If you read only the mainstream media reports on Israel, you come away thinking that it is the Israelis who are the obstacles to peace, and that it is the Palestinians who are the ones who are willing to make concessions to create a Palestinian state.

That is, until you actually read what the leaders of the two nations are actually saying.

It’s a point that’s discussed in today’s Wall Street Journal, A Palestinian choice, which concludes:

Responding to Mr. Netanyahu’s speech, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called it an “important step forward,” but offered little more than that. The Administration could help matters more by providing the Israelis with greater assurances that they won’t simultaneously demand further Israeli concessions while doing nothing serious to stop Iran — a leading patron of Hamas — from getting nuclear weapons. A Palestinian state poses enough challenges to Israeli security without it being an atomic spearpoint.

As for the Palestinians, for too long they have practiced a kind of fantasy politics, in which all right was on their side, concession was dishonor, and mistakes never had consequences. It hasn’t earned them much. Mr. Netanyahu’s speech now offers them the choice between fantasy and statehood. Judging from early reactions, they’re choosing wrongly again.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

But beyond the idea of a state, he seemed to offer little room for compromise or negotiation.
…
“Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about negotiations, but left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement. “Nor did he accept a Palestinian state. Instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible.”

Now between these two paragraphs there were few more reported.

He referred repeatedly to the West Bank, the territory presumed to comprise the bulk of a future Palestinian state, by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria, declaring it “the land of our forefathers.”

Mr. Netanyahu made no mention of existing frameworks for negotiations, like the American-backed 2003 peace plan known as the road map.

He did not address the geographical area a Palestinian state might cover, and he said that the Palestinian refugee problem must be resolved outside Israel’s borders, negating the Palestinian demand for a right of return for refugees of the 1948 war and for their millions of descendants.

He insisted that Jerusalem remain united as the Israeli capital. The Palestinians demand the eastern part of the city as a future capital.

(emphases mine)

Notice that Palestinian demands are reported as a matter of course. So when Erakat mopes that Netanyahu has left it so that there’s “nothing to negotiate” he’s really saying “Netanyahu rejected our unconditional demands.”

Also note the last word of Erakat’s quote, “impossible.” In many ways Palestinian nationalism is the antithesis of Zionism. Palestinian nationalism has fundamentally been about denying (and, where possible, destroying) Jewish nationhood.

But here’s something else, Zionism has always had a “can do” ethos. Herzl famously said, “Im Tirtzu, Ein Zeh Agada” or (as it is commonly translated) “If you will it, it is not a dream.” But Palestinian nationalism, has always been “can’t do.” We can’t fight terror, We can’t change our charter. We can’t concede any part of Jerusalem.

It’s always been we can’t do it, we need someone else to do it for us. So the Palestinians have become the biggest per capita recipients of foreign aid and still don’t have a state to show for all of their terrorism and diplomatic maneuvering. Because instead of having a positive national idea, the Palestinians have had a negative one.

Howard Schneider’s dispatch in the Washington Post, Netanyahu backs 2 state goal suffers from that same perspective.

But in a prime-time address delivered at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, he attached a weighty list of conditions dictated by his personal beliefs and by the need to satisfy his right-leaning coalition in the Israeli parliament: The Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, with international guarantees that it remain so; it would have to cede control of its airspace to Israel; and it could be created only if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland.

Netanyahu’s speech did a good job of providing a historical context to the conflict in the Middle East. In addition, it was excellent summary of Israel’s political consensus. Instead Schneider snidely refers to the as Netanyahu’s “personal beliefs” and as a sop to his “right-leaning coalition.” (President Obama’s speech in Cairo, on the other hand was an ahistorical statement of his personal beliefs and a sop to the many left wing groups who supported his election.) As with Kershner, Schneider treats Palestinian demands as sacrosanct; Israeli demands as unreasonable.

Though Netanyahu’s speech could certainly be viewed as a rebuke to President Obama, President Obama at least publicly was gracious in h is response. I have no idea if Netanyahu made the President rethink his position regarding the Middle East. Unfortunately, it appears that the media is still stuck in their old ways of thinking.

