Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg reports that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (2006-2011) strongly criticized PM Netanyahu at a meeting of the U.S.’s National Security Council Principals Committee. Goldberg’s article is scant on actual quotes, unfortunately, but he reports that:
“Senior administration officials told me that Gates argued to the president directly that Netanyahu is not only ungrateful, but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”
According to Goldberg, Gates remarks were not objected to by the committee members present to hear him speak, mainly because of Washington’s exasperation with the Israeli PM. Most of Goldberg’s article is given over to discussing the anger White House officials have felt towards the Israeli PM because of his public excoriations of President Obama.
A statement from Kadima responding to the former Secretary of Defense’s remarks went even further than Gates:
“Netanyahu’s government is the most over-sized in Israel’s history and is detached from its people and its environment in a way that is harmful to the people who live there, when they are in Israel and when they are abroad. Netanyahu’s failed government has come to the end of its days.”
Israel is frustrating the U.S. administration because it is forgetting (actually, deliberately ignoring) who partly foots the bills for many of their actions. Exasperation, though, isn’t a formula for “change.” Despite Gates’s frustration with Israel, he did not suggest cutting aid to Israel or reducing bilateral cooperation. U.S. support for Israel at the UN this month is guaranteed, and the annual aid package to Israel has already been approved – all of this in spite of “reservations” about Israeli settlement expansion. The new U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has affirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel and Michael Oren, Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said in response to Golberg’s article that:
“We have nothing but the highest regard for Secretary Gates, and as allies, we don’t exchange accusations, we have communications. Israel deeply appreciates the excellent security relationship we have with the Obama administration.”
“Yes we can (maintain unconditional support for Israel)” is the real take away from this “controversy.” But, to be fair, even this tempered criticism from Gates is a rare thing to hear openly in U.S.-Israeli relations, as evidenced by the Israeli media’s response to it.
