Netanyahu’s Arrogance; Our Stupidity

“When I entered the Prime Minister’s office for my sec­ond term, I was sum­moned to Washington. ‘Not one brick’, they told me…The pres­sure from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Americans was enormous…And still, after five years on the job, we built a lit­tle more than ‘one brick’…the impor­tant thing is to do it in a smart way…to stand up to inter­na­tion­al pres­sure by maneuvering…we con­tin­ue to head straight toward our goal, even if one time we walk right and anoth­er time we walk left.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, 2014

“I know what America is. America is a thing that can be eas­i­ly moved in the right direc­tion. They will not both­er us. Let’s sup­pose they will say something…so they say it?…We have such sup­port there!”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, 2001

For over two decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been play­ing us for fools – a role we have filled to the detri­ment of our nation­al hon­or and the cause of peace.

His entire polit­i­cal career has been focused on demon­strat­ing to Israelis that he could “move [America] very eas­i­ly” – and, on too many occa­sions, he has done just that. Since his first elec­tion as Prime Minister in 1996, he has been proud of his abil­i­ty to get away with defy­ing American pres­i­dents, while pay­ing no price for his defiance.

His suc­cess­es, in large mea­sure, have been due the ties he has built with Republicans in Congress, using them to counter peace-mak­ing efforts led by two Democratic pres­i­dents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

After the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, Netanyahu went into action. Together with a small group of Likudniks, he launched a lob­by­ing cam­paign against Oslo. Weekly fax­es were sent to Congressional offices warn­ing of the dan­gers that peace with the Palestinians posed for Israel and pro­vid­ing talk­ing points that some Members of Congress fol­lowed. It was unprece­dent­ed – an Israeli oppo­si­tion par­ty act­ing against their gov­ern­ment lob­by­ing the US Congress to turn against the pol­i­cy of our gov­ern­ment. The effort won allies among Republicans in Congress who were only too hap­py to place obsta­cles in Bill Clinton’s way. When the GOP won con­trol of Congress in 1994 and Netanyahu won the Israeli elec­tions in 1996, he was in a per­fect posi­tion to accom­plish his goal of end­ing the Oslo Accords.

The Gingrich-con­trolled Congress invit­ed Netanyahu to speak to a Joint Session. He used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attack the peace process and to call on Congress to join him on a war foot­ing against Iraq and Iran. Throughout the rest of his first term, Netanyahu defied pres­sure from the Administration to cur­tail set­tle­ment con­struc­tion and to make a seri­ous com­mit­ment to peace. He knew that Congress would “have his back”.

Even when President Clinton did force the Israelis to nego­ti­ate with the Palestinians, Netanyahu nev­er ful­ly imple­ment­ed the agree­ment they con­clud­ed. And when Clinton vig­or­ous­ly object­ed to Netanyahu’s plans to con­struct a new colony between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Netanyahu defi­ant­ly broke ground erect­ing Har Homa – a set­tle­ment that now hous­es almost 20,000 Israelis.

President Obama’s aspi­ra­tions to nego­ti­ate an Israeli-Palestinian peace, were also frus­trat­ed by Netanyahu, whose sec­ond elec­tion as Israeli Prime Minister coin­cid­ed with Obama’s entry to the White House. After two frus­trat­ing years, Obama put the process on hold.

In 2010, Republicans again won con­trol of Congress and their new lead­er­ship once again invit­ed Netanyahu to speak to a Joint Session of Congress. The Israeli used this appear­ance to rebuke Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “the 1967 bor­ders, with mutu­al­ly agreed land swaps”. In the face of Israeli intran­si­gence and Congressional pres­sure, once again the Administration shelved peace-mak­ing, until after the 2012 elections.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s ill-fat­ed effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian nego­ti­a­tions were eclipsed by the dis­as­trous and dead­ly Syrian con­flict and the effort to nego­ti­ate a nuclear deal with Iran – a deal which Netanyahu was deter­mined to stymie. And so, when the Republican-led Congress invit­ed Netanyahu to deliv­er his third address to a Joint Session, he used this appear­ance to call on Congress to block the Administration’s sup­port for the P5+1 deal with Iran.

Netanyahu’s Washington per­for­mances have been focused on two audi­ences. He sought to muster the sup­port of his Republican allies to defeat the work of Democratic Presidents, while at the same time seek­ing to demon­strate to his Israeli sup­port­ers how “very eas­i­ly” he could “move America in the right direction”.

While his first two efforts were a suc­cess, he failed with the third. Not only was he unable to block the Iran deal, but his gam­bit exposed a par­ti­san divide over sup­port for his poli­cies, leav­ing Israelis uncom­fort­able about Netanyahu’s abil­i­ty to man­age their rela­tion­ship with the United States.

When he comes to Washington next week, Netanyahu is a man on a mis­sion. His mis­sion? To make it clear to Israelis that he is still the “mas­ter” of America. Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans, alike, will serve as his enablers.

Netanyahu will meet with the President. This time there will be no real pres­sure to stop set­tle­ments and make peace. Instead, we are told that Israel is in line to receive a dra­mat­ic increase in US aid – pos­si­bly as high as $4.5 Billion a year. Netanyahu will then be hon­ored at an event host­ed by the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive American Enterprise Institute. And in order to reas­sure to Israelis that the “mas­ter” can still dom­i­nate US pol­i­tics, the Prime Minister wran­gled a speak­ing engage­ment at the lib­er­al Center for American Progress and secured a glow­ing op-ed writ­ten by Hillary Clinton who pledged that, if elect­ed pres­i­dent, she “would reaf­firm [the] unbreak­able bond with Israel – and Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The entire exer­cise is shame­ful and dis­tress­ing. Enabling Netanyahu’s bad behav­ior only encour­ages more of the same. It’s embar­rass­ing and it’s dumb. It’s one thing to acknowl­edge that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is dead, but it makes no sense to reward the guy who two decades ago pledged to kill peace, and then spared no effort to do just that.

Netanyahu’s Arrogance; Our Stupidity