An Early Frost: Netanyahu's Failure In Washington
The American media mostly understood that Prime Minister Netanyahu achieved nothing that he wanted during his Washington visit. His reception at the White House was the coolest in memory. The two sides ended their meeting at least as far apart as they were before Bibi stepped off the plane. I say "mostly" because the Washington Post, as usual, simply printed spin that was called in by Team Netanyahu. Fox was the only other major outlet that believed that Netanyahu came, saw, and conquered.
He didn't. He failed.
The one area in which he can claim some success is on Iran. But even here, he got nothing except a promise by President Obama to assess how our diplomatic outreach is going at the end of the year. Obama also said that he was ruling nothing out.
That all amounts to nothing. Of course, he will assess how his diplomacy is working and, of course, he would never (publicly) rule out the use of force. This is what Obama always says and said during the campaign.
No, the story of the Washington visit was that Netanyahu now knows what he is up against: a President who genuinely intends to push hard for Israeli-Palestinian peace both because such an outcome is intrinsically good and because it will help advance an agreement with Iran.
In the past, an Israeli prime minister who got the cold shoulder at the White House could go up to the Hill and feel the love. Not this time. Check this out. The Hill was even frostier than the White House.
We have to assume that this is the beginning of the end of AIPAC's disproportionate influence over American foreign policy on the Middle East.
What may be good for Israeli politicians is now being recognized as being bad for the international community's search for peace in the region and, by extension, in the world.
Netanyahu is driven by a personal family background (that is completely outdated in 2009) whereby Likud's aim of a Greater Israel was seen as a mantra for ethnic cleansing and hegemony of the entire region.
We now have a new president in Barack Obama who will take a completely fresh approach, undeterred by threats from lobbyists - no matter how much influence they have in either House.
May 20, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope and I pray... I truly do.
May 20, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to worry. While you're praying, there will be real people doing the actual work of building the political action and public affairs infrastructure necessary to put AIPAC and the machers of Beit Podhoretz in the recycling bin of history.
May 21, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ya think...? Boker tov, Reb Van Winkle!
May 21, 2009 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Next to Obama, Netanyahu looked very small. Hopefully Israel's self-serving politics will have a smaller influence on ours and open the way for world peace. To hope is to believe...
May 20, 2009 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love this in your clip from Yedioth Achronoth: "The senior [Israeli] official emphasized that there was full coordination between President Obama and the members of the Democratic majority in Congress." That Obama could coordinate anything with Congressional Dems, let alone something this new and profound is ludicrous.
Looks as though AIPAC's got some 'splaining to do to it's masters.
May 20, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
For me, the priority is straightforward: it's time for the international community to shut down the Israelis' continuous disregard of international law and opinion, and it's time to call the bluff of Hamas and other resistance (not terrorist) groups by making it clear that the international community will guarantee the security of a palestinian state consistent with the pre-1967 borders in exchange for a recognition of Israel's right to exist. Full Stop.
May 20, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are aware that the US tax code supports the construction of illegal settlements on the West Bank. As David Ignatius pointed out in washpo, it's tax deductible. So much for US neutrality.
May 20, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every time the press floods with nonsense, US loses out to its competitors in terms of economy, security, credibility, etc.
Mr Netanyahu's Iran bashing as reported by the press is as follows:
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a) Iran's current leader in 2005 threatened to destroy Israel in the 2010-2014 time frame (when Iran would potentially have the means).
b) arabs are more worried about Iran, than they are of Israel, US, etc.
Given that the forewarned-adversary-to-be-destroyed is nuclear-armed, and that Iran's current leader will probably-definitely be out of office between 2010-2014, are we surprised that few take the US press seriously.
On Arabs fear of Iran, take a look at the 2009 Zogby/University of Maryland poll:
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2009/%7E/media/Files/events/2009/0519_arab_opinion/2009_arab_public_opinion_poll.pdf
Over 60% of Arabs do not fear Iran's Nukes (in the unlikely event Iran decides to get nukes) and think Iran has a right to a nuclear program
In United Arab Emirates only 3% ranked US/Iran policies as a focus as opposed to 30% who ranked anti-Muslim sentiments as an important issue when assessing US policies.
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All Mr Netanyahu's Iran bashing amounts to is a "dog ate my homework" excuse for why US should regard Israel as an indispensable ally no matter how much problems she needlessly causes.
