White House Takes Harder Line on Netanyahu and Israel After Settlements Flap
Mar 14th, 2010 | 14 responses
As America’s news media and political class focus largely on health care reform, the ongoing political polemics between Republicans and Democrats, Eric “The Tickler” Massa, and reports of Rahm Emanuel’s exercise of literal naked political power, a major story is unfolding that’s of historical significance: growing tensions between Israel and its Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House which feels the Israeli P.M. and his government virtually gave the Middle East peace process the political finger.
In recent days Israel has been lambasted by Vice President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and now, this morning, by President Barack Obama’s chief advisor David Axelrod — signs of a U.S. Israeli relations chill brought on by what some consider to be an action specficially timed by Israel to send Washington a message. If so, Washington is now sending the message back to Tel Aviv — multifold. (Those who think the timing of what occurred in Israel was mere happenstance seems akin to a Rabbi believing THIS would visit his home in on Sunday April 4.)
Even though the United States and Israel have largely remained allies for decades, Netanyahu and his government through either transparent political intentions or mind-numbing oversight have now set it up so in the eyes of the world — and Washington policymakers — it looks like it was sending Washington a message on the peace process and specifically slapping U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in the face.
The latest twist came earlier this weekend when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — whose rating in domestic polls and international political stock is rising in her Obama administration job — blasted Israel in no uncertain terms for . The Wall Street Journal reports:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton levied a blistering rebuke of Israel, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the two countries’ historic alliance could be adversely affected if his government doesn’t more aggressively embrace the Middle East peace process.
Mrs. Clinton delivered her démarche during a tense 45-minute call with Mr. Netanyahu Friday morning, according to U.S. officials briefed on the exchange.
The conversation followed what the Obama administration is calling Israel’s “insulting” public snub of Vice President Joe Biden during his official trip to Jerusalem this week.
During the visit, Israel’s interior minister announced plans to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in contested east Jerusalem. The Palestinians protested the settlement activity and indicated they might back out of renewed peace talks that the Obama administration has been brokering.
Mrs. Clinton “spoke this morning with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu…to reinforce that this action had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process and in America’s interests,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Friday.
He added: “The secretary said she could not understand how this happened…and she made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process.”
On Friday afternoon, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was summoned to a meeting with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.
U.S. officials described President Barack Obama as “livid” over the treatment of Mr. Biden in Jerusalem. They said Mr. Obama’s anger was among the reasons Mrs. Clinton made the call. The Israeli embassy declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Obama’s top advisor David Axlerod essentially backed up and echoed Clinton’s comments on a Sunday morning news show:
The President’s top adviser David Axelrod told me that approval of new housing units by Israel in the Arab section of Jerusalem during Vice President Biden’s trip there last week was an “affront” and an “insult”. “What it did was it made more difficult a very difficult process,” Axelrod said in my “This Week” interview. Axelrod added that the move “seemed calculated to undermine” the so-called proximity talks going on between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Axelrod said a clear message was delivered to Israel over the flap. “Israel is a strong and special ally. The bonds run deep. But for just that very reason, this was not the right way to behave. That was expressed by the secretary of state, as well as the vice president. I am not going to discuss what diplomatic talks we’ve had underneath that, but I think the Israelis understand clearly why we were upset and what, you know, what we want moving forward.”
The issue, Axelrod said, is a “flare point throughout the region” and puts U.S. interests at risk. “It is important for our own security that we move forward and resolve this very difficult issue,” Axelrod said.
Israelis aren’t quite used to hearing Washington policymakers speak that way about their nation — a fact underscored by the Israel PM’s quick efforts to reassure the Israeli public and try to soften Washington’s ire byby expressing regret. But there were no signs that Netanyahu was going to move to undo the act that has fostered U.S-Israeli tensions.
In his first public remarks on what Israeli commentators called his most serious crisis with Washington since taking office a year ago, he gave no sign he would meet Palestinian demands to cancel a project for 1,600 new settler homes.
“I suggest not to get carried away and to calm down,” Netanyahu told his cabinet, after a reprimand by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and written statements issued by the prime minister’s office that failed to calm the dispute.