UPDATE: In his preview of PM Netanyahu’s speech, Schneider wrote:

But Netanyahu’s speech will also try to respond more directly to Obama’s effort in Cairo to “reset” U.S. relations with the Arab and Muslim world. While the speech was credited in Israel for reaffirming the alliance between the two countries and for strong language about Holocaust denial, Israeli analysts said that it also seemed to interpret key issues from an Arab perspective.

It associated Israel’s creation directly with the Holocaust, for example, rather than acknowledging the long-standing Zionist efforts to provide a Jewish homeland. It also dated the problems of Palestinians to Israel’s creation in 1948 without mentioning Arab rejection of a proposed partition plan and other events that Israelis regard as fundamental to the conflict.

(emphasis mine)

It wasn’t “Israeli analysts” who “seemed to interpret” President Obama’s speech from an Arab perspective. The Washington Post reported that that was the precisely the goal of President Obama. And taken together with the Post’s reporting of the Jewish anti-Israel influences who were important to President Obama, it’s very clear that the need for the Israeli leader to address the historical aspect of Zionism and force the President to speak honestly about that. Again, it’s not clear that it will work, but Netanyahu had no choice but to lay out Israel’s case unapologetically.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

AFP reports, Israel’s Barak visits US in bid to heal rift

Barak’s visit comes just two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first meeting with Obama in Washington, revealing deep divisions over ways to move forwards towards Middle East peace.

How does Minister of Defense, Barak’s trip so soon after Netanyahu’s show “deep division?” I suspect that if Barak hadn’t followed up so quickly after Netanyahu’s visit, no doubt that also would have been reported as a sign of a “deep division.”

The hawkish premier sparked international criticism over his repeated refusal to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a bedrock principle of international peacemaking efforts over the past two decades.

And if Netanyahu did, or did not, so what? Mahmoud Abbas has refused to acknowledge a few things too.

Consider for a moment that two of Abbas’s three no’s – his refusal to amend the Arab peace plan and vocal opposition to Israel’s Jewish character – can be collapsed into one: an insistence on Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel proper. This is a stipulation that no Israeli government would ever accept, while Obama rejected the “right of return” explicitly as “not an option” during his presidential campaign.

Why Netanyahu’s failure to adhere to the peace processors playbook is any more inimical than Abbas’s is unclear. I would point out that even by the peace processors reckoning Netanyahu has done more to support the peace process than Abbas.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times – whose idea of an expert is Chas Freeman or Ali Abunimah weighs in today with U.S. Weighs Tactics on Israeli Settlement:

Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”

Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.

But, the official added, “Israel is a critical United States ally, and no one in this administration expects that not to continue.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Understand what’s going on here. Any sort of rebuke of Israel, is something that Cooper is rooting for. I believe that her anonymous official who feeds her the quote that she seeks, is misreading Israel’s electorate. This isn’t a right wing government by any stretch of the imagination. (I don’t believe that Netanyahu’s government from 1996 – 1999 was far to the right either, but this one is even less so.) My guess is that the Israeli electorate feels that the Obama administration is unfairly pressuring Israel while more serious crises are brewing, that the electorate will support the government. Additionally, the peace process is not new anymore,. Israelis know that the peace process has netted them Hamastan in Gaza, a mostly ineffective and corrupt Fatah government in the cities of Judea and Samaria and a strengthened Hezbollah. Assuming as Abbas apparently does, that the Palestinians need not deal with Netanyahu because his conflict with the Obama administration will lead to his defeat in a future election seems wishful thinking. Yet it seems that that is exactly what Cooper is wishing for.

I’m not going to argue that the Obama-Netanyahu relationship will be as close as the Bush-Sharon relationship. I’m not going to argue that the U.S. Israel relationship will be as strong during President Obama’s term in office, because it won’t. (Even if Livni were PM, this would be true.) However I’m not convinced that the conflict will be as severe as Netanyahu’s many critics in the media want it to be.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

During meetings with congressional leaders this week, Netanyahu was stunned by the “harsh and unequivocal statements” with which lawmakers complained about the settlements, according to an account in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The newspaper said that although the prime minister tried to highlight the threat of Iran in his talks, lawmakers instead returned repeatedly to the issue of settlements, leading his entourage to conclude that the message had been coordinated with the Obama administration.

