Fascinating piece by the Nightflower himself, Steven Rosen, at Foreign Policy, saying that now that Israel has gone far right, the Israeli left has decamped to the U.S. and is at Obama’s elbow. And still: Dennis Ross is king.
This is compelling analysis not just politically, but as a description of how the lobby and Jewish identity work. Israel has no real foreign policy, it just has a war for the U.S. president, conducted among Jews here.
There is yet one more wild card in all of this: Obama’s door is open to advisors who want to break with Israel. Many on the left of the Democratic Party believe that Israel is the obstacle to peace and that a breakthrough could be achieved if Obama just twisted Israel’s arm. Of course, this was always the view of some of the storied Arabists in the State Department, but today, it comes more influentially from Jewish American critics of Israeli policy who depict themselves as pro-Israel and pro-peace. Faced with the reality that only the 3 percent of Israelis who vote Meretz share such views, and that the dovish camp led by Yossi Beilin has no prospect of winning an election in the actual Jewish state, the Beilinist Israeli left has moved to Washington. Their goal is to lobby the U.S. president to "save Israel from herself" by imposing terms on Israel that the great majority of Israelis would reject.
Obama is poorly positioned to reach over Netanyahu’s head to persuade the Israeli people to embrace this agenda. A Sept. 12 poll put Bibi’s approval rating at 65 percent, while similar polls by Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post found that only 12 and 6 percent of Israelis, respectively, think that Obama is pro-Israel…
Some Netanyahu advisors think that Obama is himself a man of the left and that top aides like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are closet J-Streeters in the White House. Instead, however, Obama and his top advisors are instinctively drawn to the center-left, like Bill and Hillary Clinton. He is more likely to take advice from the National Security Council’s Dennis Ross than from more-leftist deputy Mideast peace envoy Mara Rudman or the ubiquitous peace pundit Daniel Levy.
The piece reminds me too of what Mearsheimer has called "reverse aliyah," all the Jews hellbent from Jerusalem to the Upper West Side cause they like a secular liberal society. And notice the governing assumption here of dual loyalty. The idea that even Jews in the Obama administration are concerned with Israel’s interests and are up against Likudnik Jews who are also out for Israel’s interest– this is the nightmare that the anti-Zionists predicted a century ago, and it is doing a number on the construction of Jewish identity. Something’s gotta give. Hey, it already has.
In 1967 LBJ and his White House chose, for whatever reason, to back Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War, thus Resolution 242 was negotiated which called for an eventual negotiated withdrawal from territories (contingent upon recognition and peace) rather than an immediate withdrawal from the territories as was the policy of the Eisenhower White House in the aftermath of the 56 war. Since that time American policy has been to back Israel’s existence to the extent of supplying her with phantom jets early in the Nixon administration, supplying her with much weaponry in Israel’s moment of need during the Yom Kippur War in 73, to the negotiation of the peace treaty with Egypt in 78 and 79 and to back Israel to varying degrees ever since. Mister Obama was elected to the White House on a platform of friendship with Israel. Mister Obama was elected to the White House not Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan or Philip Weiss or Adam Horowitz. Friendship with Israel at this time is the policy of the United States. You might consider this unwise, but it is the policy of the president and he was elected on that platform. To accuse people who work for the president, who were hired by the president of dual loyalty because they back the policy that has been the policy of the United States for the last 42 years is to deny the president his right to hire whom he wants and to pursue the policy that he ran on.
Obama articulated that Israel’s security was paramount, however he also said that Palestinians were suffering the most; that being “pro-Israel”
did not necessarily assume taking a Likud-Zionist stance; and that the first step
in the correct US stance, given all these things (and presumeably also some small interest in best US interest), is for Israel to freeze all settlements.
Anybody wanted to bet on the (lack of )results of tommorow’s Obama’s 3 side meetings at the UN?
While we’re in a betting mode, let’s bet that there will be no agreement between Israel and the Palestinians while Netanyahu is Prime Minister. Who can imagine that Netanyahu will improve upon the offer made by Olmert (which even Yossi Alpher of bitterlemons.org said was more than he would have offered)? I certainly cannot. And Abbas is proud that he rejected it.
Abbas told the Washington Post that he is in a waiting mode for America to pressure Israel. But apparently Obama is satisfied by Netanyahu’s 9 month “freeze” and Abbas is not.
And while we’re in a betting mode let’s bet that Hamas and Fatah will fail to agree on elections within the next 354 days (a lunar year). Fatah is happy to be ruling the West Bank and Hamas is happy to be ruling Gaza and as long as Fatah does not make any agreements that Hamas will object to we can expect no movement at least until after next Ramadan.
The computer gave an error message–apologies if this appears twice.
Anyway, here’s the link to what WJ is talking about, along with both Israeli and Palestinian views–
link
The Israel of the far right, this is what they produce –
WELCOME TO THE GENOCIDAL SIDE
RE: “…the Nightflower himself, Steven Rosen”
PHIL(L)! I’m very disappointed in you. I think I detect a hint of sarcasm in your use of ‘Nightflower’ as a moniker for Mr Rosen. It’s not right for you to allude to something Mr Rosen allegedly wrote in a memo he allegedly sent to some AIPAC staffers (and not for distribution outside of AIPAC) many, many years ago. What kind of journalist are you? I’m beginning to wonder! Please try to be more like M.J. Rosenberg and show Mr Rosen the respect he is due – link to tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com
ALSO SEE – link to tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com
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