Another Middle East Setback

The meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to ease Israeli-American tensions. But then came the deadly incident of the Gaza solidarity convoy.

The U.S. government understood clearly why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed his itinerary to fly home earlier than planned from Canada instead of continuing on to Washington for a meeting with President Obama: Obama telephoned Netanyahu the morning of his departure for Israel, promising they would meet “at the first opportunity,” reports said on Tuesday.

Those in Washington and Jerusalem alike realize that the postponement of the meeting could not have come at a worse time. Since the icy meeting between the two at the end of March where the White House did not even stage the usual fireplace photo op, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been the principal figure busily trying to reduce tensions between Obama and Netanyahu as well as between the U.S. and Israel.

Discord and Mistrust

Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel in March was overshadowed by the Israeli announcement that settlement building in occupied East Jerusalem would continue. That became the temporary low point in U.S.-Israeli relations since Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, in a relationship that was already characterized by discord and mistrust.

Rahm Emanuel plays a key role in relations because he is Jewish himself, lived for many years in Israel, and served voluntarily in the Israeli military. After Netanyahu’s unfortunate meeting with Obama at the White House, Emanuel was mildly critical of the White House’s handling of the delicate relationship with Israel. The invitation to this second meeting was delivered personally by Emanuel in Jerusalem on the occasion of his visit there in celebration of his son Zach’s bar mitzvah.

But even the relationship between Emanuel and Netanyahu is anything but harmonious. The Israeli Prime Minister reportedly referred to Obama’s Chief of Staff as a “self-hating Jew” in a private conversation — a reference to the book “Jewish Self-Hatred” authored by Hanover-born Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing in 1930. The fact that liberal Democrats in Washington cannot communicate with the conservatives in Netanyahu’s Likud coalition government, much less with the ultra-rightist Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman, exacerbates tensions between the two nations.

Israeli Doubts About The American Protective Umbrella

The recently concluded U.N. review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) where the United States raised no objections to the prescription in the final document which called upon the “informal nuclear power” Israel to sign the NPT while Iran’s nuclear program was not mentioned did nothing to reduce tensions. The fact that Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones expressed doubts about the conclusions shortly after the conference adjourned as well as about the planned 2012 conference for a nuclear-free Middle East did not help in eliminating growing Israeli doubts about the American protective umbrella.

The bloody incident off the coast of Gaza was also a setback for Middle East mediator George Mitchell’s plans for indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Up until then, the U.S. had tried to bypass the problem of the terrorist organization Hamas’ political control in Gaza while urging talks between Israel and the more moderate Palestinian government in West Bank Ramallah.

To that point, the United States had only expressed mild criticism of Israel’s Gaza blockade. Now the Gaza problem, and particularly Washington’s reaction to it, has been thrust into the limelight, complicating efforts to inaugurate indirect peace talks under George Mitchell’s mediation. Everyone in Washington now appears clueless about possible alternatives to Mitchell’s efforts and Rahm Emanuel’s attempts to bring Obama and Netanyahu closer together.