing on the wall:
The administration is baiting Israel because it wishes to abandon the Jewish state as an ally in favor of warmer ties with the Arabs. It has chosen to attack Israel on the issue of Jewish construction because it believes that by concentrating on this issue, it will minimize the political price it will be forced to pay at home for jettisoning America’s alliance with Israel.
It’s worth reading the entire piece so you can follow Glick’s cruel syllogisms step by step to this rather remarkable assertion. Even if she’s only half right, and the President is merely experimenting with tactical distancing rather than weighing Israel in the balance and finding it wanting, there is great cause for concern for all friends of the Jewish state – a group which includes the vast majority of Americans.
Glick’s despair over Obama was already bottomless, so can’t be said to have deepened, but, no matter what color you assign to your personal Obama Threat Level, it’s always worth reading her analyses. In this latest essay, she begins with a dissection of the Cairo speech and its implicit anti-Israel assumptions – such as the notion that the Jewish state was created because foreigners felt guilt toward its founders, rather than because the Jews had asserted their, as it were, inalienable rights over many decades. She then covers Obama’s main diplomatic initiatives in the Arab world, reaching the conclusion quoted above.
Glick never explains what exactly Obama could hope to gain merely from “warmer ties” with Arab regimes, but she’s more concrete when she moves to Iran policy:
[T]o understand the president’s actual goal it is necessary to search for the answers closer to home. Since Obama’s policy has no chance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it is apparent that he has come to terms with the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran. In light of this, the most rational explanation for his policy of engagement is that he wishes to avoid being blamed when Iran emerges as a nuclear power in the coming months.
Glick is touching here on the same theme we discussed a few weeks ago in the wake of Defense Secretary Gates’ seemingly inexplicable statements about the lack of a “military option” on Iran, the same theme that also arises in any serious discussion of Obamanomics: When the President’s statements, initiatives, and programs don’t seem to make sense on their own terms, they usually turn out to be perfectly understandable politically.
What if Obama has concluded that the American ability to shape the Middle East positively is limited, and that in this sense his fate or at least that of his policy rests largely if not entirely in the hands of others? In that case, his main political objective would be to shield himself from eventual criticism – make sure that he and therefore we are as far from the fight as possible, for as long as possible. The approach may even serve American interests, especially in the short term – at least if you’re as cynical (some would say cowardly) about the real world results as Obama pretends to be idealistic about them.
It’s worth underlining in this context that Glick’s not alone at Obama Condition Orange (at least). Intelligence analyst J.E. Dyer (retired from the Navy, but not from the scene) has just commenced a series of posts at her blog, under the title The Next Phase of World War IV?, in which she also observes the combination of Obama’s aggressively unreasonable demands on Israel alongside his concessions to Arab, Iranian, and European/leftwing opinion, and gathers the hard facts – for instance by setting Obama’s blanket condemnation of the “illegal” Israeli settlements against their critical role in Israeli defense strategy. In future posts we may return to her case, once it’s fully presented, but for now her thesis is clear:
Cold or hot, we are heading for a war in which the key terrain, if not the political affiliations of all the belligerents, will be in the Middle East. Unfortunately, President Obama has taken actions in the last couple of weeks that have made the development of such a war more likely. In particular, he has signaled that the US will assume a static position on West Bank settlements, a position that will, inevitably, produce a political divergence between Washington and Jerusalem. The one-sided intransigence of Obama’s position is unprecedented, decidedly partial (in favor of the putative Palestinian perspective), and if it raises doubts, those doubts are about whether and how much the US still supports Israel’s existence.
At Contentions Jennifer Rubin offers a perhaps more moderate-sounding, yet still worrisome Obama-skeptical summary:
Are we all closer to peace now that Obama has spoken? Less so, I would argue. For the Palestinians now have hope the U.S. will squeeze unilateral concessions out of Israel and the Israelis have no confidence that the U.S. will rush to their aid or do much of anything about the existential threat posed by Iran.
I’m not convinced either that Obama’s policy amounts to strategic abandonment, as per Glick, or that the comparisons Dyer invokes – 1914, 1938, 1944 – are fully justified, but even Rubin’s Condition Yellow (bad enough) assessment points to the dangers Obama is courting.
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Nicely written CK, and right on target as usual.
Liberals have been leaning in this direction for a few years minimum. Under the bus goes Israel with this administration, in favor of a better relationship with the thug dictators running much of the middle east. How naive is that? The end result will be a damaged relationship with Israel, and a group of thug dictators that will remain in deep hatred of all western countries.