That’s a reasonable conclusion, though I’m surprised it wasn’t reported last week. Regardless, Israel was relying on assurances from the now no-longer-in-power Bush administration:

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said there are no plans for a full settlement freeze. “The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities,” he said.

Regev said the Israeli government is relying on “understandings” between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon that some of the larger settlements in the occupied West Bank would ultimately become part of Israel, codified in a letter that Bush gave to Sharon in 2004. In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Sharon aide Dov Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration arrived at a secret agreement — not disclosed to the Palestinians — that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.

Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser who negotiated the arrangement with Weissglas, confirmed the deal in an interview last week. “At the time of the Gaza withdrawal, there were lengthy discussions about how settlement activity might be constrained, and in fact it was constrained in the later part of the Sharon years and the Olmert years in accordance with the ideas that were discussed,” he said. “There was something of an understanding realized on these questions, but it was never a written agreement.”

But according to the New York Times it would appear that the Obama administration has no interest in continuing an understanding – albeit and unwritten one – that was extended by the previous administration:

Speaking of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.” Talking to reporters after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she said: “That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.”

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, the administration’s strongest to date on the matter, came as an Israeli official said Wednesday that the Israeli government wanted to reach an understanding with the Obama administration that would allow some new construction in West Bank settlements.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion when he meets with Mr. Obama on Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have said repeatedly that they see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.

Jonathan Tobin asks:

Does this leak of a plea by the Netanyahu government show that Jerusalem believes the Obama administration will actually unveil a new peace plan that will explicitly prohibit the construction of a house or add-on anywhere over the green line?

The question of settlement growth has been something of a red herring for years. Israel isn’t building new settlements and hasn’t since the 1990s. But unless the United States is going to adopt a position that every single one of these Jewish communities must be held in a choke hold — the better to ease them out of existence — natural growth must be allowed.

But here’s the rub:

George W. Bush’s June 2004 statement in which he explicitly supported the creation of an independent Palestinian state (albeit one that would not be ruled by supporters of terror and corrupt actors, something that pretty much renders such a state impossible under the existing circumstances) also said that any peace agreement must take into account the changes that have occurred on the ground since 1967. In other words, the large Jewish suburbs on the outskirts of Jerusalem and elsewhere close to the old border were not going to be handed over to the Palestinians under any circumstances. Then, as now, most Israelis would be willing to give up outlying settlements but now the clusters close to the old green line are where most of the “settlers” live. Ariel Sharon paid in hard diplomatic currency for this American statement but his successors soon discovered that the purchase was worthless.

Palestinian officials may claim that they won’t engage in peace talks without a complete “settlement” freeze, but that’s hardly the main obstacle to peace.

The Palestinian factions can’t even put on a unified front – and even if they can, there’s no guarantee that they’ll adopt a “moderate” position – and their moderate leader refuses to endorse a Jewish state (which would be a prerequisite for accepting a “two state solution.”)

And is the United States going to ignore the very real incitement that still comes from the Palestinians on a regular basis?

To see the perfect symbol of the problem with U.S. Middle East policy you need look no further. No one in the region takes America too seriously because it does not follow up and enforce its positions. The PA knows that it can do what it wants and pay no price. There is no–repeat no–real pressure on it to stop incitement, educate its people for peace, make any real compromise or concession. Instead, this “moderate” institution is continuing to teach its children that being a terrorist is the highest calling and due the greatest honor.

Just like Hamas does.

The Western media also has no interest in this issue either despite energetically seeking out any issue on which Israel can be criticized, even often when such things are made up and prove to have no basis in reality.

We have seen, and will see, the administration devote huge efforts to stopping settlers from adding a room onto an existing apartment. Will it devote any effort at all to turning the PA in the direction of peace or even enforcing U.S. law?

