Was the battle against the deal a failure? (and six other comments)

1.

President Obama got his veto power. He can now make the Iran agreement pass. And that was no big surprise. It will also not be a huge surprise if he gets the 41 Senators with which to prevent a vote – by filibustering the Iran debate. After all was said and done, the Iran vote is a party-line vote for almost all members of Congress. I don't think there was much prospect of it being different.

You could ask: so what's the battle for?

Good question. But there are answers.

The first answer – to make a point. Israel and its supporters wanted to make a point and demonstrate their dissatisfaction. If this is a “historic mistake” – as many opponents of the deal truly believe – a battle of historic proportion against it is due.

Another one – Israel and its supporters cannot ask Congress people to oppose the deal and at the same time refrain from battling it (that's one reason for which Israel is reluctant to have any discussion about the “future” with the Obama administration before the vote).

Another one – the less support the agreement has in Congress, the more likely it becomes that a future Congress at a future date will act against the agreement (for instance, when there is proof that the implementation isn't quite what we were hoping for).

2.

Was the battle a failure?

In Israel, there are critics who already say that. I think it is nonsense. Netanyahu knew all along that the chances for a veto-proof majority were slim. He decided to make the attempt for the above mentioned reasons.

Of course, this does not mean that all criticism of Netanyahu's policies is nonsense. One could easily argue that his decision was not wise; that it would have been better for Israel to negotiate with the Obama administration; that it would have been wiser for Israel to refrain from taking part in an internal political battle. Some knowledgeable Israelis make this case with great conviction. They have a case. Netanyahu also has a case.

3.

And what about the AIPAC campaign?

Well, what about it? It did not sway enough Democratic legislators to vote against their party and their President. The vote is a partisan vote – and Netanyahu may have contributed to making it partisan by going to Congress (as some in AIPAC argue).

When one takes on an uphill battle, one needs to be prepared for disappointment. As far as I know, the people waging the battle were prepared for disappointment. On the other hand, there is no point in having an organization such as AIPAC if it only fights the battles in which victory is ensured.

And by the way: can we now agree to drop, for a while, the Israel-lobby-dictates-American-foreign-policy talk?

4.

Candidate Hillary Clinton got emails from Sydney Blumenthal about Israel and its leader that make her seem like a… Well, she is obviously not a fool.

If Clinton did not value Blumenthal's advice on Israel – as I'm sure she is going to say at some point – why did she, a busy Secretary of State, waste time on reading it, forwarding it, commenting on it? Why didn't she tell him to focus on whatever it is that he is supposed to know and quit giving idiotic advice on Israel?

If she did value the emails of a person contending that “Bibi [Netanyahu] is stage managing US Jewish organizations (and neocons, and the religious right, and whomever else he can muster) against the administration”, or writing that “Bibi desperately seeks his father’s approbation and can never equal his dead brother” – that's even worse. That means that she values the advice of someone who seems to have zero understanding of Israel, and less than zero sympathy for it.

Clinton might be the next US President. Blumenthal might be an advisor sending emails to the next US President.

So next time you wonder about the supposed Israeli preference for a Republican President, consider the following question: can you see any of the Republican contenders for the top job getting such emails from an advisor and forwarding them with the reference “Fyi and itys (I told you so)”? Can you imagine such a Republican candidate remaining a contender after such an email is revealed?

5.

Also, next time a supporter of President Obama complains about the chutzpah of former ambassador Michael Oren, because of Oren's attempt at psychoanalyzing Obama's motivations – I suggest he first reads Blumenthal's nonsense:

“The father, Benzion Netanyahu; 100 years old, secretary to Jabotinsky, and denounced as too radical by Begin, adored his son Yoni, heroically killed at Entebbe. Benyamin has never measured up. Benzion has constantly criticized him in public for his deviations from the doctrine of Greater Israel. Bibi desperately seeks his father’s approbation and can never equal his dead brother. See Benzion’s most recent scathing undermining of his son Bibi and Bibi’s tearful tribute to his brother just last month.”

“The raid on the ship to Gaza resembles the raid on Entebbe, except that there are no hostages, no guns, it’s not in Africa, and it’s a fiasco; otherwise, it’s Entebbe. (Then, there’s Ehud Barak reliving his youth as a raider killing Palestinians in Lebanon, a feat memorialized in Spielberg’s film, Munich. Ultimately, it didn’t work out well that time either. The film captures the moral quandaries, which appear to have escaped the participants.)”

Or he can read the more serious emails from the more knowledgeable Martin Indyk (H\T Max Fisher):

Bibi's negotiating tactics become self-defeating. Believing that he is a great negotiator, and that he is operating in the Middle East bazaar, he inflates his requirements well beyond anything reasonable in the belief that this is the best way to secure the highest price. The process of bringing him down to a reasonable price uses up a lot of energy, uses up a lot of goodwill, humiliates his Palestinian negotiating partner, and raises doubts about his seriousness. In the end, under great pressure from all quarters, he will make the final concession, but only after wasting a lot of time, making everybody furious with him, and thereby securing no credit either with his supporters or negotiating partners. At heart, he seems to lack a generosity of spirit. This combines with his legendary fear of being seen as a “freier” (sucker) in front of his people to create a real problem in the negotiations, especially because he holds most of the cards.

So now you know: there's no peace in the Middle East because Netanyahu lacks a “generosity of spirit,” whatever that means.

6.

As one reads all this material, one can't avoid a conclusion that is quite amusing: these Clinton people are obsessed with Netanyahu. They truly think that had it been someone else the situation would be completely different. They truly see him as the villain that keeps the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from being resolved. Like Netanyahu or dislike Netanyahu – that's absurd.

7.

JJ Goldberg responded to my article from last week in which I criticized his tendency to highlight the views of few Israeli dissenters on the Iran deal.

Goldberg doesn't accept my claim that the dissenters are few. He writes:

What’s significant is that dozens of ex-generals and spymasters have spoken out individually and jointly, not in defense of the nuclear deal but against Netanyahu’s scorched-earth campaign against the White House. They include a former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, the current head of the Israel Space Agency – the outfit in charge of missile development – and numerous ex-heads of Military Intelligence and the Mossad.

I agree: many Israelis disagree with Netanyahu's “campaign against the White House”. But that wasn't the point under discussion, was it? My criticism referred to the implied claim that many Israeli defense officials or former officials believe that the deal with Iran is a good deal. In fact, there aren't many such people. There are many who believe that the deal is not good. Almost everyone thinks it is not good. And then there are those who think that the battle against the deal should be handled the way Netanyahu is handling it, and those who think that Netanyahu is going too far in battling against a done deal.

As I don’t want to repeat all of my previous arguments, and Goldberg's, I'll add just one point that I think is worthy of consideration. Defense officials might have the professional knowhow with which to judge the deal. And they are not judging it favorably. Defense officials are much less qualified to judge a political battle and the way it should be waged. So with all due respect – and I have the outmost respect for all those Goldberg mentions in his articles – and even though I agree with some of what they say (I was against Netanyahu's speech in Congress, as my readers well know) – I don't find the dissent of generals and admirals significant when they attempt to judge what is essentially a political battle.