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Note to Netanyahu: Stop destroying the US-Israel relationship

By now it is clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrously-timed speech to Congress has seriously damaged the US-Israel relationship – but the danger is that he has embarked on a course that will make that damage much worse and perhaps permanent.
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February 26, 2015

By now it is clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrously-timed speech to Congress has seriously damaged the US-Israel relationship – but the danger is that he has embarked on a course that will make that damage much worse and perhaps permanent.

Countless analysts, Israelis and Americans, from the left and the right, are writing that they cannot recall a time when this crucial relationship has been so compromised. The relationship “has never been so terrible as it is today,” Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser associated with the Israeli right told the New York Times.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on Israeli-American relations at Bar-Ilan University, told Israel Radio that it was clear the longstanding bipartisanship that underpinned the alliance “has now been badly broken.”

Writing in the Washington Post, Tufts University professor Daniel Drezner said that if the United States and five other world powers reached a nuclear deal with Iran and if Netanyahu were reelected in Israel’s March 17 election, “the effects on the bilateral relationship over the next two years will be devastating.”

One of the most important tasks of any Israeli Prime Minister has been to nurture and tend his country’s partnership with the one strategic ally it can count on – the United States. Israelis understand very well that this relationship is the only thing that stands between them and almost total international isolation.

As Dov Zakheim writes in Foreign Policy, whatever his personal feelings about President Obama, Netanyahu needs American support on a host of issues. Israel needs US diplomatic support in international organizations; it needs American military equipment and US dollars to buy that equipment. “The list goes on. And on. Mr. Netanyahu is putting all of this in jeopardy.”

Why are people across the political spectrum, Republicans as well as Democrats, so upset? First of course, it’s the timing of the speech, two weeks before the Israeli election. Former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser Chuck Freilich wrote that Netanyahu has “subordinated Israel’s most crucial strategic interests to election considerations.”

Second, it’s the strong feeling that Netanyahu has lined up with the Republicans and no longer cares to have a relationship with President Obama in particular and Democrats in general. His personally-chosen Washington ambassador, Ron Dermer, is a former Republican political operative. Netanyahu’s blunt rejection of an invitation to meet privately with Senate Democrats during his visit, no doubt on Dermer’s advice, has solidified the feeling that for the first time in history, Israel’s Prime Minister has thrown in his lot with one US political party.

“Since when does an Israeli prime minister say no to a meeting with Democrats?” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. He added: “By the way, their Israeli voting record is impeccable. Not good, not very good, impeccable. The Democrats extend a hand of sorts and he says no? This defies explanation.”

Thirdly, there is the strong sense that this speech is just the opening shot of what will be a long and withering fight between Obama and Netanyahu plus his Republican allies over the Iran deal if there is one. Netanyahu is determined to kill an agreement which the President is convinced will make the whole world, including Israel, safer. The Republicans are his willing tool. They will bring resolution after resolution, bill after bill, congressional letter after congressional letter, trying to hem in Obama, block implementation of the deal, refuse to relax sanctions, refuse budgetary authority, attach riders – whatever works.

The Republicans in the House have voted 56 times to repeal Obama Care – and they’re willing to use the same tactics against the Iran deal. Netanyahu will back them every step of the way. Supporters of Israel will have to choose between their President and Netanyahu. Many will back Obama. The impression, already now forming, will harden that support for Israel is increasingly a partisan issue.

Nothing could be more damaging for Israel’s future. We have to hope that Netanyahu, deep in a hole of his own making, decides after this ill-conceived speech, to stop digging.

Alan Elsner is Vice President of Communications for J Street

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