Netanyahu vs. the Rest of the World

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his nation surrounded by enemies — us against the rest of the world is the mindset he held for the past six years of his administration and it appears to be how he will continue in the future.

The majority of Israelis share his view and elected him to another term in office. But his ruthless policies will not only isolate his nation further, they will also continue to alienate America.

President Obama has already threatened to review bilateral relations between the U.S. and Israel. The disappointments and bitterness caused by Netanyahu’s refusal to compromise, his duplicity and the brutal style of his actions have become too great.

Throughout the grueling Middle East conflict, the rule of thumb has been that Israel’s conservative governments had been most open to making concessions to the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab neighbors because they were not immediately suspected of betraying Israeli national interests.

Menachim Begin, the first prime minister from the far right, concluded a peace treaty with Egypt. Then conservative Ariel Sharon ordered Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Both men made their careers with the Likud party which Netanyahu now leads.

“Bibi” Never Favored the Two-State Solution

But “Bibi,” as the Israelis call him, seemed to be exempt from this rule. On the contrary, his brutal lack of compromise that alienate even his closest allies threatens to put Israel’s future at risk. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was never genuinely for a two-state solution. Exactly like his arch-conservative father, he also envisions a “Greater Israel” that encompasses the West Bank and stretches from the Mediterranean Ocean to the Jordan River. It’s only with these expanded borders that Netanyahu sees Israeli security finally guaranteed for the long term.

Inevitably, more Palestinians would live in this larger country than previously. Therefore, Netanyahu and his conservative allies want to enshrine for once and for all the idea that Israel must remain a Jewish state. Currently, absent territorial expansion, every fifth citizen is an Arab-Israeli. That’s why Netanyahu will have to soon resurrect his controversial proposed law that, regardless of a large Arab minority, Israel be forever a Jewish nation.

“Jewish” and “democratic” won’t work in an expanded Israel as the noted commentator and author Tom Friedman writes in the New York Times. Israel would then have only two options: Having a non-Jewish democracy or a Jewish non-democracy.

Obama Will Give Up Trying

That’s the general opinion, above all outside of Israel, and that’s why the big push for the two-state solution. That’s also the opinion in the Obama administration even if it appears the chances for it are diminishing, because the longer Netanyahu is in power, the more settlements he will build and the more foreign territory he will annex, making it more difficult to separate a Jewish from a Palestinian state.

Thus, Obama is unlikely to push for Middle East peace during the final two years of his administration — the frustration is just too much. He had just been inaugurated president in 2009 when he made the Middle East conflict his main focus. As euphoric as he was gullible, he thought he could revive the peace talks. This past year, his secretary of state, hungry for any sort of progress, also failed to do so.

The failures can’t be placed exclusively on Netanyahu’s doorstep, but the brutal way he persists in publicly dealing with the Obama administration, the audacity with which he announces new settlement construction just when the Americans think they’ve moved the ball a few inches closer to peace, has naturally angered the Americans. In Obama’s view, the United States has always shown solidarity with Israel in every crisis and always provided it with military support. But there’s never any reciprocity from Israel.

The Call for Sanctions on Israel

For that reason, Obama has since decided a nuclear agreement with Iran is more important than cozy relations with Jerusalem. That’s also why he will continue distancing himself from Israel and focusing more on countries he thinks he can more successfully influence. Cuba, for example.

That’s also why he now warns Israel he may “reassess” Israeli–U.S. relations, something that could take many different forms: Reduced cooperation in security matters; less financial and military aid; no more automatic U.S. veto in the U.N. every time Israeli military occupation and its settlement policies are condemned by the Security Council.

Netanyahu will tell himself that he will still be the prime minister of Israel two years from now when Obama leaves the White House. What he will be ignoring, however, is the fact that he has permanently angered not only the 44th president of the United States but a significant number of American citizens as well — many of them Jews.

Not all critics will go as far as renowned Jewish-American journalist Peter Beinart, who just called for sanctions on Netanyahu in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. But until very recently, such demands from those principally seen as supporters of Israel would have been unthinkable.