“There was a regrettable incident here, that occurred innocently,” Netanyahu said, referring to an announcement by a government ministry during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, of planned construction in an area of the West Bank that Israel has annexed to Jerusalem.
The timing of the disclosure, after Palestinians agreed to indirect peace talks, embarrassed Biden and raised questions over whether Israel’s settlement policy could harm U.S.-Israeli security cooperation on the question of Iran.
“It was hurtful and certainly it should not have happened,” Netanyahu said of the announcement by the Interior Ministry, controlled by the religious Shas party, a member of a governing coalition dominated by pro-settler parties, including his own.
A senior U.S. official forecast “a dicey period here in the next couple days to a couple of weeks” as Palestinians demanded reversal of the settlement plan.
Palestinan leaders have hailed Washington’s blunt response:
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday hailed the rare US condemnation of Israel over the Jewish state’s plan to build more settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem.
The PA “welcomes the statements from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Quartet condemning the Israeli government decision to build settlements in the eastern sector of Jerusalem,” chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said.
“We want these positions to become binding and for Israel to scrap its settlement decisions, especially its plan to build 1 600 homes in Jerusalem,” he told AFP.
“We want a total halt… we want to stop this Israeli policy that is useless and destructive for the peace process, especially for the US administration’s honest efforts to relaunch real and serious negotiations.”
The Australian adds this additional info and perspective:
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned his inner cabinet to an unusual late-night meeting to order a probe after furious American reaction to the announcement of housing construction in East Jerusalem during US Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit.
Mr Netanyahu’s move yesterday came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out at the housing announcement, calling it “insulting” to Washington. “It was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone – the United States, our Vice-President, who had gone to reassert our strong support for Israeli security – and I regret deeply that that occurred and made that known,” Mrs Clinton said.
…..Some Israeli commentators believe that Mr Netanyahu will now be obliged to accept a de facto freeze on Israeli housing construction in East Jerusalem. In announcing a 10-month freeze last year on settlement construction on the West Bank he specifically excluded East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. Unlike the rest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem was formally annexed by Israel, which argues that no one can dispute Israel’s right to build on what is now its sovereign territory.
The announcement during Mr Biden’s visit of plans to build 1600 more housing units in East Jerusalem, in addition to the tens of thousands already built, was denounced by Israeli media as grossly provocative, an assessment much of the Israel public agreed with.
During Mr Biden’s speech to students at Tel Aviv University following the incident the largest hand went not to his warm words about Israel but to his mention of the condemnation he had issued of the building project.
Mr Netanyahu, who last year declared for the first time his readiness to accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel and to impose a de facto freeze on settlement construction, has been attempting to offset the impact of these concessions on his right-wing coalition partners by building projects in East Jerusalem.
Over the weekend, he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian President Silvio Berlusconi to express regret at the incident.
“I even apologised to Vice-President Biden,” he said. “But I was not in any way aware of the building plan ahead of the announcement.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports this development:
The Jerusalem District Planning and Building committee has canceled two meetings planned for this week, apparently out of concern that any more decisions on construction might result in further tensions with the United States.
As reported in Haaretz last week, the committee had already pulled from its agenda discussion of all Israeli construction over the Green Line.
The Interior Ministry has said that the meetings were canceled due to technical reasons, as the director of the committee Ruth Yosef had been invited to overlapping Knesset sessions.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai denied last week having ordered the committee to change its agenda following the recent crisis with the U.S. ? but committee members nevertheless have received a new schedule, on which all meetings pertaining to controversial construction areas were erased.
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14 Responses to “White House Takes Harder Line on Netanyahu and Israel After Settlements Flap”
Bibi receives a Red Card
Remember the Cipro
No Confidence Vote
Dancing Mossad
Does anyone in the Middle East really want peace? Do you really want peace if the only way you will accept it is solely on your terms with no compromise involved? I just don't see peace in that part of the world for many, many years.
Netanyahu will not lead the Middle East to peave. That is clear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w71fKcJYv1U
Overreacting the wrong way, idiotically — more play-pen removed-elitist games from ObamaCo. Do they really want to be so bad about this?
