By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM–Contrary to what we might have wanted to believe, Bernard Avishai’s reference, which I cited the other day, to General Petreus’ statement that the collusion of previous American administrations with Israel’s settlement policy has been harmful to US interests, seems to be widely accepted as accurate and significant, also in Israel.
This makes Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington not exactly a pleasure trip. For though prominent Israeli leaders like Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Barak (who’ll accompany the Prime Minister – not Foreign Minister Lieberman!) are said to get on very well with the US defense establishment – which in view of Petreus’ statement is crucial for US-Israel relations – this cannot be said, we hear, about the relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The importance of personal relations between US presidents and Israeli prime ministers is well documented in the just published memoir, The Prime Ministers, by Yehuda Avner who for decades moved in the corridors of power. He shows how difficult situations with potentially detrimental consequences could be resolved if the prime minister of Israel got on with the president of the United States and his administration.
David Remnick, writing in the current issue of The New Yorker, suggests that now even more is required: “The essential question for Israel is not whether it has the friendship of the White House – it does – but whether Netanyahu remains the arrogant rejectionist that he was in the nineteen-nineties, the loyal son of a radical believer in Greater Israel, forever settling scores with the old Labor elites and making minimal concessions to ward off criticism from Washington and retain the affections of far-right coalition partners.” It’s the old Bibi, not a new one, as some of us had hoped.
Remnick writes that “the Netanyahu government suffers from a troubling degree of instability, thanks to its far-right coalition partners (including the bigoted foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman) and its ineptitude.” The right-wingers’ views aren’t based on the facts Remnick cites but they come “from Fox News and the creepier nooks of the blogosphere.” The anti-Obama stance in Israel seems to be at odds with many, perhaps most, American Jews. A statesman could smooth things over, an inept politician won’t.
Netanyahu goes to Washington to rally AIPAC, still the most powerful pro-Israel lobby but nowadays, writes Remnick, it speaks mainly for old and rich Jews. Young American Jews are much closer to Obama. Will Netanyahu recognize it or will he, instead, hobnob with Christian Zionists with dubious attitudes to Judaism, only because they hate Obama? He may be losing much of American Jewry in the process; the recent critical statement by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of American Reform, points to it.
Of course, the most crucial and tense encounters will be with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Netanyahu must convince them that, when he makes concessions, he means it, doesn’t speak from both sides of his mouth and that he’s strong enough to keep his cabinet in check. A few months ago I was hopeful that this was the case. Of what I hear and see now, like many Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, I’m much less certain.
Though the Palestinian leaders cannot be trusted and the Iranian threat remains real, the provocative and inept announcements during and after Biden’s visit have put most of the burden on Israel – and it’s not at all certain that its government is up to it!
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Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his time between Canada and Israel.