The US-Israel Relations exchange, part 3: Is the bond really ‘unbreakable’?

Jonathan Rynhold is the director of the Argov Center for the Study of the Jewish People and the State of Israel in the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University, where he is also a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Dr Rynhold's research focuses on Israeli and American approaches toward the Middle East peace process. His work has been published in numerous academic journals, including Political Science Quarterly, Survival, and the Review of International Studies. He has also co-edited two volumes on Israeli elections in the Israel at the Polls series and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Fathom. Additionally, Dr. Rynhold is a member of our Israel Factor panel.

This exchange focuses on Dr. Rynhold’s new book, The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2015). You can find parts one and two of the exchange here and here.

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Dear Jonathan,

We can't ignore the barrage of news and the perception of crisis mode in US-Israel relations. So I read your previous answers – and the book – and I’m asking myself: how “safe” are these relations between the two countries? Is the bond really “unbreakable” and “unshakable” as the Obama administration often claims – or maybe what we have been seeing in recent years, and in recent weeks, are signs of “breakability”?

Let me frame it in another way: how can we differentiate between the occasional dispute between governments over specific policies – including harsh disputes – and a trend that might lead to a long term deterioration of the relations?

Yours,

Shmuel.

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Dear Shmuel,

It is important to make a distinction between the crisis in relations between Obama and Netanyahu, and the US-Israeli relationship in general. The relationship is much broader and deeper than relations between specific administrations. Security Cooperation is extremely widespread, and in certain respects it has actually deepened under Obama. Bilateral ties are heavily institutionalized, and they have very high levels of public support, which is expressed in Congress. In many respects the relationship is much stronger today than even in the so-called golden age during the 1970s and 1980s. For example, in the mid-1970s about 500 people attended AIPAC’s annual conference, this year 16,000 attended. In the early 1980s, AIPAC still had to work hard to get the aid to Israel through Congress, unlike today when it’s basically untouchable, even though Israel needs it far less. Moreover, since 9/11 the American public as a whole has become more sympathetic to Israel than ever before. Even many who are critical of Israeli policies continue to sympathize more with Israel over the Palestinians, unlike in Europe. This means that the fundamental underlying American commitment to Israeli security remains robust.

However, this is only half of the story. For, in a sense, the US-Israel relationship can be summed up by paraphrasing the opening line from one of Dickens’ novels: ‘It is the best of times and the worst of times’. The spat between Netanyahu and Obama should not be dismissed lightly, for it is more than simply a personal clash. Sure, overall sympathy for Israel has never been higher, but there is also increasingly strong criticism of illiberal Israeli policies, especially regarding the peace process, among wide sections of the Democratic Party base. Democrats as a whole are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel, but that sympathy is lowest among the young, liberals, the religiously unaffiliated and Hispanics, the very groups that are increasingly central to the Democratic Party base. There is also a growing trend among young, non-Orthodox Jews and liberals in general to be increasingly vociferous in their criticism of illiberal Israeli policies, and they are more willing to back those positions politically. So even though underlying sympathy for Israel remains widespread, the ability of an Israeli government to lever that sympathy into political support is declining because of the erosion of the bipartisan consensus on what it means in practice to support Israel. Liz Shrayer, a former political director of AIPAC, once said that “AIPAC's great success derives from its capacity to define what it means to be pro-Israel”. AIPAC is a much bigger organization now than it was in her day, and yet its ability to define what it means to be pro-Israel in the political arena is not what it was.

What does all this mean for Israel? In political terms, it is more important for Israel to maintain bipartisan support than it is to have higher levels of overall support concentrated on one side of the political spectrum. After all, the GOP is never going to win every election! To protect bipartisanship, Israel must take the measures I outlined in my previous answer. Most important, it must be credible about its willingness to implement a two state solution in exchange for peace and security and it must protect its standing as a democracy. If it succeeds in doing this, even very serious disagreements and crises between the political echelons over policy will not damage the underlying foundations of the special relationship.