We have no business joining the others pushing Israel to make more almost exclusively-one-way lopsided concessions at its expense as more sacrifices on the perverse PC altar. There is no excuse for overreacting, either. They're just probably posturing tough-guy style [thumping chest] before negotiations.
I just posted the following comments on Kathy Kattenberg post about this:
Can there be any question that Netanyahu pulled this deliberately? Can there be any question that Netanyahu et al. – even though they do not represent a majority of Israelis – will do anything they can to discredit any US administration which takes Mideast peace seriously?
With the apocalyptic christianist right wing promoting Israel's victory as a first step to the Rapture and AIPAC's Israel-is-always-right attitude, there is little hope for a real set of peace negotiations any time soon.
The branch of Israel politics represented by Netanyahu and company really do not want peace except at the wrong side of a 20 foot wall and 60 foot exclusion zone, or at the wrong end of a gun. This is not simple pre-positioning. The extremists running Israel today seem to see any real settlement as capitulation to the Palestinians. Just as Hamas feels about settling with Israel.
The idea that allowing the Palestinians a little economic progress, of not continuously stealing their property or not cutting them off from the most basic necessities of life is “one-side” is ridiculous. Hamas terrorists have to be stopped but, communal punishment has failed and will continue to fail. It works in the short term because people are dead or exhausted for a while but, they always seem to come back.
Poor Obama, he was handed the worst economic mess in 80 years, as well as two badly run wars and now he has Netanyahu. Book of Job anyone?
“Can there be any question that Netanyahu pulled this deliberately?”
Well, yes, but it's unlikely. They knew what they were doing. The real question is whether they were only posturing before negotating with the Arabs (the conventional view) or if they were also choosing to test Obama (less likely, but certainly possible).
I just hope Obama and his administration don't bungle this, too. Bungling what was already a bad “agenda” all this past year, and threatening to do more harm (much worse than anything Bush did, and incidentally, blaming Bush was always worthless, and is much worse than that as of the stimulus and other legislation that Obama publicly urged passage of, as well as his administration's own missteps) here at home is bad enough. We don't need any stupidity in our foreign policy — far-left harshness toward Israel, naivete' and appeasement toward Iran is what the mainstream is worried about (while fools rejoice).
Aside from the ADL, Conservative Americans have been quiet about last week. Neo-Cons have also remained silent. They're not stupid, and Republicans in Washington have been notable by their silence.
They understand that the general American mood (regardless of opinion of Palestinians) towards Israel has been shifting for the past few years. After $188 billion given to Israel, we are uncomfortable that this bought a kick in the gonads.
Bibi Netanyahu thinks that his living in the US and his familiarity with New York and DC makes him an expert on us Americans. Surprise.
If Israel drags us into a hot conflict with Iran, thinking it will be a fait accompli, they will be startled if this causes memories of 8 June 1967 to resurface. The 34 crewmen killed, and 171 crewmen wounded in a deliberate attack (70% casualty rate) on the USS Liberty is still an unresolved issue that was swept under the carpet.
Both Americans and Israelis will be surprised to discover that this President may have sharp teeth after all. Bibi calculated that the healthcare clusterfrack going on in DC meant that Obama was vulnerable to his move; he will be surprised when this move comes up a cropper.
As I said, note that Washington Republicans have remained silent. Now that the heat has been turned up, touching this item on Likud's side could cause third degree burns…
For 63 years we have been Israel's ally. It's time this country reciprocates.
It appears that you also don't follow politics very closely in Israel. And you don't understand that a fundamental shift is underway. At the end of the day, despite our ties (yup I know and like the Israelis I associate with), the tail wagging the dog is starting to come to a close.
Why do you think our US Air Force does not (despite backdoor political pressure) want the IDF to get F-22s? Yup, because they have sold US technology to countries such as China which used our F-16 technology to develop their J-10 fighter. Elta/Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd. also attempted to sell China their AWACS Phalcon (based on our radar technology) to China.
I repeat, the tail wagging the dog is starting to become history. Bow wow…
“It appears that you also don't follow politics very closely in Israel.”
I sometimes or often follow them more closely than I am currently. It depends on what's happening.
I shrugged off this settlement decision as some kind of deliberately provocative stunt by them, that's all.
* * *
“Why do you think our US Air Force does not (despite backdoor political pressure) want the IDF to get F-22s?”
