Obama and Netanyahu

Since Barack Obama’s arrival to the White House, relations between America and Israel have soured. Obama, a Democrat, understands that the Middle East problem is essential both for him and the international community. His multilateral integration of foreign policy has replaced the unilateral integration of the George W. Bush government. In a way, Obama has attempted to define his success in the realm of foreign policy through the importance of Palestinian-Israeli peace.

However, Obama is faced with an obstacle named Netanyahu, who is a skillful actor. Obama and Netanyahu know very well what they want from each other, but each of them will separately reduce the imposed cost to one another. This equation is well known in diplomacy: an eye for an eye.

In fact, one can say that Netanyahu’s main request to Obama was for America to prevent the creation of an Iranian nuclear program and to not interfere with Israel’s decision on the alleged development of its territory; in other words, let Israel decide what land it can claim. On the other side, Obama mainly asked that Israel destroy all settlements in the West Bank and not cross that line until an independent Palestinian government took shape.

In this transaction, Obama has paid America’s share. He has created a consensus against Iran’s nuclear program and led the establishment of a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in the Security Council, and, recently, the United States Senate and the House of Representatives approved the signing of unilateral sanctions against Iran.

It seems that America has kept its promise, and now Netanyahu must keep Israel’s promise. The conditions of the promise are still important. Netanyahu has raised the price of his, however. He wants to stop only new settlements and allow the current settlements to remain. In this case, he will allow the new city of Ravaby to be built next to Ramallah. Further than this, what guarantee can Obama give that the Palestinians will disarm?

On this basis it seems that when these two meet, a robust flexing of muscles occurs, rather than a working out of the issues. Obama either gives his promise or gets a promise from the other side.

In fact, Netanyahu is looking to see to what extent Obama will put pressure on him for an agreement with the Palestinians. In addition to this, Netanyahu uses his brilliant analytical skills to precisely understand Obama’s statements, knowing that Obama is concerned about the American elections in November and that a small mistake could turn the House of Representatives and the Senate over to the Republicans.

On the other side, Obama needs to understand how strong Netanyahu’s position is in Israel’s government and how far America can go in putting pressure on Israel for establishing peace, in a way that doesn’t bring a loss to the Labor party.

What is important is that both Netanyahu and Obama are the most powerful leaders of their countries in the recent past. Obama successfully passed legislation reforming health care, placed sanctions against Iran and dismissed McChrystal and brought in Petraeus, showing strength of power in his country.

On the other side, Netanyahu has the undisputed party leadership in his hand and there is no competitor in the Likud Party in existence that is able to defeat him in an election. In fact, in both of their countries, they are the lone greyhound and in the international arena they race in opposition to each other.

Obama wants to show the world that America will win this game and Netanyahu is trying to get Israel out of isolation. What is clear is that although America has lost one eye by keeping its promises and not having promises kept in return, it continues to play the game with one eye.