The Obama administration is projecting a new attitude when it comes to Israel and is selling it hard: an unbreakable, unshakeable bond going forward, whatever happens.
Jewish leaders have kicked the tires and they’re buying — although anxious still at what happens when the rubber hits the road.
“It’s a positive development,” Alan Solow, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said of the recent Jewish outreach blitz by the administration. “There are two questions, though, that will only be answered over time: Will the outreach be sustained, and will the policy be consistent with the positions being expressed in the outreach?”
Tensions between the administration and Israel were sparked in the first week of March, when Israel announced a major new building initiative in eastern Jerusalem during what was meant to be a fence-mending visit by Vice President Joe Biden. Biden rebuked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was followed by a 45-minute phone berating by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and then by statements from senior administration officials that the announcement had been an affront.
That in turn spurred pained howls of protest by top Jewish figures, who said that while Netanyahu indeed had blown it, the backlash should have ended with Biden’s rebuke. Worse, opinion makers in Washington had seized on a paragraph in 56 pages of Senate testimony last month by Gen. David Petraeus in which the U.S. Central Command chief said that one of many elements frustrating his mission in the Middle East was the Arab-Israeli peace freeze.
The turning point, Solow said, was the letter he received April 20 from President Barack Obama.
“Let me be very clear: We have a special relationship with Israel that will not be changed,” Obama wrote. “Our countries are bound together by shared values, deep and interwoven connections, and mutual interests. Many of the same forces that threaten Israel also threaten the United States and our efforts to secure peace and stability in the Middle East. Our alliance with Israel serves our national security interests.”
According to a Quinnipiac poll taken in mid-April, 44 percent of U.S. voters disapprove of how Obama is “handling the situation between Israel and the Palestinians,” while 35 percent said they approved and 21 percent said they did not know or would not answer. Likelier to disapprove were Republicans (68 percent) and independents (47 percent), while 59 percent of Democrats approved.
A total of 34 percent of respondents in the nationwide poll of 1,930 voters (with a plus-minus margin of error of 2.2 percent) saw Obama as a strong supporter of Israel, while 66 percent believed he should be a strong supporter.
So now comes a heavy blast of Israel love from the administration, including speeches by David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political adviser, at the Israeli Embassy’s Independence Day festivities and to the National Jewish Demoratic Council.
Other examples: Clinton speeches to the Center for Middle East Peace last week and to the American Jewish Committee this week; Petraeus keynoting a Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration at the Capitol last week; Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, meeting recently with a group of 20 rabbis; Jim Jones, the national security adviser, addressing the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Jones’ deputy, Daniel Shapiro, addressing the Anti-Defamation League next month.
The main theme of the remarks was, as Jones put it, “no space — no space — between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.”
The blitz also has addressed the concerns of a number of Jewish groups after the initial “crisis” — that the administration was making an issue of Israeli settlement and not of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to renew talks until Israel completely froze settlement building and of continued incitement under Abbas’ watch.
In fact, the administration repeatedly warns against any preconditions and has made a consistent issue of Palestinian incitement, but Clinton appeared to understand that the message has not been forceful enough.
“We strongly urge President Abbas and his government to join negotiations with Israel now,” she told the Center for Middle East Peace on April 15. She also called on the P.A. to “redouble its efforts to put an end to incitement and violence, crack down on corruption, and ingrain a culture of peace and tolerance among Palestinians.”
Jewish leaders also were wounded by what they saw as a dismissive attitude toward Israel’s contributions to the alliance. “It is Israel which serves on the front lines as an outpost of American interests in a dangerous part of the world,” Lee Rosenberg, the AIPAC president, said April 14.
The new feel-the-love show also extends to Israelis, a marked change from the no-photos snub Netanyahu received when he met at the White House with Obama in late March.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates rolled out the red carpet April 27 for his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, a signal that the sides are coordinating closely on Iran containment policy. And when the Israeli defense minister met at the White House with Jones, Obama dropped by to chat — a signal that presidents often use to underscore the closeness of a relationship.
Furthermore, the administration is not limiting its message to Jewish audiences. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke last week to the Arab American Institute, saying, “Our position remains clear: We do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. Israel should also halt evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority should continue to make every effort to ensure security, to reform its institutions of governance, and to take strong, consistent action to end all forms of incitement.”
For now, Jewish leaders said they will closely watch the aftermath of a visit to Washington by Abbas in May, when the sides are expected to announce the resumption of talks. The nitty-gritty of the talks might yet derail the new good feelings.