May 20, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
More newsworthy than anything in this post is the ever-changing face of MJ Rosenberg. Trying to keep us off balance?
May 20, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
My son, Nick, took that photo on Saturday. I should credit him!
(Josh wanted new photos of us all).
May 20, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
But nearly as soon as it appeared, it vanished. We must report this to Josh Marshall.
I myself have selected a new image from my storehouse. Hint, think Garrett Morris and Entebbe.
May 20, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your "check this out" (Yedioth Achronoth) is almost stupefying to those of us who have seen (how many?!) Israeli bullies incomprehensibly worshipped on the Hill.
Bibi must be *really* scratching his head!
You predicted all this but I thought you were out on an optimistic limb. Maybe not!
After being *PERFECT IDIOTS*! in backing Bush/Cheney on Al Qaeda=Saddam, the American people have come to their senses for the moment on their disgraceful support of that odious fiasco (which they once so exuberantly celebrated). Can they really have awakened on this dirty business as well???
May 20, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
From where I sit, Bernard Avishai's foresight was alot sharper.
AIPAC and the American Jewish right began losing its mojo years ago. It's demise has been prolonged mainly because of the alienation and disinterest of American Jewish liberals in Jewish communal organizations. Now that more liberal Jews are "coming home," so to speak, we may look forward to American political leadership taking more seriously other voices than the machers of Beit Podhoretz.
May 21, 2009 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I tend to think that the sharp divide in American Jewish opinion is actually relatively recent - perhaps 5 years or so.
You forget that through the 1990s during the Oslo peace process period, the American Jewish leadership, like the leadership in Israel, was for the most part in favor of negotiation and compromise. The pro-settler right was still powerful of course, but somewhat marginalized.
The breakdown of the Camp David negotiations in 2000, the violence and wave of terrorism that followed and the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US all left the American Jewish community pretty united. There was broad consensus that Israel had made a serious offer in 2000 and 2001 and that Arafat had blown up the process rather than negotiate seriously. There was broad consensus that Israel needed to crack down hard on the Palestinians after the wave of suicide bombings in 2002-2003. The peacenik left, which seemed so triumphant just a few years before, was seriously discredited in both Israel and the US.
It took the Iraq war and the ongoing stalemate in Israel to re-open the divide. There was probably never a majority of Jews in favor of the Iraq War, but my read is that for most Jews, the runup to the Iraq War was secondary in importance to the extreme violence in Israel going on at the same time. The ongoing stalemate in both Iraq and Israel emboldened the left to make (entirely legitimate) arguments that the current course is not working, just as the right had said the same thing just a few years before. Thus is was really only around 2004-2005 when you began to see the sharp disconnect that you refer to between the organized Jewish leadership and the opinions of American Jews in general.
But I would also argue that that divide is much more pronounced with respect to the Iraq War than it is about Israel. I think most American Jews do not buy the leftist critique of Israel - ever-present here at the Cafe - that the current stalemate is largely Israel's fault, that Israel's "control" of Congress prevents American pressure on Israel, that Israeli concessions are the alpha and omega of mideast diplomacy, that America should "rein in" Israel, and so on. I think most American Jews are aware that the conflict, at its root, has remained the same for 70 years: Arabs do not want a Jewish state in the Middle East. Everything else about the conflict pales in importance by comparison.
May 21, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think we can altogether reduce the disconnect between the American Jewish community and its leadership simply to Israel and its conflicts. Jewish leadership has largely been little more than a scold for about as long as I can remember, and admittedly I am no longer among a younger demographic, where the so-called mainstream of Jewish philanthropic and communal leadership has fed the rank and file a steady diet of warnings and accusations of assimilation and self-hatred. In short, providing many more excuses to reject and cast out than to include significant numbers of identifiable Jews and novel approaches to Jewish communal participation. Nevertheless, I would agree that the issues related to the greater history Arab-Israeli conflict have served to animate and amplify the rift.
Here is Avishai's extended piece in Harper's, which I highly recommend.
May 21, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is always interesting to see how the Israeli news media differs from the U.S. in cutting through spin to get at substance.
Count me a skeptic, still, however. Unless there is a rock-solid commitment to press on regardless of deliberate sabotage, one skillful act of violence can torpedo all this painstakingly fragile groping towards a peace process. Terrorism and oppression are terrorism and oppression. They are not war, they are not excuses for war, they are not excuses for each other. They never were and they never will be. When I hear Obama and the U.S. Congress and the New York Times pound these truths through the thick skulls of American boob-tubed and Israeli paranoid masses, again and again and again, I will start to believe in the prospect of real, tangible, and SUSTAINABLE progress.