So with Iran about to develop nuclear weapons, Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah poised to gain power in Lebanon and North Korea threatening to abrogate its ceasefire with South Korea, the one area of foreign policy where President Obama has chosen to take a stand is where Israel can build. (Tobin pointed out that this would be an issue even if Tzippi Livni had been elected!) I guess I was wrong to dismiss reports of a clash coming between Obama and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu needs to be careful. He cannot allow himself to be bullied. He has a stronger base of support at home than he had thirteen years ago. He must make the case that ceding territory to hostiles is a recipe for disaster not peace and that the United States and the world has much bigger worries than where Jews live. It won’t be easy, but that’s his job.

Related please see I*Consult, Elder of Ziyon, Israel Matzav, Israelly Cool, Daled Amos, My Right Word and The Muqata.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

For one thing it appears that apart from Secretary of State Clinton’s highly inappropriate remarks an Al Jazeera, PM Netanyahu is discussing what is meant by “settlement freeze” with the administration.

For instance, Israel has been working on the assumption that, with tacit agreement from the US, it may build inside the lines of existing settlements in the large settlement blocs that it believes it will retain under any future diplomatic agreement….The settlement issue was expected to be one of the top ones dealt with in working groups that have been set up between the US and Israel to discuss a wide range of topics. Israeli sources said work in these groups had already started.”

This, of course, will never be enough for the Arab world and their cheerleaders. But more importantly, it appears that there will be a joint Israeli-American monitoring group to judge how successful the administration’s outreach to Iran has been. Perhaps the concern most Americans have regarding Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is the reason the administration is apparently taking Israel’s concerns seriously.

It would appear, according to these reports that despite their differences, President Obama and PM Netanyahu have decided to work together.

Also see here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

But Mr. Obama did not get his settlement freeze. In fact, Mr. Netanyahu told him it would be politically difficult for him to halt the construction of settlements. That is a hurdle to the administration’s broader peace objectives because Israel’s Arab neighbors have characterized a freeze as a precondition for them to establish normal relations.

Nor did Mr. Obama get much from Mr. Netanyahu on a peace plan beyond his promise to make good on a few commitments that Israel had already agreed to on the “road map,” an outline of peace steps that has not gotten either Palestinians or Israelis any closer to peace since President George W. Bush first announced it in 2003.

Mr. Netanyahu did agree to resume talks with Palestinians without preconditions. But he would not explicitly endorse the notion of an eventual Palestinian state, something his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, had already done.

“This is why I’m asking the question, did our president get suckered?” said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and director of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. “We don’t know the answer yet, but unless he got something more from Bibi in that meeting than they’re telling us, that question can be asked.”

Indyk, of course, as Ambassador to Israel was very much into scoring points against Netanyahu when he served in that post, and it got the Clinton administration Ehud Barak, Camp David and the Aqsa Intifada.

But if the President didn’t get his “settlement freeze, why is that possibly a loss for President Oama? Despite its being touted as a necessary precondition for the Arab world to drop their official antisemitism, there’s no guarantee it would work.

Still Secretary of State Clinton announced that a “settlement freeze” is an American demand to terror TV channel Al Jazeera.

Still no amount of pressure will create a Palestinian State if that isn’t the goal of the Palestinians (via memeorandum).

Over and over, the pattern has been repeated. Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs’ notorious response: “No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel.”

At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking – a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tens of billions of dollars in “compensation” for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel’s history.

To this day, the charters of Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, call for Israel’s liquidation. “The whole world” may want peace and a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want something very different. Until that changes, there is no two-state solution.

And as long as the Palestinians remain uncommitted to peaceful coexistence no amount of pressure on Israel will bring peace to the Middle East.

So after President Obama meets with Abu Mazen will we see scorecards about who “won” the encounter? Or whether Abu Mazen will endorse the concept of a Jewish state enthusiastically?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

To give Israel some quick tangible benefits, the United States wants the Arabs to begin normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Jordan’s King Abdullah describes this promise of recognition by the Arab League nations as a “23-state solution.”

The key to this front-loading strategy is Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis warn privately that they won’t normalize anything unless Israel makes some dramatic moves — such as freezing settlements in the occupied West Bank — that demonstrate its commitment to the 2003 “road map” for peace.

To break this logjam, the Obama administration appears ready to lean hard on Netanyahu. Obama has a range of options, starting with criticism of Israel for failing to meet the road map conditions and escalating to tougher measures.

Aside from the irony of a repressive monarchy deciding when Israel is moral enough to speak to, the problem with Ignatius’s formulation is that Israel (and presumably the United States) has/have a much different view of what constitute “settlements” than what the Saudis and the Arab League do. If President Obama adopts the Saudi definition, that would constitute a major change in American policy, but if he doesn’t the Saudis will still have their pretext for doing nothing.

It’s interesting that for seven years the Saudis have had their “peace plan” on the table, and only now someone’s asking them for a down payment to show their good faith. Of course if Ignatius is correct, the Saudis are still demanding something tangible and permanent from Israel even before they grant Israel the courtesy of acknowledging its existence.

(Barry Rubin doesn’t think that the difference between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu are so far apart.

On Israel’s side he said settlements have to be stopped–though there are no new settlements or expanding of settlements in territorial terms, a point that often is forgotten. There has to be reconstruction of Gaza along with an end to rocket attacks, which means a loosening of border controls.

This is not so difficult for Israel to accomplish: close down some outposts, remove new settlement efforts, and revise the border controls on Gaza. These are all things Netanyahu is quite prepared to do to maintain good relations with the United States.

I don’t think that changing the border controls on Gaza is without risk.)

It’s hard to read Ignatius without getting the impression that he does want the United States to pressure Israel, regardless of consequences.

Netanyahu knew Obama was a rare politician when they first met in March 2007. Back then, nobody was giving the Illinois senator much of a chance, but the Likud leader told his aides: “I think this is the next president of the United States.” Now Netanyahu faces the full force of the Obama political phenomenon — a president who feels politically secure enough to ignore the usual rules of the U.S.-Israel relationship and push hard for what he thinks is right.

Of course, just because President Obama (and David Ignatius) thinks it’s right, doesn’t make it so. Absent any serious movement on the part of the Palestinians or the Arab world in general, there will be no Middle East peace, no matter how hard Obama leans on Bibi.

The Washington Post, editorially, also advocates the “pressure Israel” approach to Middle East peacemaking:

It may be that a mere show of U.S. sleeve-rolling on the peace process, along with pro forma Israeli cooperation, will provide adequate cover for Arab states that are eager to join in an anti-Iranian alliance. That is what Mr. Netanyahu is calculating. If Mr. Obama genuinely intends to press for an early Israeli-Palestinian settlement, he will have to push U.S.-Israeli relations into a red zone of tension for the first time in many years. He would do well to make clear to Israeli voters that any government that will not explicitly embrace Palestinian statehood or an end to settlements will not have smooth relations with Washington. Even if that does not lead to a Middle East peace, it could help lay the groundwork for one in the future.

This begs the questions:

And if Israel were to take risks and make concessions will they be reciprocated? And if the United States and Europe makes promises to Israel will they be kept?

After all, the 1990s’ peace process taught Israelis the answer was “no” on both counts.

This is Israel’s central point: peace, yes, but only a real, lasting, and stable situation which makes things better rather than worse.

But is it Israeli voters and an Israeli government that need to get the message? Certainly over the past sixteen years, they’ve gotten a much different message, that concessions will be pocketed with no reciprocation and that moves for peace are utilized for terror.

Of course both Ignatius and the editors of the Post accept the flawed premise that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the center of the instability in the Middle East and that, therefore, quick action is needed. The problem with this reasoning is:

what if Israeli-Palestinian peace will take many years to accomplish, but the Iranian nuclear bomb will only take a year or two to accomplish? Obama essentially proposes that America will race the Iranians — our peace process versus their nuclear program. Does anyone wonder who will win?

At best Israeli-Arab peace is still a long term process. Even if American pressure on Israel brings the desired concessions from Israel, there won’t be a final peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the next four years. On the other hand the Iranian threat will continue to grow and become more serious. If those rooting for an American-Israeli confrontation get their wish, chances peace will become even more remote as Arab intransigence and Iranian power grow.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Contrary to what it would like Iran and the rest of the world to believe, Israel would not attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities without U.S. consent. Militarily, it would be next to impossible; politically, it would be suicidal to flout the United States on a matter of such strategic importance. If there is armed action against Iran during the next several years, it will be because Netanyahu somehow persuades or compels Obama to overrule the prevailing judgment of the U.S. government, which is that an attack is not a viable option.

Similarly, there will be no significant progress toward Middle East peace if Obama cannot move Netanyahu off some of his most cherished precepts — not so much the idea that Palestinians will accept something short of full statehood but that a settlement can be postponed indefinitely even as Israel blockades Hamas in Gaza and expands Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Some will advise the administration that there is nothing to gain in pushing the Israeli leader as long as the Palestinians themselves remain divided and unwilling to accept even reasonable offers — as they have been for several years. But the appearance that the United States is accepting of Israeli intransigence could turn opinion against Obama across the region.

Overall this is a pretty fair assessment once one gets past the condescension towards Netanyahu’s (perceived) positions.

But what’s troublesome is that there’s no sense that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons could be in America’s (if not the world’s) interests too.

First of all, Reuel Marc Gerecht rejects the consensus that Israel necessarily won’t attack Iranian nuclear facilities without the consent of the Americans.

We shouldn’t be surprised if the Israelis reach a conclusion at odds with Washington’s near-consensus against pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In 1981, Jerusalem certainly surmised that a raid against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor could make Saddam Hussein furious and that he possessed conventional and unconventional means of getting even. But they went ahead and destroyed the reactor.

The consensus in Israel is just as widespread about the correctness of last year’s strike against the secret North Korean-designed reactor at Dir A-Zur in Syria — a project that may well have had Iranian backing. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the attack although the Bush administration opposed it. And in 1967, Israelis believed that pre-emptive action saved their nation from an Arab-initiated, multifront offensive that could have proved lethal.

And once one considers Israel’s historically based fears, it doesn’t take much to wonder if the prevailing wisdom – as expressed by Diehl – is a bit optimistic.

The Western advice may be sage: The threat of an Israeli retaliatory nuclear strike might be a sufficient threat to discourage Tehran’s mullahs from using a nuclear weapon directly, or from leveraging its protective nuclear umbrella indirectly to more aggressively support anti-Israeli jihadists. But Iran’s penchant for terrorism, its extensive ties to both radical Sunnis and Shiites, its vibrant anti-Semitism, and the likelihood that Tehran will become more aggressive (as has Pakistan in Kashmir) with an atom bomb in its arsenal doesn’t reinforce the case for patience and perseverance.

Consider: If Saddam Hussein had had a nuke in 1990, would George H.W. Bush have risked war? Consider as well the near certainty that ultra-Sunni Saudi Arabia will go nuclear in response to a Shiite Persian bomb. The prospect of another virulently anti-Semitic Arab state — deeply permeated with supporters of al Qaeda — possessing an atomic weapon cannot comfort Jerusalem. A pre-emptive strike offers Israel a chance that this nuclear contagion can be stopped.

Or as Saul Singer points out (h/t Israel Matzav)

But the real reason for the U.S. to pursue a truly non-nuclear (and non-terrorist) Iran is not to avoid Israeli military action, but to advance American interests and security. The Iranian nuclear prospect clouds the international security landscape like the financial crisis looms over the global economy. Both clouds must be removed for the international community to prosper. Just as the financial crisis also presents opportunities, so does the Iranian crisis. Forcing Iran to back down would be the greatest setback for Islamofascism since the fall of radical regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, if Obama defuses the Iranian nuclear program, the world could experience the greatest advance in peace and security since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Conversely, if Iran does go nuclear or near-nuclear, existing clouds will continue to darken.

One of the most cherished precepts of analysts like Jackson Diehl is that with enough nice words and concessions, there is no enemy who can’t be reasoned with and stripped of his enmity. But reality is a stubborn thing and sometimes enemies see negotiations as war by other means.

Crossposted by Soccer Dad.

Steve Rosen wrote:

The commentariat and the blogs are full of predictions that Obama and Netanyahu are headed for a clash when they meet on May 18, or soon after. These predictions are coming from pundits on the left, who imagine that U.S. pressure on Israel is the magical key to peace, and many on the right, who think the Obama team is dominated by the naive left and Arabists who know and care little about Israel’s security.

I am betting against all of them. My prediction: while Obama and Netanyahu will have differences on the margins, they will find common ground on the main elements of a coordinated strategy for an initial period of 12-24 months.

I know that I’m at odds with a number of bloggers I’m friendly with. But isn’t Obama surrounded by advisers who aren’t especially fond of Israel? Yes, that’s true. Doesn’t the President come from a background that’s hostile to Israel? Yes, that’s true too.

And didn’t the President just send a humiliating message to Israel demanding that Israel not strike Iran without informing him first? That I’m not so sure about. But it was reported in Ha’aretz! I’m not convinced that the message is as clear as Aluf Benn reported.

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu’s envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy.

Note what’s going on. While I don’t know if this is standard diplomatic protocol, it appears that both President Obama and PM Netanyahu had an advance man going over the particulars of their meeting. Note that the message was apparently a concern that was “revealed” by the administration’s advance man.

I don’t think that the administration’s advance man leaked the message to Benn. So that means that he heard it from someone on the Israeli side. So would the Israelis have complained that they were dressed down by the President in advance of the meeting with Netanyahu next week? I’m skeptical. More likely, in the course of discussing the meeting with Benn, one of the Israelis commented that the possibility of an Israeli strike against Iran clearly concerned the administration. (How much someone from the advance team could reveal is unclear.) Benn worded the information he got in the most spectacular way, but the actual information that he learned was a lot more pedestrian.

Why do I think that it wasn’t the administration leaking the supposed message that Aluf Benn reported? Because if it came from the United States why didn’t either the NY Times or Washington Post report it? If the President issued a major rebuke to the PM, wouldn’t that be newsworthy here? Yet neither reported that an Israeli paper reported this rebuke. (The Jerusalem Post, from what I can tell didn’t report it either.)

The NY Times even had an article on the upcoming meeting, Israeli Leader to Meet Obama as U.S. Priorities Shift about the likely differences between Israel and the United States, especially regarding Iran and it didn’t mention the warning. The article is worth looking at for a number of details, but it doesn’t confirm Benn’s report at all.

The last time Benjamin Netanyahu met an American president as Israel’s new leader, in 1996, it did not go well. Mr. Netanyahu lectured President Bill Clinton about Arab-Israeli relations, aides recalled, driving Mr. Clinton into a profane outburst after his guest left.

Mr. Netanyahu is likely to avoid a repeat of that when he meets President Obama at the White House on Monday. But the underlying relationship between Israel and the United States has become more unsettled since Mr. Obama took office.

Left unmentioned is that during the Israeli campaign, Clinton held a “summit of the peacemakers” as a way of bolstering Shimon Peres’s campaign against Netanyahu. Obama didn’t interfere as blatantly in the recent Israeli elections.

The Times reports further:

Two weeks ago, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, held a quiet meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Israel asked the United States for benchmarks to demonstrate that its diplomatic campaign was working.

The Israeli government, officials said, has assured the United States that it will not take military action against Iran without first consulting Washington. But it has also signaled that it will give the United States only a year or so to show that its good-will approach is getting results.

This would appear to cover the ground about the differences between the United States and Israel regarding Iran. (It also appears that Iran doesn’t have a year to convince the Americans, but only about five months.)

Even Robert Malley is quoted by the Times:

“There is potential for greater tensions than have existed for some time, certainly,” said Robert Malley, another veteran of Middle East peacemaking efforts. “But a collision is not inevitable.”

Presumably he’s somewhat aware of the administration is planning and he doesn’t necessarily see a conflict coming.

So why isn’t a confrontation as likely this time around as it was thirteen years ago?

