US-Israel relations aren't harmonious because Washington is conflicted - opinion

The recent annual Herzliya Conference, dealing with different challenges facing Israel, included, like every year, a session on US-Israel relations. One of the headings, in free translation, was “Israel without the US – is it possible?”

Anyone familiar even to the slightest degree with political realities would not hesitate to answer in the negative or, at the very least, to acknowledge that the relationship is of vital importance. They might also add qualifications pertaining not only to the Israeli half of the question but also to questions regarding America, which can be expected to multiply in the wake of the recent presidential debate and the ensuing political turmoil. The United States also has important strategic and other interests in Israel, but to keep things in proportion, the vectors are not equal.

This does not mean that the relationship will always be harmonious. There have been and will always be disagreements resulting from the simple fact that a country has interests of its own that do not necessarily match even those of a close ally. So, the rule for Israeli diplomacy, established by the late Moshe Dayan, still holds: risk a confrontation, if at all, only on absolutely essential issues.

Regardless of its merits, the not-yet-resolved dispute about the supply of vital arms and munitions to Israel, which is facing a war on several fronts, could be a case in point. If the US administration was looking for a pretext to cancel the planned strategic meetings with Israel regarding Iran, the above dispute played into its hands.

However, it would be shortsighted for Israel to ignore the changes that are currently taking place in the US in a whole range of issues – political, social, cultural, etc. – that have already affected and could further affect America’s position in the world and its foreign relations, including those with Israel.

More than a few questions arise in this respect: Has America given up on its role as the world’s leading superpower and leader of the free world? Have America’s values, which played a significant role in its international relations and, in particular, with Israel, turned hollow? What about its judicial system, which both the American Left and Right accuse of being biased and corrupt? What will the effect of the demographic changes in American society be on Israel and American Jews, and what about the rising antisemitism on both the Right and the Left? While the antisemitism of the Right, which is not new and often violent, is haphazard, antisemitism on the extreme Left is well organized, as in the protests on campuses, using official political institutions, including the US Congress, and exploiting the liberties granted by the American Constitution for its own purposes.

As is usually the case, the two extremes eventually meet. According to some assessments, the anti-Israel and broadly antisemitic Squad is shrinking, but the test of this will come only in November.

Last but not least, what will be the shape and character of America, for better or for worse, four months from now, after the elections in November? Whatever the results, fissures, and divisions in American society and politics will only deepen.

In both major parties and among American voters in general, there are isolationist tendencies that, on the Republican side, are creating growing reservations about aid to Ukraine and foreign aid in general, and, among the “progressives” in the Democratic Party, are fueling opposition to President Biden’s policy regarding Israel in general and the Gaza war in particular, with security-related assistance to Israel at the top of their blacklist.

Conflicting US opinions

THIS IS not just a theoretical issue. According to some reports, there have been actual cases of covert and even overt obstructions – among senior-level officials in the State Department and other departments – of the administration’s Middle East policies, which, they say, contradict America’s basic interests. A detailed programmatic article in this respect was published this month in Foreign Affairs by Ben Rhodes, a senior official in the Obama administration who now plays the role of an oracle on American foreign policy.

Rhodes is not a close associate of Biden, but his views may have an impact on those of the Democratic Party in the future – whether it continues to govern or finds itself in the next four years outside the White House or loses control of both chambers of Congress.

In his article, Rhodes calls for establishing a foreign policy for the world “as it is,” that is, not the one “wrongly imagined.” In previous times, some of his views on what he considers necessary political realism would have been termed “appeasement.” In his opinion, America must come to terms with the fact that the world no longer recognizes its uniqueness and primacy and that it must therefore give up “its mysterious political phenomena,” an apparent reference to, in his view harmful political influence on foreign policy.

Though he recognizes Russia’s and China’s aim to reset the norms of the world in their image, he calls for abandoning America’s traditional positions and instead “to build bridges to the future and not to the past (without specifying),” emphasizing what he defines as America’s continuous failures towards a large part of the earth’s population, “especially in the southern part.” Rhodes, who was part of the team negotiating Obama’s nuclear agreement, makes almost no reference to the growing threat of Iran and confines himself to general terms on this matter.

As might have been expected, a significant part of Rhodes’s criticism (like that of some other figures who take their Jewishness as a license to criticize not only Israeli policy but also pro-Israel decisions by the US) deals with Israel and its current war. “To many in the world,” he writes, “it seems that the lives of Palestinian children are not as important to Washington as the lives of Israelis. Unconditional military aid to Israel, ignoring the death toll on the Palestinian side, opposition to Security Council resolutions calling for a cessation of hostilities, American criticism of Israel’s war crimes investigations, etc., present America as cynical and one-sided.”

As usual in these circles, as well as among the Israeli Left, Rhodes expresses the hope that “Gaza will cause a shock that will disconnect Washington from the ‘muscle memories’ that guide too many of its actions.” Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rhodes repeats the usual mantras for “an effort to promote a new Palestinian leadership and recognize a Palestinian state.”

Though not going as far as Senators Sanders, Warren, and some other members of Congress in altogether opposing military aid to Israel, like the Israeli Left, he does not address the real causes of the conflict. As the late Israeli prime minister Ben-Gurion had said, “Peace will come when the Arabs also want it” and none other than Biden added last year that it will come “when Israel’s neighbors recognize the right of the Jewish people to their own state.” Both were right.

The writer, a former MK, served as ambassador to the US from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000.