Obama’s Opponent

The subject is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The power struggle between these two alpha males promises many months of tension and entertainment to come. Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama are at loggerheads over Israel’s settlement policies. The U.S. president is calling for an end to further housing construction not only in the West Bank, as his predecessors did, but he’s demanding the expansion in East Jerusalem cease as well. Israel’s Prime Minister refuses to give in; first on general principles, and second because the concession would undermine his coalition government. Netanyahu had originally thought that with the help of powerful pro-Israel lobbies in the USA he would be able to force the younger and less experienced Obama to bend to his will.

But it’s Obama who has the leverage and after several political victories stands stronger then ever. He defeated his Republican opponents with the passage of healthcare reform legislation and the successful conclusion of a new arms limitation treaty with Russia that reduces the number of strategic nuclear weapons without giving anything away on missile defense. The world would do well to stop thinking Obama is a weakling and began taking him seriously when he announces his goals.

At the present, Netanyahu appears to be just playing for time and strutting his supposed strength. Congressional elections loom in the United States this fall. Campaigning may divert Obama from his ambitious Middle East plans; or perhaps the Democrats will suffer bitter defeats at the polls that would also weaken the president.

Netanyahu is a political survivor. Sheer waiting has come to his rescue several times in his political career. He’s also well versed in the art of political farce. As transparent as some of his tactics may seem, a portion of the public will nonetheless take him seriously. He even choreographed the cancellation of his Washington trip, a trip he never planned to make in the first place, as a gesture of strength and self-determination.

You can only cancel a trip you’ve already promised to take.

From Jerusalem, Netanyahu announced he would not attend Obama’s nuclear summit. The official excuse: He feared that he and Israel’s nuclear arsenal would become a distracting point of contention among summit attendees. It was also a welcome side effect that the media also began speculating that Netanyahu wasn’t about to back down in his squabble with Obama. That’s theater, pure and simple: You can only cancel something you’ve already previously agreed to.

The White House had already announced at the beginning of the week that it didn’t really expect Netanyahu to attend the summit and that Israel would be represented by another government official. Another reason for Netanyahu’s absence could well be the fact that he won’t get another one-on-one meeting with Obama anytime soon unless he agrees to stop settlement expansion in East Jerusalem. Plus, he would just as soon avoid questions from his Arab neighbors about Israel’s nuclear arsenal. But these points aren’t a major obstacle preventing Israel’s participation in the summit, or Netanyahu wouldn’t be sending Dan Meridor as his representative.

Netanyahu’s insistence on playing the opponent won’t be lost on Obama, nor will Obama hesitate to kick Netanyahu’s shins at the next opportunity. Israel isn’t the only one that knows the art of political foul play.