Storm Clouds Looming between the United States and Israel

This will only be a rough patch. For the last few days, Jerusalem and Washington have been exchanging gentle, reassuring words. The U.S.-Israeli relationship is what it has always been, we swear; strong enough to weather a few storms.

The United States recently had a public dispute with Israel. The U.S. opposes Benyamin Nétanyahou’s government plans to build a series of homes in the Arab section of Jerusalem. This would demand a moratorium of four months before the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue can resume.

This matter was hanging in the air during Vice President Joseph Biden’s trip to Israel at the beginning of March, and it ruined “Bibi” Nétanyahou’s stay in Washington at the end of the month. Today, the official discourse is meant to be reassuring for both sides, but despite the serious chill in the air, there is nothing definitive. This dispute would not shake the deep relationship between the two countries that has survived many conflicts in the past.

You could have a different reading of this quarrel and say that on the contrary, this is no short-lived argument. This is a key moment for both countries, and could become a major political confrontation. It pits two men — both without easily reconcilable political leanings — against each other, with neither backing down. Barack Obama wants to appease the Arab-Muslim world, and this will only come to pass with the continuing Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and the end of settlements. The pragmatic Likud leader steers his right-leaning government towards the pursuit of settlements, and he will explode at the slightest advance in negotiations with the Palestinians.

Now, a little bit of history. As was the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the eastern part of Jerusalem was conquered during the fighting in the Israeli-Arab war in June of 1967. But while Israel allowed it to initially remain open, they very quickly “annexed” East-Jerusalem. The United States has never recognized this annexation, just as they have also always denounced Israeli construction in Palestinian territory.

Israel expected a reunified Jerusalem as its capitol, with the Palestinians installing themselves in the eastern part of the city. But the American protests up to that point were not intended to be anything other than spoken words. The proof: more than forty years after the war of 1967, 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and some 200,000 others in the Eastern part of Jerusalem. Washington let it happen. There is one major reason for this, and that is that in the partnership forged with Israel, the territorial disputes remained marginal.

The alliance that both countries implicitly claimed at the end of the 1960’s was initially strategic. During the Cold War, Israel offered the United States a valuable foothold in the Middle East. Egypt, Syria and Iraq were longtime members of Moscow’s camp, and continued a state of war with Israel. Political, military, and cultural ties between Americans and Israelis tightened over the years. With the Cold War now buried, the fight against Islam provides them with new fuel.

Only now, the strategic landscape is changing, and it is bringing Obama and Nétanyahou’s clashing policies to the forefront. The American has a global vision of the Middle East. He wants an Arab coalition to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as the imperialism of Teheran gives nightmares to the majority of the Arab leaders. These leaders are aligning themselves with the political aim of the United States, who has the power to advance Palestinian demands. And these demands are most notably: no settlements in the West Bank, nothing completed in East Jerusalem.

“America is engaged in the Arab-Muslim world,” reminded General David Petraeus on March 17. Head of central command, he is responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq. At the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, he voiced his concern that in those theaters, America is equated with Israel and suffers from the behavior of its ally, whether they agree or not. Americans message for “Bibi,” relayed by the global media machine, is that his projects in Jerusalem therefore concern American soldiers on the ground.

Rarely has such a divergence of strategic interest between the two allies been so openly on the table in Washington. This invocation of another aspect of the Israeli-American relationship is reassuring to Jerusalem. Furthermore, it is far from strategic.

It is emotional and sentimental. The Americans love Israel. More than the Europeans, they have a natural sympathy for what Israel represents. No need of a lobby — Jewish or other — for that; it is more deeply complex. To understand why this is true, we must look into the recesses of the soul of each country.

Is it because the Hebrew state is the only democracy in the Middle East? Because the Jews and the Protestants have the same familiarity with the biblical text? Because a certain pioneer spirit touches a sensitive chord in America? All of these at once? At the end of March, even with a full disagreement over Jerusalem, the latest Gallup poll quoted a popularity rating record for Israel in the United States: 63 percent.

But this number hides a change in this story of shared love, and it could give the wrong idea. American elites are distancing themselves from the Israeli government. Today, the reserve of unconditional sympathy for Israel is not found with the Democrats, as was long the case, but with the Republicans. This wave of evangelical Protestants has formed the most enthusiastic battalions. For the most enlightened of them, the settlements in the West Bank and in Jerusalem are a reaction to biblical injunctions. As a basis for moral and political support for Israel, one could certainly dream stronger.

Nétanyahou returned from his first visit with the Obama Administration with his chest puffed out, thinking he had gained support on the settlements. At the end of March however, he returned gloomily, as if he foresaw large clouds on the horizon.