Tough talk on Israel:

While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.

Comments

[justcorbly]

Nice link. Thanks. I don't think Petraeus should have needed to send out a fact-finding team to discover how deeply embedded distrust of the U.S. is in the MIddle East, but his conclusions are very much on target.

[Steve Harrison]

JTA has a pretty decent spread on this. At the very bottom of the article, Shas is revealed to be a (likely) instigator, at least as far as the untimely announcement is concerned:

Meanwhile, the Israeli Cabinet appeared to get Netanyahu’s message about the need to avoid future embarrassments of U.S. officials (and, for that matter, of the prime minister himself); the poorly timed announcement of the Ramat Shlomo building was believed to be part of a "more right wing than thou" contest of wills between two ministers of the religious Shas Party, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Housing Minister Ariel Attias. For his part, Attias was cowed, pleading on Israel Radio on Monday morning to "look forward" and asking "experienced and wise people" in the United States and Israel not to let matters further deteriorate.

[justcorbly]

In an NPR interview today, David Makovsky, from the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Netanyahu needs to take a step improve relations, perhaps by firing Shas. I hope the administration holds out for a real change of Israeli policy, like a reversal of the building decision. Not a single Palestinian would be swayed by the dismissal of Shas, seeing that, justifiably, as a handslap for an ill-timed press release.

[Steve Harrison]

With the understanding that predicting Knesset behavior is akin to reading tea leaves in a black cup: If Bibi doesn't boot Shas out of his coalition, Barak could pull Labor out, which would start the whole mess over again. I hope, anyway...

[Bubba]

Petraeus didn't do what the author said he did, and feeble attempt to cover up the mistake isn't convincing.

Meanwhile, left unsaid about the Biden/Clinton episodes is the obvious: The whole affair is yet another Obama foreign policy screwup.

Noteworthy:

"....Clinton thus was absolutely on target when she praised Netanyahu's decision to suspend housing construction in West Bank settlements as 'unprecedented.' No other Israeli leader had ever offered a Palestinian leader such a sweetener just to get him to the negotiating table. And this sweetener was preceded by several others. From the outset, Netanyahu ordered an end to construction of new settlements, an end to confiscation of land for settlement expansion, and an end to financial incentives to entice Israelis to put down roots in the West Bank -- all before Abbas was even ready for indirect or direct negotiations.

This leaves Clinton looking rather silly when she now gets her dander up and excoriates Netanyahu for allowing construction planning to proceed in Ramat Shlomo -- something she was perfectly willing to accept in exchange for the West Bank construction moratorium only a few months ago.

Obama somehow forgot that Ramat Shlomo is exactly the kind of well-established Jewish neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem that Netanyahu was not going to touch, and that did not raise administration hackles when Clinton was on the same page as Bibi in trying to get peace talks restarted."

[Andrew Brod]

The FP article to which Ed links says that "Biden’s embarrassment is not the whole story." I think that's right, and I'd take it further. In my view, the most disturbing aspect of this is the notion implicit in Petraeus' statements and apparently voiced explicitly by Biden in private talks: that U.S. soldiers are being endangered by Israel's actions.

I'm no Likudnik, but I don't buy this one bit. U.S. actions have done enough all by themselves to endanger American soldiers. I think one can argue just as persuasively that U.S. adventurism in Iraq has put Israel at risk.

But perhaps it doesn't have to be framed this way. Perhaps it's not about who's endangering whom. Reality is complex, especially in the Mideast. As Biden correctly said, Israel is our strong ally, and together we're navigating dangerous seas. The difference, of course, is that while we've chosen to take on risk through the discretionary war in Iraq, the Israelis have no choice. Israel's risk is existential.

[justcorbly]

I agree, Andrew, that U.S. adventurism has put Americans at risk. I also think, though, that every settlement expanded, every house built on captured land, fuels the hatred and mistrust of the U.S. that is rampant in the Middle East. It may not have a direct cause and effect link to the safety of a soldier in Iraq, but it does nothing to reduce the risk faced by all American personnel in the region, military and civilian. It's just one more thing that will be interpreted as a sign of American inability to constrain Israel, or, more likely, evidence thatIsrael is jerking America around by a nose ring. Or, vice versa, since it's a paranoid place.

It is foolhardy for Israel to dream of peace, much less acceptance, while it launches new settlements. Peace may not come with an end to settlement expansion, of even their rollback, but it will surely not come otherwise.

Whether that is right or wrong is immaterial. As they like to say in the region, it is the truth on the ground.

[Andrew Brod]

It does nothing to reduce the risk? That's an interesting criterion. We could say the same thing about our trade policy with Australia or our K-12 education policies. Neither of them does anything to reduce the risk faced by American personnel in the Mideast.

[justcorbly]

The primary reason U.S. personnel are at risk in the Middle East and South Asia is because they are there. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been resolved years ago the single most significant factor fueling hatred of Americans in the region would not exist. The connection between hatred of Americans and killing Americans seems apparent.

Every effort, large or small, by Israel to sustain or enlarge its settlements on Palestinian land confirms to those who hate and distrust Americans that they have a reason for that hate and distrust. We can argue that they are wrong, but that will change nothing.

[Andrew Brod]

I'm not arguing that "they" are wrong, I'm arguing that you're wrong.

[Ed Cone]

AB,

Perhaps I'm misreading you, but you seem to be saying that Israeli policy has no more impact on US stature in the ME than does "trade policy with Australia or our K-12 education policies."

[Steve Harrison]

I agree, Corbs. With our decades-old verbal and financial support as a background, Israeli activities in the Occupied Territories is, accurately or not, viewed as an extension of American foreign policy.

You know, we spent years fighting a Cold War to force an oppressive power to "tear down this wall" and allow freedom and Democracy in, and then we sit idly by while one of our allies throws up a wall hundreds of miles long, restricting the movements of thousands of people in the process. And then we compound that glaring contradiction by claiming Israel is the only Democracy in the region.

And the American people just can't understand why so many people in the region don't love and trust us as the doting parent we think we are. It must be them, because we're just trying to help, you know.

[Andrew Brod]

Ed, yes, you're misreading me. I was replying directly to Corbs' statement.

In a previous comment, I noted that it's complicated, as I'm sure you'll agree. There are effects and blowbacks flowing every which way. So I'm troubled by statements that extract one element of that complexity (Israel is endangering U.S. troops), let alone an element that is by no means obviously true, and use it to focus U.S. policy in the Mideast.

I'll also note that I'm not trying to hide the fact that I'm a strong supporter of Medinat Yisrael. I may not be a Likudnik and I'm no fan of the settlement-building enterprise, but I don't want a dubious and one-dimensional cause-and-effect belief to alter U.S. support for Israel.

[Ed Cone]

The direct connection between settlements and GIs is reductive, but the broader issue of Israeli policy and US reputation is very real.

[Andrew Brod]

Definitely, and it goes both ways.

[Bubba]

"If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been resolved years ago the single most significant factor fueling hatred of Americans in the region would not exist."

And something else would have magically appeared to take its place.

The Israeli/Palestinian situation has much deeper political and social roots than the ancient land issue alone.