Keemo on June 6, 2009 at 4:14 PM
ahh, more delicious right-wing paranoia.
but to you, these are Obama’s aggressively unreasonable demands on israel. incredible, just incredible.
sesquipedalian on June 6, 2009 at 11:05 PM
sequipedalman,
Do you ever get tired of being wrong?
venividivici on June 7, 2009 at 12:16 AM
Israel would like but does not need US support. They can get support from France and Germany as the EU is now leaning farther right. They have their own issues with Islam of late and if Obama can’t read that he is as naive and inexperienced as Sarkozy described him.
Israel has the right to survive and will not allow Iran to have nukes. Israel can act alone on this issue and is fully capable of getting that task accomplished without US approval.
Obama will be forced to surrender his support for Islamic causes over the Iran nuke issue. The time is coming soon.
Anyone who believes Iran’s nuke program to be for the generation of electricity is clearly a fool. Anyone who believes that Israel will stand idly by while Iran builds nuclear weapons is clearly a fool.
Obama’s infatuation with Palestine is dangerous. His abandonment of Israel as an ally in the region is disastrous. Netanyahu will act deliberately and decisively to defend Israel whether Obama likes it or not. Count on it.
old trooper2 on June 7, 2009 at 7:23 AM
The Washington Post editors agree that Obama has opened a “rift” between Israel and the US. Unlike the observer sesquipedalian quotes, they engage in the novel exercise of marshaling facts on their side, though it’s true they don’t bother much with the position of the political figure, Livni, who was just resoundingly defeated.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/06/AR2009060601796.html
As Jennifer Rubin points out today, the other main problem with this tack that “there isn’t any remotely viable Palestinian government with which to negotiate.”
But people who are satisfied with the opportunity to adopt a morally superior posture and are uninterested in the underlying facts or the logical consequences of ahistorical and one-sided interpretations can stand up and applaud anyway, while castigating others for their “incredible” reluctance to submit to lethal falsehoods.
CK MacLeod on June 7, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Further evidence things are going to be damaged are the reports the Obama Administration want to portray Bibi as weak, and want to put in Livni. But we do not “impose” our American wants on a nation anymore!
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/ss_israel0443_06_04.asp
And then there is the whole King Abdullah insisting Obama “impose” the two state solution and abandonment of settlements by Israel.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-40143320090607
None of this of course was anything we on the Right saw coming a mile off, and were concerned about. sarc most definitely added!
Nope something like this,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131732
that would never, ever have any impact on Jewish-American relations? Right?
Jennifer Rubin is correct and so are all of the Right who objected to throwing Israel under the bus by Obama. THEY, meaning the Arabs, were actually shocked he went so far in doing so, and THEY have begun pushing like no one could imagine in order to achieve what has always been their desire; the ultimate and total destruction of Israel.
VP, Joey B. said Obama would be challenged, and THIS is just the tip of the iceberg on the Israel issue. I have read Bibi is going to make a speech sometime around the 14th to voice Israel’s stance. My hope is that he sticks with the strong part of the Likud party which does not advocate for the settlements to end, and would tell Obama to stick it where the sun does not shine! IF he caves, or when things get bad in Israel, we here in America are going to have a lot of explaining to do and fences to mend. Reading the comment sections on some of the articles convey a heavy amount of anger towards us and who could blame them. We did after all give the world the most illiterate President in the history of the world. He has to be illiterate, what else could explain all his historical blunders, Constitutional violations, and inept foreign policy?
For all those who wanted to say Sarah Palin could not handle the job of President, YOU are about to discover what happens when someone who IS NOT QUALIFIED to be a Senator, much less a President, totally screws up the world! So far, on a diplomacy scale from 0-10, 0 being the worst, Obama is at zero and going negative.
The rift between the U.S. and Israel is the second foreign policy bungle. Let us not forget Obama told many former Soviet block countries he is NOT going to allow them to have the formerly promised missile protection they needed in case, wonder of all wonders, Putin decided he wanted them back in the fold.
freeus on June 7, 2009 at 6:19 PM
it was a horrid period but he’s finally gone.
sesquipedalian on June 8, 2009 at 8:08 AM
FYI:
obama clearly wants to destroy israel.
sesquipedalian on June 9, 2009 at 6:47 AM
I’m familiar with that poll, which was one of two done prior to the Cairo speech that received a lot of attention in Israel. FYI – it’s a skewed and uninformed presentation of those poll numbers. For instance, Israelis do not understand a “freeze” as excluding “natural growth,” though the latter is the hard-line position adopted by the Obama Administration. The 56 v 40 reaction on acquiescing to Obama’s demands rather than face sanctions is interesting. That the question would even be asked indicates just how paranoid informed Israelis have become over what Obama is planning. You really think the American public or Congress are in the mood to put sanctions on Israel? That’s like asking “would you be in favor of desperate actions to salvage an alliance that Obama is threatening to destroy?”
