Netanyahu Comes out in Romney's Favor

The Israeli prime minister has thrown his support behind Obama’s Republican rival as never before.

Mitt Romney’s recent gaffes have placed Benjamin Netanyahu in an awkward position.

The Israeli prime minister, whose relationship with Barack Obama has always been notoriously tense, has openly gambled on the incumbent president’s defeat and come out conspicuously in favor of the Republican candidate. Romney’s faux pas, coupled with Obama’s better showing in the polls, have raised doubts about the intelligence of this tactic. The question is being asked, even by members of the Likud, whether the prime minister has bet on the wrong horse, and in so doing, alienating even further a Democratic president with a good chance of winning re-election.

Netanyahu’s natural sympathy for the Republicans has been strengthened by his difficult relationship with Obama. The two men have never seen eye to eye, their disagreements ranging from the topic of settlement building to basically any other subject. Obama, who, following his election, boldly committed to re-launching the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, has run aground on the particular complexity of the situation. But Netanyahu’s resistance to pressure from Washington has represented, in the eyes of the White House, a transparent gesture of bad will.

Fluent in English and well-informed on American politics, Netanyahu has for his part regularly challenged Obama on the American political scene, going so far as to receive a standing ovation from Congress during one visit to the United States.

The billionaire Mormon seemed, to Netanyahu, to be the ideal Republican nominee in a fight against an Obama weakened by the economic crisis. The two men knew one another in the late 1970s, when they were colleagues at a Boston consultancy company. For his part, Romney has stepped up his criticism of Obama’s Middle East policy, denouncing his lack of support for Israel and promising the world to the Israeli right.

During his visit to Israel last July, Romney publicly spoke out in favor of the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, characterizing Palestinian society as culturally inferior to that of Israel. Romney also pledged his unconditional support for Israel in the face of the threat from the Iranian nuclear program. Recorded on video during a fundraising dinner, his declaration that the Palestinians “have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace” reveals the extent to which he has adopted Netanyahu’s views.

An Audacious Gamble

The realization that Mitt Romney may lose the election has suddenly thrown into relief the rather risky nature of the Israeli leader’s interference in the domestic politics of Israel’s powerful ally. “What’s happening is unprecedented,” opines columnist Sima Kadmon in Yedioth Aronoth. “A prime minister who considers himself an expert on the United States, who claims to understand American politics and to be able to pull strings within it, is maneuvering against the incumbent administration in Washington in a way we’ve never seen before.”

With Obama’s re-election for next year all but certain, Netanyahu must now confront the prospect of another four years of dealing with him. Over the course of his second term, the American president, free from electoral preoccupations, could begin to be less patient with his Israeli ally.