Israel Counts on a Weakened American President

As Americans are heading to the polls, the midterm elections are the lead stories not only in English-speaking newspapers but also in the Middle Eastern press, which is very closely following these elections of international importance that are expected to produce a victory for the Republicans.

“One person looking forward to the results of Tuesday’s Election Day results in the U.S. is undoubtedly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He would like to see nothing more than a weakened President Barack Obama and the predicted Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate,” reports the Jerusalem Post.

Less Pressure on Israel

If Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping for a major defeat for the Democrats, it’s because he calculates that a weakened American president will no longer be able to force the Israeli government to freeze settlements in the West Bank, a condition laid down by the Palestinians for a resumption of direct peace talks. A more Republican and less Democratic Congress will include a larger number of unconditional friends of Israel and, accordingly, will not support any strong pressure on the Jewish state.

“Netanyahu has worked hard toward this goal,” adds the columnist of the Israeli daily. When peace negotiations were resumed on Sept. 2, Benjamin Netanyahu therefore refused all of the offers made by Barack Obama in return for extending the freeze on settlements, which was due to expire in October. “He could have easily used his slick salesman’s charms to convince the public and his coalition partners that accepting this package was to the country’s long-term advantage, but he preferred to avoid handing Obama a much-needed foreign-policy achievement on the eve of the midterm elections.”

A More Determined American President

In placing all his chips on the defeat of the Democrats, Benjamin Netanyahu has miscalculated, cautions the Jerusalem Post. “Depending on the scale of Democratic losses, Obama might come to the conclusion that he is likely to be a one-term president and … the determination he showed at the beginning of his term to produce an Israeli-Palestinian agreement might be redoubled. With the Republican Party looking inward, Obama could trade its support for an Israeli-Palestinian deal in return for a compromise on domestic issues.”

“There is no guarantee that a president who has nothing to lose will use his veto, as he had previously promised Netanyahu several months ago, against a U.N. resolution recognizing a Palestinian state on the basis of its 1967 frontiers,” adds the paper, making reference to the intention of the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to seek U.N. support for a declaration of statehood within the next few months if Israel does not make any concessions.

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot considers that President Obama “is waiting for the results of the elections before letting his anger explode” about Israel’s refusal to extend the settlement freeze in the West Bank, if only for two months, as Washington had requested.

The Year of Decision

Finally, regardless of the outcome, the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz sees the American elections as having the merit of forcing Netanyahu to take a decision: “to respond to U.S. pressure and freeze settlements once more, or say no to Obama and huddle behind a right-wing coalition and its Republican supporters in Congress.” And it concludes: “The next 12 months will be a ‘year of decision’ for Netanyahu and Obama.”

Apart from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American elections are unlikely to affect U.S. foreign policy, reckons the Abu Dhabi newspaper The National. This is “because U.S. presidents have more control over foreign policy than domestic issues, and so Mr. Obama does not have to rely as much on Congressional approval. Also, Republicans generally agree with many of the Obama administration’s foreign-policy positions,” notably the withdrawal from Iraq and sanctions against Iran, adds the Emirate daily.