May 20, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I hope you're Overreaching with all this!
But I most certainly fear you're probably not!
Still, Congress giving Bibi a wedgie is definitely something new and different -- really floors me actually. So, just *maybe*....
No question that power remains in the hands of whoever is prepared to throw one bomb -- power that absolutely needs to be short-circuited.
May 21, 2009 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
OverreachTHIS,
If I may engage in a little shameless self-promotion....
May 21, 2009 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iranian missiles, that may or may not ever really work or ever be used with or without a clear return address, are NOT an example of the kind of skillful terrorism I had in mind. The critical and ongoing and highly entrenched danger to Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects comes not from the power of bomb-throwers, but in the cowardice and fear and willingness to be manipulated of non-bomb-throwers. Specifically: the readiness of people, most especially members of the U.S. Congress, to assume that one act of violence (e.g. by Palestinians) justifies any and all responses, including scrapping (e.g. by Israel) of years of peace negotiations.
May 21, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub,
Mostly agreed. But the two are quite dependent upon each other, and a symbiosis I submit that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understands all too well.
May 21, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right. Ahmadinejad is no dummy. But how far his knowledge and talents extend internationally, versus domestically in Iran, is certainly questionable. Furthermore, the international dimension involves much more than Iran-Israel relations and global interpretations thereof. There are many other states in the Mideast and the real power of going nuclear is probably more DEFENSIVE than offensive. Think North Korea, Pakistan. Which is not to say that any of these countries oppressing and impoverishing their populaces for the sake of mushroom cloud prestige is DEFENSIBLE.
May 22, 2009 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the American electorate really want an end to this fiasco, this tragi-comedy, this terrible nonsense, this almost unbelievable Israeli swimming pool farce that ensures that the drinking water supply for Palestinians is severely restricted whilst IDF members can go for a cool relaxing dip after a good day's work humiliating ordinary working people including pregnant women at the checkpoints - then Americans must use their democratic vote to eject Congressmen and Senators who take the AIPAC shekel and do the bidding of their masters. If the United States is a democracy then let it be such. Many hundreds of thousands of lives were given in the past century to ensure our freedom. Don't throw it away so easily.
May 21, 2009 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
A list of Congress members with amounts taken from said corrupt source, updated periodically and widely publicized, might assist in the proposed ejecting.
May 21, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
OMG! When I referred to the 'AIPAC shekel' I was writing metaphorically. You mean that Congressmen actually take money to vote for anything that benefits Israel or Israeli business or gives more US aid for Likud and the expansion of settlements and the demolishment of hundreds of Arab family homes in East Jerusalem? I don't believe it! That's not even democratic. Sounds to me more like 'AIPAC bashing' just because it's a group of self-serving businessmen who want to replace their huge Madoff losses by selling more cluster bombs.
That's not very charitable.
May 21, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, Colindale, you're not suggesting that public law and policy is bought and sold in Congress like baubles in a flea market. Such things cannot be. No, no, no! Cease man!
May 21, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the help of Wikipedia, which is not automatically always wrong, I have learned that the PAC in AIPAC does not directly stand for what I thought it did:
"AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is not a political action committee [PAC], and does not directly donate to campaign contributions. Nevertheless, according to the Washington Post, "money is an important part of the equation." Like many other American lobbying groups, AIPAC provides analyses of the voting records of U.S. Representatives and Senators with regard to how they voted on legislation related to its concerns. The Washington Post states that AIPAC's "web site, which details how members of Congress voted on AIPAC's key issues, and the AIPAC Insider, a glossy periodical that handicaps close political races, are scrutinized by thousands of potential donors. Pro-Israel interests have contributed $56.8 million in individual, group, and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. ... Between the 2000 and the 2004 elections, the 50 members of AIPAC's board donated an average of $72,000 each to campaigns and political action committees."
[A Beautiful Friendship? In search of the truth about the Israel lobby's influence on Washington. By Glenn Frankel. Sunday, July 16, 2006; W13]
May 22, 2009 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here you are again, Colindale, going straight for the crotch. Shame on you! Learn your manners.
May 21, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Genevieve Abdo says the opposite,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4936
duke it out
May 21, 2009 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink