An Internal Struggle

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lost a battle with the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, but he has not lost the war against the U.S. public. He was subjected to a kind of humiliation and received a lesson in the futility of war — of even talking about waging war on Iran.

The disagreement between the two men was not serious or profound. It had to do with timing and the manner in which to confront Iran. There is reason to believe that it was, and remains to be, a fabricated conflict over a manufactured issue that draws attention away from the Palestinian issue and the need to approach it. It also makes impossible a discussion about the Arab Spring that did, and still does, present the most important challenge for Washington and occupied Jerusalem.

In his speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Netanyahu conceded that the rhetoric of war on Iran is no longer desirable. Before leaving Tel Aviv, he hinted that he was traveling to Washington to ask for the green light from Obama to issue the order to attack Iran. He was scolded by the U.S. president, who informed him that the issue of war is not to be spoken about so lightly and openly, and in a statement published by major U.S. newspapers, he received a warning from current and former U.S. officials about the risks that striking Iran holds for U.S. and Israeli interests.

Netanyahu will not despair nor surrender. The fabricated Iranian danger is his way of putting the U.S. president and his administration on the defensive, forcing them to offer more initiatives and proof of Obama’s good intentions towards Israel, which is frightened of the alleged Iranian atomic bomb. Israel is also suspicious of some of Obama’s former positions on the Palestinian issue, which he has retracted and apologized for, and of his flexibility in the Arab arena, which he demonstrated in the abandonment of several Arab authoritarian regimes in favor of Islamist currents and parties that constitute a disturbing nightmare for the Israelis.

This internal struggle between two firm allies is enduring evasiveness, maneuvering and even lying about the Iranian threat. The last of these serves the Americans in making huge arms deals with the Gulf, and benefits Israel in developing its army and economy. It is of further use to both sides as they avoid facing the more important and pressing questions about the future of the countries surrounding Israel, which have witnessed unparalleled unrest and transformation since the 1950s.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Obama is the weaker party in this U.S.-Israel struggle, even despite the fact that polls guarantee his victory in the presidential elections next fall and show the limited ability of Jewish voters to deprive him of this opportunity. For he is now faced with a constant test that forces him to prove his devotion and loyalty to Israel, and to declare full alert for fear that, one day, Netanyahu will go mad and drag the United States into a war it does not want, but cannot avoid.