[Originally published in the Herald of Randolph.]
In early March, the United States announced that after 14 months of no negotiations, Israel and Palestine had agreed to conduct “indirect” talks on the future of Palestine, brokered by the US.
A week later, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel to shore up a somewhat tattered relationship between the Obama Administration and Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
Then the Israeli Government announced that it was going ahead with plans to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
On hearing this, Biden arrived two hours late for dinner at Netanyahu’s, the equivalent of a diplomatic slap in the face.
He then openly aired his anger when speaking with the Palestinians in the West Bank and later directly with Netanyahu on his return to Israel.
The Netanyahu government apologized for the timing of the statement, but quite pointedly did not alter their settlement construction plans.
In mid-March, General David Petraeus sent a team to the Pentagon to brief the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The message, which was relayed to the White House, was that Arab governments view us as too weak and disinclined to deal with Israel in pursuit of an equitable Palestine solution. The conclusion was that Israeli policy is thus threatening the welfare of our troops in the Middle East. This caused great consternation in the White House.
According to some members if the Israeli peace movement, the Israeli government has absolutely no concern about the prospect that the United States government might turn against it in any fundamental way. The Israelis have been so successful over the years in keeping the United States in their corner in international affairs that they really don’t think anything can change that.
In the aftermath of the announcement of the East Jerusalem settlement plans and the negative reaction from the Obama Administration, the Netanyahu government has focused on trying to mitigate American anger. This has been all about damage control, not about considering the American equities involved. In fact, Netanyahu, after issuing an apology, has reiterated his government’s intention to go ahead with the settlements.
So, what are the implications of this dust-up? If you are prepared to accept the Pentagon’s contention that Israeli policy is, in effect, dangerous for our troops, then a number of things flow from that. First, it would seem that despite what Israel and her hard line supporters in the US have said for the past sixty years, US and Israeli national interests are not always identical.
That implies that in the critical area of our military involvement in the Middle East, continuing the settlement policy and avoiding a two-state solution are more important to Israel that the welfare of US troops. In fact, those troops were sent there to create conditions more favorable to Israel – the democratization of the Middle East. No matter that this was a neocon pipe dream.
Not only are we faced with the difficult religious, ethnic, tribal and political realities in our plans and hopes for the region, we have to deal with the sudden realization that the one country in the region we thought was on our side, really isn’t wholeheartedly there at all.
It would seem that Israel has made a terrible mistake here. America is Israel’s protector, not vice versa. We have important national interests in the Middle East which have been crassly rejected by the Israeli government. This is an extraordinarily imprudent thing for Israel to have done. They need to fix the matter. The Israeli Lobby, AIPAC, which immediately called on the US to calm things down, might better address that demand to Israel.
Ultimately, and this is the $64 Billion question, one has to ask if the Obama Administration believes that US national interests are involved in what the Pentagon sees as a threat to our troops. Are we as a nation prepared to say that we are capable of differing with Israel, at very least on the most important issues, which this certainly is? And then, are we prepared to do anything about it?
Most important, all of this comes against a shared consensus here and in Israel, particularly among some of Israel’s former leaders and best thinkers, that, dominated by demographics, the only hope Israel has to continue as a democratic Jewish state is a two state solution. That will mean the end of the settlement program. Without that, they will soon become a minority in their own land or, even worse, move to a form of apartheid, which, given our own value system, is something we could never support.
Is a continuation of our decades-old policy of overlooking the settlement policy going to threaten our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq? If you believe the Pentagon on this issue and if you care about the future of a democratic Israel, then you have to decide whether or not continued uncritical support of Israel is in our national interest, or theirs.
Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the Counterterrorism Staff. A former longtime resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.