Here’s an Israeli’s discussion of that poll:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rosner/68881
Here’s a discussion of just how desperately bad the Cairo speech was as history and as moral philosophy:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2NiZDc0N2VkN2I5ZmQwNzcyYjk4MzJjMGQ4YWJiYWM=
CK MacLeod on June 9, 2009 at 11:09 AM
i understand the urge to get information that’s already filtered through “friendly” outlets such as commentary and NR, but it precludes any objective discussion of the subject.
having lived in israel for years (although – disclaimer – i’m not jewish), i could quote a number of friends i’ve talked to – average israelis – who welcomed obama’s speech and harbor no fears that he’ll do harm to their country. i also find reassurance in reactions by people as knowledgeable about israel-palestine as jeff goldberg, who are deeply committed to supporting israel and defend it vigorously and often, and yet see obama’s strategy as serving (or intended to serve) israel’s long term interests.
in any case, we should not regard the views of an extremist minority as a guide to determining what’s best for israel and the region, nor should we impute sinister motives to the policies of a president whose thinking is directly influenced by bona fide zionists like rahm emanuel. we should also stop acting like our alliance with israel is more vital for us than it is for israel.
sesquipedalian on June 9, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Goldberg’s response to the speech was premature, in my opinion, and his notion that “freezing” settlements will in some useful way make the PA “more powerful” strikes me as grasping at straws, and only slightly more rational than the idea that pressuring Israel on the Palestinians will have some major salutary effect on Iranian ambitions and behavior.
No one doubts that Israeli opinion covers a wide gamut – what could possibly be the point of trading anecdotes, your peaceniks for my likudniks? As for whether opinion from or quoted in Commentary and the Corner represents “filtering,” that’s in my opinion a form of ad hominem. Rather than engaging with the substance of the claims or arguments made by Bayefsky, Rubin or by Glick or Dyer, it’s a peremptory refusal to consider their points of view. I could say the same things about “filtering” from the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. Pretty soon, we’d be left with nothing to discuss at all, since everybody comes to the camp site with his or her own rucksack of associations and prior positions.
My main point in the original post was to observe the reaction from voices on the right and to observe further that tactical distancing of the sort that Obama is attempting can be a dangerous game. Few doubt that, regardless of whether you consider the Cairo speech Obama’s latest addition to the Harvard Classics or his latest rhetorical crime against humanity, the effective bottom line of his approach is pressure on Israel’s duly elected government and relaxation on Israel’s enemies. This position will not in my opinion be sustainable or popular, but it may serve Obama politically if his real goal, as usual, is to take as little responsibility for anything as possible.
It will be interesting to see how Netanyahu’s forthcoming speech is received. If I were a betting man and there was a bookie who could take the bet, I would bet that it will follow the course of Obama v Cheney – attacked from the left, but making the case effectively and helping to save Obama from his own worst impulses.
CK MacLeod on June 9, 2009 at 2:18 PM
what is wrong with forcing israelis to keep a freaking agreement? why do we tolerate this weaselly behavior? every president since johnson opposed settlements on the WB. this is not a “peacenik” thing: most sane observers realize that the settlements are major obstacles to peace in the region.
sesquipedalian on June 9, 2009 at 7:12 PM
Please – quoting one anonymous official hardly makes for an open and shut case on anything. It’s clear even from the particular recitation that the Israelis had a different understanding than the mystery commentator, and in any event, the discussion refers to the practically defunct Road Map, not to the Bush letter, which the Obama-Clinton State Department has refused, 20-some times, to either re-affirm or to abrogate.
Furthermore, it had been understood on both sides – Palestinian and Israeli – that the main settlements, not the “outposts,” were a subject for final status agreements and likely eventual swaps. The “defensible borders” language that had until recently been a part of US statements on the subject were understood by everyone to imply the main Israeli settlements. Read the Dyer piece I linked in the top post on the role they play in Israeli defense strategy.
And this all, of course, is conditioned on the extremely dubious notion that there is a peace to be had with Fatah and Hamas, and that utter failure to abide by Road Map requirements on the Palestinian side can be ignored along with the recent results of unilateral Israeli concessions.