Aside from giving away stuff to our “friends” the Chinese, it's to prevent them from being both too strong and too likely to be “excessively muscular” if they do become too strong, is my impression.
I actually view the giveaway problem as a worse problem (for us, the United States, at least).
“Bibi Netanyahu thinks that his living in the US and his familiarity with New York and DC makes him an expert on us Americans. Surprise.”
We Americans are more pro-Israel (possibly much more) than you are. But don't worry. We support Israel (it is a beacon of light and wonder compared to its scummy enemies in the region) but aren't insistent on rushing to war for its interests rather than ours. Israel is a vital US interest in the Middle East (even to the point of formal statement of such, and willingness to go to war to defend it against a true existential threat in the form of an actual attack with intent to destroy it), but we aren't going to commit more than is prudent to defend it ordinarily. And Israel is definitely #2 as an interest in the region to a secure petroleum supply. In fact, some governments of ours that have mistreated Israel, effectively, include the Bush administration with its obvious oil and Saudi connections, as well as other similar administration's like even Reagan-Bush.
Israel is definitely #2, and oil is definitely #1. Oil is #1 for all Western nations. Israel probably knows this.
Holding a sanguine viewpoint is certainly your prerogative, and being casual about secret military technology as an outside observer is also well within your rights.
Whether this is an insignificant blip, and the tail will continue to wag the dog is in the future. My bet is that a fundamental shift has occurred. It is not anti-Israeli per se, just more assertive of American foreign policy initiatives.
I note that aside from John Boehner's comments most Washington Republicans are remaining silent; even the neo-conservatives are (ADL aside) treading water. People are watching, and that is significant.
They know something just happened, the uncertainty is in how it will play out. And it is in play.
I doubt Kadima or Labor (despite the uproar in Israel) will benefit from this boondoggle. I do believe this will complicate relations with the EU even as the Europeans stiffen their posture vis a vis Iran.
Time will tell, but I do believe a fundamental shift has occurred. And this was a self-inflicted wound by Likud. It may have been posturing, but once they kicked Obama's gonads through Biden, the calculus table changed. We are entering interesting times.
“Holding a sanguine viewpoint is certainly your prerogative, and being casual about secret military technology as an outside observer is also well within your rights.”
You're free to mischaracterize me all you wish. I'm not worried about that.
However, what does worry me is
“My bet is that a fundamental shift has occurred. It is not anti-Israeli per se, just more assertive of American foreign policy initiatives.”
We Americans are worried that the liberals in Washington want to assert anti-American policy initiatives.
As to foreign policy and Israel, I hope our liberal leadership doesn't really blunder too badly. It could.
Looking out for US interests and noting they are not always the same as the state of Israel is not an anti-American policy it is what our pol's take an oath to do. You can call it anti-israeli if you wish or anti anything else but not supporting one tiny nation on the other side of the world to the point of just agreeing with whatever they do is not unamerican or anti-american it is merely a policy decision. Saying it is “anti-american” is unsupportable.
Magic,
“Looking out for US interests and noting they are not always the same as the state of Israel is not an anti-American policy it is what our pol's take an oath to do.”
Being antagonistic to Israel does not define “looking out for US interests.” I have already put Israel in its proper place (#2) relative to more important things. Oil is our #1 interest in the region, as anybody realistic here would answer if you asked them.
The Left has been antagonistic to Israel ever since their beloved Soviet Union sided with the Arabs while — “conventional” – Americans remained in support of Israel and even more so, after its success plus the Soviets' desire to side with its enemies. (Meanwhile, the Left also was anti-Israel because of that nation's success as well as its being support by “conventional” citizens of the evil USA.)
At times we have, in fact, mistreated Israel wrongly by putting interest #1 first or otherwise mistreating Israel. (Both were in effect even during recent Republican administrations, which included leaders with ties to oil interests, plus we have had a State Department that has been notoriously liberal and often anti-Israel.)
I fear the Obama administration may flirt again with being far left, at our expense, as has happened this past year domestically. (Already with foreign policy there's a concern it may be naive or worse about dealing with the Iranian threat in the Middle East, which isn't limited to seeking to harm Israel.)