Israel Under Pressure – From Friends

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will visit President Obama next week to present the “new approach” in Palestinian policy proposed by his coalition.

A central point of contention will be whether the Israeli government will embrace the two-state solution as previous Israeli governments have. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has publicly stated on several occasions that the Annapolis summit has failed. During his visit to Berlin last Thursday, Lieberman openly made fun of “the peace industry” that he says has failed to solve anything despite decades of bargaining.

Americans and Europeans have responded by increasing pressure on Israel to accept the two-state solution.

To this end, The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously passed a resolution urging both sides to refrain from any actions that could undermine mutual trust. The Secretary General even said it was “high time that Israel changed its behavior.” American Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, is pushing for “real results.” Israel hasn’t been subjected to this kind of pressure from its friends for years. The left-leaning newspaper “Haaretz” wrote last Friday of fears that there would be a “breakdown in cooperation between Israel and the United States under Obama.”

A second central point of contention will be something called “linkage wars” in Israel – the debate over whether, and if so, then how – Iran’s developing nuclear threat should be linked to the question of a Palestinian state.

The Israeli government would prefer to change the subject: We can’t come to any agreement with the Palestinians, dear allies, so let’s start taking a closer look at the Iranian threat. After we have contained (or better yet, eliminated) this threat, the Palestinians will be more agreeable to negotiations because the radical Hezbollah and Hamas will have lost their main sponsor.

Israel’s allies argue just the reverse: progress in the peace process, dear Israelis, will make it much easier for us to put credible pressure on Iran and the radical groups it sponsors. This will spoil Iran’s game of being the Palestinian’s main champion while the so-called “moderate” Arab states are able to do little or nothing for them.

Secretary of State Clinton is convinced that Israel can only achieve the desired support against Iran if it doesn’t stand disengaged on the sidelines but actively helps resolve the Palestinian question. Arab regimes are all willing, according to Clinton, to oppose Iran’s quest for hegemony in the region – but only if Israel is willing to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority once again. America is also prepared to support a unity government of Fatah and Hamas members.

Israel rejects that as long as Hamas doesn’t agree to their criteria of rejecting violence, recognition of Israel and adherence to all previously accepted agreements.

In the “Washington Post,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon countered with his own “linkage” version: the new Israeli government will not move ahead on the core issues of peace talks with the Palestinians until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran’s suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon and limit Teheran’s rising influence in the region.

In plain language, if you don’t put more pressure on Iran, we won’t do anything for the Palestinians.

But that’s a pretty foolish position to take because, first of all, it underestimates Israel’s leverage, and secondly, because it makes the Palestinians hostage to Iran, a development that Iran would openly welcome. Ayalon would be giving Iran a de facto position of influence in the Near East peace process it has long desired. And it’s a slap in the face to the moderate Arabs on whom Israel depends in presenting a united front against Iran.

Ayalon himself apparently realized he couldn’t maintain such a position and he recently backed off, telling the “Jerusalem Post” last Thursday, “We must counter the Iranian nuclear threat as if there were no conflict with the Palestinians and we must make progress with the Palestinians as if there were no nuclear threat from Iran.”

The extent to which Israel feels the pressure of its allies and the threats in the region is apparent in a widely discussed alarmist essay by the new Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, that was published in “Commentary,” a neoconservative magazine. Oren lists no less than seven threats to Israel’s existence. Interestingly, not all of them are external. Some are the result of internal degeneration:

* The loss of Jerusalem as the symbolic nucleus of the Jewish state.

* The demographic threat of Arab population growth (a bi-national state would mean the end of the Zionist project).

* The international delegitimization of Israel as “the new South Africa” because of the demographic change.

* The terrorist danger caused by constantly improved rockets used by Hezbollah and Hamas.

* The Iranian atomic bomb.

* The exsanguination of national sovereignty in view of the increasing Arab and Jewish Orthodox populations, both of which claim no loyalty to the nation.

* The erosion of Israeli morals due to a corrupt government (the Knesset is the least popular institution in the entire nation).

It’s a gloomy picture. The ambassador is talking about a “collapse of public morality” in his own country! He paints a depressing picture of mass emigration from Israel unless the seven threats can be successfully countered.

When Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama next Monday, we’ll have our first impression of whether the new government has the ability and the will to do so.