Wink, Nudge: the Latest Israel-Washington Kerfuffle

Israel requested that the understandings reached with the Bush administration concerning settlement activities would be relayed to the incoming Obama Administration during the transition period. That they were not transferred was due not to forgetfulness but to unwillingness.

This appears to be not accidental. The outgoing Bush administration did not inform the incoming Obama administration about its understandings with Israel about the settlements, but not because some forgot. It was impossible to forget because Israel reminded.

Senior Officials in Jerusalem reminded senior officials in Washington – reminded and asked – that the understandings would be passed on, in writing, to the new administration. But the Bush administration did not pass them on. Someone decided not to relay the message…

George Bush’s national security adviser Steve Hadley stated, “Whatever was spoken will remain spoken”. Obama’s national security advisor, Jim Jones, has no recollections of being briefed about the issue. Ongoing differences of opinion within the Bush Administration about these “understandings” are to blame for the impasse. These disputes, which remained unresolved at the end of Bush’s term, were aired publicly when two former officials in the Bush administration published their respective articles.

The main question is as follows: Were these understandings reached between the United States and Israel, or were they just the administration’s de-facto policy which does not articulate any future agreement? There had been no broad accord within the Bush administration about the issue. The result was that in the first round – the one that took place within the Bush administration – supporters of these understandings won.

Then came the second round, concerning the passing on of these understandings, in which the opposers won. In the absence of a basic agreement, the orderly process of passing on the baton was impeded. The Obama administration clearly feigns ignorance of these understandings. Surely its officials are aware that such a history exists. It was widely published in the media and had never been denied. But Obama does have a point worthy of attention: if the bush Administration decided not to hand down these understandings to its successors, then it must have intended that these successors would not be bound by the understandings.

Reneged

So here is a valuable piece of information to help figure out the Obama Administration: the officials who were publicly quarreling about the issue by publishing contradictory articles were not the only ones to have opined on this matter.

The former deputy national security adviser, Elliott Abrams, confirmed that there were indeed understandings and even went into detailing them. The former American Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, wrote that there were no understandings. But it turns out that the Obama Administration has heard from a few other senior officials in the Bush Administration who all elected not to confirm Abrams’ record.

They reneged on the understandings or, at the very least, opted to sit on the fence. Except for Abrams, there has not been even one reliable voice in support of Israel’s version. So far, not even Hadley’s voice has been heard, even though his exchanges with Dov Weissglass formed the basis of these understandings.

This alone does not mean that Abrams is wrong. What it does say is that there were enough senior officials of the Bush Administration who were not comfortable with the basic working assumption upon which Israel was acting at the end of the Bush Administration. Condoleeza Rice, for example, can live very well, perhaps extremely well, with her successor’s choice to ignore what was but was not really.

The Blame Game

Two disgruntled administrations are quarreling about who started it all. On June 3 Eitan Bronner, an NYT correspondent, wrote that “Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”” Four days later Clinton declared that: “There is no record of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States government.”

In the Obama administration there are officials and ministers who think Netanyahu is trying to hoodwink them. Obama’s chief of stuff, Rahm Emanuel, is one of them. On the Israeli side, there are also paranoids. It’s a self-nurturing cycle.

Clinton stresses “total freeze”, and in return has to contend with Israeli leaks about “reneging on agreements”. This annoys her. If Israel has any complaints about the understandings, she says, Israel ought to direct them toward the Bush Administration.

Netanyahu, according to Obama’s people, is not a partner but an adversary. And Clinton disappointed when she decided to side with them over the settlements. As soon as she identified an Israeli leaks assault against the Administration, she blew a gasket. Her punishment of choice: public humiliations of Israel by announcing that there are no understandings and never were.

They understand in Washington that Israel was acting under the impression that there were agreements.

The lack of coordination between the two newly established administrations is not a new phenomenon. The Obama administration has not yet finished organizing. Netanyahu’s government is still taking its first steps. These are anxious months. Obama is not the first president suspected of attempting to “appease the Arabs at our expense”. In good times when it happens, the misunderstanding is settled in an orderly fashion. In less felicitous times, it slides into the sort of kerfuffle we see now between Obama’s and Netanyahu’s administrations. Competing leaks, anger and suspicions. The two senior officials who try to present themselves as responsible adults –Defence minister Ehud Barak and the special envoy George Mitchel—have tried to stop this downward spiral.

Earlier this week, I wrote in Ma’ariv that the Obama people “chose to lie”. In the English translation it sounds too harsh. We are not speaking of a lie in its plain meaning, but as a maneuver in a gray area. “There is no record of any informal and oral agreements,” said Clinton. Technically, she is correct. Nevertheless, it is feigned ignorance.

The State Department knows that Israel acted in good faith, under the impression that there were understandings. In 2003, Bush and Sharon explicitly discussed these understandings. Bush thought Israel was not keeping up to its commitments, that it expanded settlements beyond what it had been agreed to do. “Does Sharon think I’m an idiot, that I don’t know what natural growth is?” asked Bush, as reported by one of his assistants. But the mutual trust between Bush and Sharon facilitated the handling of the discord in relative calm.

Bush’s 2004 letter, which acknowledged the possibility that settlement blocks would remain in Israel, was another effort to tighten the understandings. Israel had good reason to believe that these were understandings, but the U.S. had an interest in not turning them into a formal position. That’s how the relationship evolved on this issue – in the twilight of politics.

Who is Angry with Whom

Israel is upset and offended by the U.S.’s flouting of the understandings. “It’s not the Republican administration we had an agreement with. We had it with the U.S.” said Minister Dan Meridor. And he added, “Agreements have to be kept”. The Americans are not amused. First of all, they say, there was no agreement. If there was such an agreement, show us. They are also willing to discuss the question of how Israel kept agreements.

Among some Israeli officials involved with Washington, there is a restrained criticism of the administration’s approach. One of them tried to explain this week: “The problem is not whether there is a piece of paper or not; the problem is that the administration officials treat us as if they were a bunch of lawyers.”

He meant it disapprovingly; the insistence on the letter of the law can bring forth a triumph of legalistic pedantry but this is no way to sort out political disagreements. “If they think we are fabricating these understandings then we have a big problem here because it suggests a very low level of trust.” (In Washington they don’t think this is the case.)

“If they think that we are not fabricating these understandings (which in Washington, they understand to be the case), the question is why they chose to deal with the formalities of these understandings rather than deal in their substance. That is, how do we translate the past understandings into present policies.”

The meeting that took place this week between Barak and Mitchel was intended to initiate a dialogue about the settlements. The understandings are not dead. But a new reformulation is called for. Annoying? In Washington, they propose addressing any anger to one address: Crawford Ranch in Texas.