The main reason the pressure is being applied primarily to the Israelis is that Israel actually has a responsible leadership against which pressure even can be applied – which already tells you why this whole thing is unfair to the extent it isn’t merely absurd.
CK MacLeod on June 9, 2009 at 7:56 PM
i was looking forward to an explanation of that role but all i could find was this reference:
and then it goes on about the dangers of rising islamist movements in response to the iranian threat or something. at the end it promises to discuss “the military significance of the west bank settlements to israel’s security” in the next installment. (that this second installment does not exist is all the more conspicuous since part 3 is available.) neither you or the authors you linked made any attempt to convincingly explain this point. yet the entire argument hinges on the assumption that opposing israeli strategy on the west bank means opposing the security of israel.
the settlements do not make israel more secure. in fact, they significantly extend israel’s lines of defense, and the protection of the settlers dispersed deep inside densely populated palestinian territories is a growing burden on the IDF. the large amount of resources spent on sustaining and expanding the settlements could be spent on crucial goals like the development of the negev and the galilee. the growth settlements obviously infuriate palestinians, restrict their movement, hinder economic development and serve as propaganda tools for anti-zionists. what these effects add up to could hardly be balanced by any potential security benefit they provide – especially since as a uniquely important US ally, israel can safely rely on US intervention should the worst come to pass.
on the larger issue of obama “distancing” himself from israel, it’s not necessarily a development of apocalyptic proportions. when bibi became PM we all knew the relationship between him an obama would not be perfectly harmonious. this is not unprecedented, by the way: remember sharon denouncing bush as an appeaser of arabs, comparing him to hitler?
forcing the israeli leadership to adhere to previous bilateral agreements doesn’t have anything to do with reciprocity and is anything but unfair. if they have a responsible leadership, that leadership should distinguish itself as such by taking constructive steps in a process that might someday result in the emergence of a responsible palestinian leadership as well.
sesquipedalian on June 10, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Dyer on the role of settlements in re “defensible borders”:
http://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/the-next-phase-of-world-war-iv-part-2/
Don’t know why you had difficulty finding it. It’s right there on the front page, and was linked via the words “critical role” in my post. Read it and get back to me if you like.
A multi-lateral agreement like the Road Map based on sequential and recipricoal actions by the two main parties could fairly be treated as a dead letter when one or both of the two main parties fails to fulfill its obligations. The Road Map still remains a reference point for a variety of complex reasons, but the idea that it exists as a binding diplomatic “contract” is absurd. It’s like obligating me to go ahead and send a second set of items to a buyer who has not only refused to pay for the first set, but whom I recently caught trying to steal from me.
As for Livni/Kadima having the same position as Obama-Clinton:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371056163&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
CK MacLeod on June 10, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Further dicussion of the above at:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/hazony/69171
CK MacLeod on June 10, 2009 at 10:55 AM
thanks for the pointer. i’m disappointed though that an “intelligence analyst” like dyer would still think in terms of conventional warfare and emphasize the dangers of an attack via jordan. there’s a broad consensus in israel, as evidenced by the 70% in support of removing illegal settlements, that such a conventional attack is not likely to take place in the future. the west bank never really had the strategic importance of the golan, for instance.
the israeli line of defense on the WB is about 10 times longer than the green line because of the need to protect the settlements and their supporting infrastructure, which costs the IDF between $500 million and $1 billion each year. non-military spending on the the settlement movement is over $500 million annually. the existence and growth of settlements also undermine moderate palestinian leaders, hence the importance of the israelis making the unilateral step of freezing settlement growth. and if this is what israelis mean by “natural growth,” that should be frozen too.
sesquipedalian on June 10, 2009 at 11:57 AM
For someone who says he’s lived in Israel, you seem to have a problem distinguishing between settlements and outposts. The 70% number you quote refers to the “illegal outposts.” From my understanding, the view that the large settlement blocs should be dismantled, rather than legitimized through a swap during final status negotiations, is the view of I believe a tiny minority.
I don’t recall whether or how extensively Dyer addresses the issue in her piece, but the military-strategic role of the settlements doesn’t depend on an imminent conventional threat. Geography tends to outlast political agreements and arrangements. Without the high ground, Israel is nearly impossible to defend against overland attack, and would be so in 2050 and 2100 as well as in 2012: No one knows what political entity or entities will exist on the other side of the Jordan at that time. It would also be more vulnerable to “non-conventional” modes of attack.
CK MacLeod on June 10, 2009 at 12:32 PM