By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — Two separate issues are competing for media attention.
Our most senior cops, except, hopefully, the Chief of Police and maybe a few others, are having trouble keeping their pants zipped.
About half of the most senior officers (Deputy Chief and Heads of Major Departments and Regional Commands) have resigned, been fired, or are under investigation for sexual harassment and/or having sex with their underlings.
Bibi’s speech won’t go away from media and political attention. American Jews, including Jews in Congress, and Gentile allies of the White House, are complaining principally about lese majeste.
It’s easier to decide who is right about senior police taking advantage of their positions.
The ugliest story involves a policewoman, married and five months pregnant, who complained that her boss talked about his long time dream of having sex with a pregnant woman.
So far the police story is not affecting the election. Virtually all are condemning the cops, and the cop culture in which too much has been permitted to those who reach high rank.
The election is complicating treatment, insofar as the rules get in the way of making senior appointments in the public sector close to an election. The Police Chief himself is due to be replaced, but is continuing for a few more months due to the election. And the Minister of Police is in no position to act decisively. He is one of the Lieberman minions who was either dismissed from the party list or decided not to run again.
So we’ll wait until after the election, and after coalition negotiations, when there is a new Minister of Police who can consult with the Prime Minister about a new Police Chief, and consult with the Police Chief (old and/or new) about other senior appointments in order to fill key positions.
There are proposals to make some of those senior appointments, including that of the Chief, from senior women officers. The advocates, not all of them women, see this as a step that would solve the problem of an excessively macho culture in one great cleaning out of males from the top.
Meanwhile the police unit that investigates claims against the police is busy with investigating senior officers. So far they’ve gone through much of the top cadre, and there may be more stories waiting their turn in the media.
Bibi’s speech presents more complex issues of analysis. Unless you’re a loyal Democrat, Jew or otherwise, and/or an American patriot who feels that the Presidency is somehow above criticism, or subject to criticism only according to rules of the game that elevate his office far above anything else. If you fall into one of those categories, Bibi has created the sin of the century. Otherwise . . .
Claims being made by those saying Bibi is offending Barack sound like Republicans who defended the Imperial Presidency of Richard Nixon, even beyond the first news of the tapes, and well into the process that sent him to the helicopter for what looked like his final trip West.
The problem with claims of lese majeste (violating the dignity of the sovereign) is that Obama is not a king, and he has a lousy case. His efforts to deal with the Middle East via speeches and negotiations have not prevented the erosion of stability that his predecessor began with a world class blunder into Iraq.
Bibi’s case is better. He is no political prince above criticism, but arguing against the nuclear program of a government that has called for Israel’s destruction and has earned criticism about non-compliance even from the highly flawed International Atomic Energy Agency of the UN.
So far the commotion hasn’t hurt him in Israel. Cynics see his speech as meant to assure his election, and charge him with risking Israel’s safety in the long run by offending its principal defender.
There are several problems with those claims.
Obama has come to be known as a poor choice as Israeli defender. Some charge that he is the weakest of American Presidents with respect to his concern for Israel. He has gone out of his way to assert his rapport with Muslims, and his routine assertions of assuring Israel’s defense and standing in the way of Iranian nuclear weapons sound more like platitudes than anything that could be taken to the bank.
Another problem appears in the political concept of the long run.
It sounds good, like an appropriate warning against too narrow a concern with immediate advantage, but can be countered by the expression that we all know where we’ll be in the long run.
More appropriate is noting the lack of certainties about the medium term, never mind the long run. Even something beyond the next few minutes, more so next week or month, and certainly beyond January, 2017 are beyond reckoning.
The latest news about Obama’s Middle East coalition is that part of it is unraveling due to the doubts of Muslim governments about the best way to deal with other Muslims. The Gulf Emirates have opted out of the Americans’ military coalition.
Jordan may be upping its commitment to the campaign against the Islamic State due to the barbaric killing of its captured pilot. The move has not come without internal criticism, also about the impropriety of joining an army led by non-Muslims acting against Muslims.
Competition between Sunni and Shiites, along with the different national agendas of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, along with what’s left of governments in Syria and Iraq, plus Russia and China always maneuvering for international advantage, makes it risky to know the damage that Bibi can cause to Israel by speaking in Washington. That’s especially the case when he has a better argument on his side than adversaries claiming little more than lese majeste, and the remote possibility of Obama’s capacity to civilize Iran via negotiations.
Even Israelis who support Bibi’s Crusade against Iran know that there is not likely to be a free lunch. Damage may occur, beyond the party loyalties of Democrat apparachniks who will boycott the Prime Minister’s speech. The Economist identifies some of the nuances that can hurt Israel.
“Officially the level of co-operation in military affairs and the intelligence-sharing is as high as ever,” says a senior (Israeli) officer. “But on a more personal level, the suspicion between the two leaders trickles down and makes things more difficult.”
On the other hand, the dreamers among us may hope that the threat of the speech will spur both the US and Iran to responsible behavior. Already we’re hearing that Obama is pondering more forceful actions against the Islamic State.
Charles Krauthammer’s most recent op-ed describes Obama’s dream of concluding a grand rapprochement with the mullahs of Tehran, and the President’s “blind pursuit of detente with Tehran, which would make the mullahs hegemonic over the Arab Middle East.”
Those who do sing in the President’s choir assert that foreign policy is his to make.
That is only partially true. Congress also has a role, if it wishes to use it. Its tools include the budget, Senatorial approval of treaties, assuming Congress insists on treaties rather than executive agreements, Senatorial approval of key appointments, plus all the other nudges that Congress can use.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was an extreme example. Also in that direction is the Congressional invitation to Bibi.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. Your comment may be posted in the space below or sent to ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com