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Are the U.S. and Israel Heading for a Showdown?

No one is thinking about it, but it could just sneak up on us.

| Thu Dec. 20, 2012 3:10 PM EST

If he wins (which everyone assumes he will), he'll have to satisfy those hawks—and they don't care about shrewd secret bargaining or holding on to allies. What they want, above all, are public displays of unilateral strength made with much fanfare, exactly like the recent settlement-expansion announcement and the accompanying threat to turn E1 into an Israeli suburb. Many observers have suggested that the primary audience was Netanyahu's new, ever-more-right-wing partners. Plenty of them still don't trust him, especially after the ceasefire in Gaza under pressure from Washington.

Most analysts saw the Israeli announcement as a public punishment of the Palestinians for their success at the U.N. The BBC's Kevin Connolly had a different interpretation: Israeli hawks felt that letting the U.N. vote pass without some strong response "would be seen as a sign of weakness."


To keep the show going, they must have enemies. So they seek out confrontations and, at the same time, "actually welcome isolation," as the venerable Israeli commentator Uri Avnery says, "because it confirms again that the entire world is anti-Semitic, and not to be trusted."

"For the sake of his target voter," writes another Israeli columnist, Bradley Burston, "it's in Netanyahu's direct interest for the world to hate Israelis" and for Obama to be "fed up and furious with Israel. That is, at least until Election Day."

Obama owes the Israeli prime minister nothing after the recent US election season in which Netanyahu practically campaigned for Mitt Romney and publicly demanded that the US threaten an attack on Iran –- a demand that the administration publicly rebuffed. The president might finally be fed up, and so in a mood to ratchet up private pressure on the Israelis.


He has good reason. If he can secure a definitive halt to settlement expansion, he can bring the Palestinians back to the table with a promise to press Israel to negotiate seriously for a two-state solution. In a chaotic region where the US seems to be losing ground weekly, Washington could score sizeable foreign policy points, especially in improving relations with regional powers Turkey and Egypt.

And faced with Netanyahu's new post-election government, Obama would find himself with a new diplomatic weapon in his arsenal. Suppose—an administration aide might suggest to an Israeli counterpart—the US publicly reveals that it's allowing, perhaps even pushing, other nations to isolate Israel.

Some Israeli hawks would undoubtedly welcome the chance to proclaim Obama as Israel's greatest enemy and demand that Netanyahu resist all pressure. But Israeli centrists—still a large part of the electorate—would be dismayed, or worse, at the thought of losing Washington as their last bulwark against international rejection. The fear that Israel could become a pariah state, blacklisted, embargoed, and without its lone invaluable ally would be a powerful incentive. They'd insist that Netanyahu show flexibility to avoid that fate.

Netanyahu would find himself caught in a political battle he could never hope to win. To avoid such a trap, he might well risk yielding in private to US pressure, with the understanding that the two allies would publicly deny any change in policy and the US would continue to offer effusive public support. (The Israelis could always find some bureaucratic excuse to explain a halt—even if termed a "delay"—to settlement expansion.)

Battle on the Home Front


There's a common misconception that the administration worries most about "the Jews." The latest polls, however, show 73% of US Jews supporting Obama's policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly as many want him to propose a specific plan for a two-state solution, even if it means publicly disagreeing with Israel. Nor is there too much reason to worry about Jewish money, since most Jewish contributors to the Democrats are liberals who are pro-Israel but also pro-peace.


The administration's main worry is undoubtedly the Republican Party and especially its representatives in Congress. Recent polls byCNNthe Huffington Post, and Pew indicate that Republicans are roughly twice as likely as Democrats to take Israel's side, while Democrats are about five times as likely to sympathize with Palestinians. Men, whites, and older people are most likely to support Israel unreservedly in the conflict.

In the US presidential campaign, Republicans were eager to play on the traditional American belief in Israel's insecurity: an innocent victim surrounded by vicious Arabs eager to destroy the little Jewish state. Obama, the GOP charged, had "thrown Israel under the bus."


If Obama and the Democrats come out of the "fiscal cliff" process looking strong, they will feel freer to put real pressure on Israel despite Republican criticism. The more they can keep that pressure hidden from public view, while mouthing all the old "we stand with Israel" clichés, the more likely they are to take the risk.


Our goal, he might say, has always been to make Israel secure, something long ago achieved. We've ensured that Israel maintains such a huge military advantage over its neighbors, including its Iron Dome missile defense system, that it is now effectively safe from any attack. And we'll continue ensuring that Israel maintains its military superiority, as we are required to do by law.



Ira Chernus is a TomDispatch regular and professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author, among other works, of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin and the online collection "MythicAmerica: Essays." He blogs at To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.comhere.

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