1) Netanyahu is more popular at home than he was in 1996.
2) American support for Israel against Iran is pretty strong.
3) Nearly sixteen years of bad faith since Oslo has rendered the IOI syndrome InOperatIve.
4) Despite Obama’s leftist background, lately his foreign policy moves have belied his background as Victor Davis Hanson observes:

Consider also the dexterous Obama administration’s own about-face. It still finds it useful to damn the old Bush government’s embrace of wiretaps, military tribunals, and renditions — even as it dares not drop or completely discount these apparently useful Bush policies, albeit under new names and with new qualifiers.

Maybe the administration will see an advantage to showing Israel more sympathy.

Still J-Street thinks that peace won’t be achieved without American pressure (h/t My Right Word) And J-Street’s partners in undermining Israel, the IPF, has gotten the names of several ambassadors attached to a letter (.pdf) they’ve written urging Israel to, among other things, get rid of superfluous checkpoints and urge the Palestinians to stop terror. Of course they also recommend rebuilding funds for Gaza, which will only serve to strengthen Hamas. But then this letter is recommended by someone who considers M. J. Rosenberg, one of the “best Middle East analysts,” so take the recommendation with a grain of salt.

I hope I’m right that there will be no major friction between President Obama and PM Netanyahu. Obviously there is reason to expect differences. Hopefully despite their differing visions they will see the American-Israel alliance as more important than those differences.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The problems he goes in with are that the President has previously explicitly derided the Likud, Netanyahu’s political party and that the President is allied with J-Street, a group that believes that the United States knows better than Israel what is good for Israel and that, therefore, the United States should pressure Israel to give in to all demands made by the Palestinians.
(Seraphic Secret has a good roundup of the relevant background.)

Netanyahu will have to be careful how he approaches Obama, but it’s still possible for him to make the case that while the United States and Israel have different priorities, they can still work together successfully.

Elliott Abrams writes about what Netanyau needs to do:

Mr. Netanyahu has to care about forging a personal relationship with Mr. Obama, but Mr. Obama may feel he doesn’t need Mr. Netanyahu as a pal. Mr. Obama appears to have enormous faith in his own personal charm (and why not? Look where it’s gotten him) but we do not yet know when he pours it on. Just how much do personal relations with foreign leaders matter to him? For George W. Bush, they mattered a lot: His negative view of Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac and his trust in Ariel Sharon changed U.S. foreign policy.

Of course there’s baggage both will be bringing to the meeting:

… both Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu will come to the meeting half poisoned against the other. Mr. Netanyahu will have been told that Mr. Obama is weak and naive, won’t act against Iran and doesn’t understand the way the world works. Mr. Obama will have been told that Mr. Netanyahu is a “right winger” (and therefore bad by definition) who is tricky and untrustworthy and needs to be pushed hard if there’s to be “progress toward peace.” U.S. Middle East Envoy George Mitchell has already met Mr. Netanyahu several times and will offer the president his private opinion on their sessions in Jerusalem, which one can just imagine: Both smiling, both seeking to appear totally sincere, each doing all he can to maneuver the other into a narrow corner.

And after the meeting what will we need to look for:

It’s unlikely that we’ll know quickly whether they hit it off. The Israelis will almost certainly make this claim within seconds after the meeting ends, and will adduce every possible piece of evidence. Mr. Obama smiled; he put his arm on Mr. Netanyahu’s shoulder; his body language was friendly; his tie had positive colors.

The White House leaks will be more interesting, for the staff may want to keep Mr. Netanyahu nervous; we’ll have to watch what favored journalists are told about the chemistry in the days after the visit. We should not expect to hear the kind of crack that French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently made to journalists after meeting the president (that Mr. Obama was “not always at his best when it comes to decisions and efficiency”), as that does not appear to be the Obama style. If he makes an exception for Mr. Netanyahu and has the staff trash the prime minister to the media, we’ll know the two men decided to loathe each other.

I don’t think that the meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu necessarily will go badly next week. Still Netanyahu has a big challenge ahead of him to change the President’s mind.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.