On Politics and Friendships

The Israeli, and partly also the American, media are discussing lately the issue of the Obama administration's reaction to the Israeli government's decision to build 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times had some spare thoughts to share, which the Wall Street Journal repudiated. In light of this discussion, I will share my 2 cents. I know I am not exactly a publicist or a renowned blogger, but still there is one thing that bothers me about the way the administration is pressing the Israeli government. But before that, a word of warning: I am what Israelis might call "left-wing"; I fully support the right of the Palestinians to have a state alongside Israel, I support the so called "Two States Solution", I supported the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and I object to building in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Now that this is out of our way, let's take a deep breath and see how the Obama administration, with senior Jewish officials (Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod), is acting in their worst interests, instead of the required, assuming that the administration indeed wants to get the peace process working.

It is often said that special relations between Israel and the USA are founded on the premises of joint values, democracy being one of such main values. Israel is, in fact, the only openly democratic republic in the Middle East. It is so democratic, in fact, that in the last fifteen (15) years since 1996 there were six (6) elections. This democratic instability is caused by many factors, which are not the scope of this post. However, the main things to mention are that Israel is a democracy, an unpredicted one at that, and that the fragmented political map in Israel makes it impossible for a government to complete its four years' term. One may ask, what does it have to do with the Obama administration? Well, in short, everything. Since the Obama administration wants democracy to proliferate in the world, it should also show some respect to its, occasionally, undesired side effects, namely that an undesired political side gets into power. Undoubtedly, having a right-wing Israeli government, in which Avigdor Lieberman is Foreign Minister, is hardly a desired partner in American eyes. Nonetheless, it is still the elected government. The last campaign was unique in the way that one side, the Israeli right in this case, decidedly won the elections. And, being the right wing that they are, the ticket that got them there was expanding the settlement in Judea and Samaria, which, according to their voters, is, has been, and shall always be, part of the Jewish Holy Land. I might argue with that, but as the side that lost the elections, I respect their views and hope for the best in the next elections.

In my view, this is where the Obama officials show their infuriating combination of hypocrisy and inexperience. Hypocrisy because they do not accept the vote of the Israeli people, and force Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept their terms, which are contradictory to the ticket he was elected with. Not only that, by doing so the administration is deliberately trying to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu's government by alienating his coalition partners. The inexperience part comes from the lack of understanding in Israeli politics. If they knew better, the administration would know that what they are doing will cause the Israeli public, including left wing people like myself, to rally in support of their government. I may not like the government's decisions, but I am definitely against foreign countries' meddling in our decision making.

And, yes, it is, in lack of better term, meddling with Israeli internal affairs. This is hardly the first time American administration did it to Israel, or to other countries. However, this time the administration has crossed the line between mild meddling and acting forcibly to destabilize the elected Israeli government. To make it clearer to American eyes, this would be parallel to a foreign superpower (China perhaps) forcing the administration to stop its healthcare reform, claiming it to be too expensive (China is after all America's largest creditor) by destabilizing Obama's administration using international and internal pressure on decision makers. I am certain that if this was the case, the Obama administration would not accept it silently, and certainly would not apologize for not doing so, as Netanyahu did. If anything, the administration reaction would be to denounce this act of meddling in American internal affairs and the American people would not accept it either. So, it is of great wonder to me that the administration expects the Israeli government and people to accept this breach of Israeli sovereignty.