by Elliot Abrams
So the problem is not just bad chemistry at the top; it is an administration that has decided to create a tense and negative relationship from the top down.
The crisis between the United States and Israel has been
manufactured by the Obama administration. Building a crisis up or down
is well within the administration’s power, and it has chosen to build it
up. Why? Three reasons: to damage and defeat Netanyahu (whom Obama has
always disliked simply because he is on the right while Obama is on the
left) in his election campaign, to prevent Israel from affecting the
Iran policy debate in the United States, and worst of all to diminish
Israel’s popularity in the United States and especially among Democrats.
Barack Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Suppose
for a moment that the Netanyahu speech before Congress is a mistake, a
breach of protocol, a campaign maneuver, indeed all the bad things the
White House is calling it. Grant all of that for a moment for the sake
of argument and the behavior of the Obama administration is still
inexplicable. Clearly more is behind its conduct than mere pique over
the speech.
First comes the personal relationship and the
desire to see Netanyahu lose the election. Recall that Obama became
president before Netanyahu became prime minister, and it is obvious that
the dislike was both personal and political before Netanyahu had done anything.
Obama does not like people on the right, period—Americans, Israelis,
Australians, you name it. Obama also decided immediately on taking
office to pick a fight with Israel and make construction in settlements
and in Jerusalem the central issue in U.S.-Israeli relations. Remember
that he appointed George Mitchell as his special negotiator one day
after assuming the presidency, and Mitchell was the father of the demand
that construction—including even construction to accommodate what
Mitchell called “natural growth” of families in settlement
populations—be stopped dead. A confrontation was inevitable, and was
desired by the White House.
Obama has overplayed his hand, in the sense that in
poll after poll Israelis say that they do not support his Middle East
policies. Historically, an Israeli prime minister loses domestic support
when he cannot manage relations with Washington. This year may be the
exception, the time when Israelis want a prime minister to oppose U.S.
policies they view as dangerous. They may also believe that the Obama
administration is simply so hostile that no prime minister could avoid
confrontations.
I well remember how we in the Bush White House
handled the poor personal relations between the president and French
president Jacques Chirac. In 2004-2005 especially, the two men did not
get along (arguing mostly about Iraq and just plain disliking each other
as well) but we wanted to prevent their poor personal chemistry from
damaging bilateral relations. So National Security Advisor Condi Rice in
2004, and then her successor Steve Hadley in 2005, set up a
work-around. The French National Security Advisor Maurice
Gourdault-Montagne traveled to Washington almost every month and came to
the White House. There the French ambassador to the U.S., Jean-David
Levitte, joined him for meetings with key NSC, DOD, and State Department
officials. In 2005, Secretary of State Rice would come over from State
to join Hadley and several of us on the NSC staff, and in the course of a
half-day we would review every issue facing the United States and
France. It was a serious time commitment for the American and French
officials, but that is because we were determined to quarantine bad
personal chemistry and prevent it from infecting the entire
relationship—a goal set by President Bush himself.
Quite obviously, President Obama has no such goal.
Israeli officials have complained to me for several years about the lack
of contacts and communications with the White House. Susan Rice has
determined that her job is to make bilateral relations worse, and has
established no relationship with her Israeli counterpart Yossi Cohen. So
the problem is not just bad chemistry at the top; it is an
administration that has decided to create a tense and negative
relationship from the top down.
Elliot Abrams
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=11757
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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