Is Obama Using ‘Hard Power’ to ‘Get Israel to Toe the Line’?
In a Jerusalem Post interview I conducted with the elder statesman in June 2008 — eight months before the elections that would hail the comeback of Bibi’s premiership — Arens said: “You have to choose the candidate whose ideas are as close as possible to yours, and who has a chance of being elected. As far as I’m concerned, that’s certainly Netanyahu.”
A year into Netanyahu’s term, Arens discusses the challenges he continues to face: pressure from an unfriendly ally, a Palestinian entity with no cohesion or leadership, and a potential nuclearized Iran.
Q: Does Netanyahu’s apologetic response to the recent reprimands by Washington indicate that he is so concerned with obtaining President Obama’s cooperation in relation to the Iranian threat that he would do anything not to endanger the relationship?
A: I refuse to believe that there’s any kind of connection between disagreements Israel may have with the U.S. on the Palestinian issue and what the president of the United States decides to do about the Iranian threat. It just doesn’t make any sense. There is nothing more important facing the U.S. at the present time than Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb. It’s important to Israel, as well, of course, but it’s at the top of President Obama’s agenda. Now, to posit that he might decide to do, or not to do, something because of Netanyahu’s position on problems with the Palestinians is just ridiculous. And when people indicate otherwise — which many pundits do — it is in order to pressure the Israeli government into “behaving.”
Q: General David Petraeus recently blamed Israel for endangering American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though he subsequently said his words were taken out of context, isn’t it possible that the Obama administration does see a connection between Israel’s actions and the behavior of the Muslim world — including Iran?
A: The administration may see a connection. But it’s a big leap from that to the president saying, “Let the Iranians have the bomb, because I don’t like what the Israeli government is doing about the Palestinian conflict.” It’s inconceivable.
Q: If so, what American interest is served by Washington’s picking a fight with Israel — a close ally — precisely when the Iranians are getting closer to having the bomb?
A: Well, you could make a case that it is in America’s interest to bring about reconciliation, an accommodation — or, if you like, a peace agreement — between Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, this has been considered a U.S. interest for many years by a number of administrations. But the approach of this administration is different; it’s much more forceful. In the past, whatever differences of opinion existed between the administration in Washington and the Israeli government — and we’ve always had differences of opinion; there’s no such thing as two nations, no matter how friendly, agreeing on everything — the U.S. preferred to keep them private, holding discrete discussions with Israeli representatives, not openly applying pressure on Israel to accept the U.S. view.
You know that this is called “soft power”? Well the Obama administration’s leverage is beginning to sound like “hard power” — brutal even — to get Israel to toe the line. I have no doubt that in President Obama’s eyes, this is the way to promote U.S. interests. As non-objective as I am, I have the impression that it is not only a mistaken policy, but one that isn’t advancing the peace process. In effect, it is making it almost impossible for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come to the negotiating table, because he has to insist he has no choice but to wait until the conditions that the U.S. is setting are met by Israel before he does.
Q: How do you explain the pressure being applied exclusively to Netanyahu, when his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, made a more far-reaching offer to Abbas than any Israeli prime minister before him, and Abbas not only didn’t accept it, but never even responded? What does Obama expect Netanyahu to do?
A: He and his administration have stated unequivocally what they expect — or, maybe more correctly, what they want — of Israel: They want no building in Judea and Samaria — to which the Israeli government has acceded, at least partially, by imposing a freeze on building in the settlements — and no building in Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. To reiterate: Once these conditions are set publicly, they become conditions for Abbas; he will not negotiate until they are met. After all, he can’t be less Palestinian than Hillary Clinton or President Obama.
And my guess is that if the administration is being so forceful and indiscrete in setting conditions as a way of jump-starting negotiations, it will not hesitate to do so once the negotiations start, to pressure Israel into reaching an agreement with the Palestinians.
Q: Including pressuring Israel to accept the Palestinian demand for the “right of return”?
A: This administration is so bent on getting things moving that it keeps insisting that the “status-quo is unsustainable.” This does not mean, “Do something,” but rather, “Do exactly as we say.”
So I assume that its response to any demands Palestinian negotiators have will be to pressure Israel into agreeing to them. The State Department has said openly that the core issues have to be addressed right away — no dilly dallying — and that the U.S. is not going to keep its views a secret. At this stage, it’s not too difficult to discern just what those views are.
Continued in Part II.
I suggest the efforts made to get to the basics, and the petrifying fear of being called racist, are what is behind the wheel for this “hard power” approach of the Beltway, as described by Ambassador Arens.
After all, it can very easily be spun as racism that Abbas, and those who exult in the shedding of blood, are as ready to govern today as South Vietnam was when a picture of a Buddhist Monk being immolated ran in “Life” Magazine.
So, given the fact that too much unpleasantness is as appetizing as roadkill, at least in the eyes of those who develop government policy, we wind up with the mess we are in.
I am somewhat at a loss that a man of Moshe Arens’ status and intellect could make this statement of naivety:
It makes perfect sense Mr. Arens, and you had better start believing it, because I’m completely convinced that Obama perceives Iran having a nuclear bomb as little threat to the U.S.. And frankly Obama doesn’t much give a damn if it threatens Israeli a tad if it would help coerce a false peace pact with Palestine that Obama can attach his historical name. Like everyone and everything else Mr. Arens, to President Obama you are a tool to use as he sees fit.
Obama is not the least bit concerned it might sway American Jews to vote against him, because he knows that most won’t under any condition.
You better start understanding Mr. Arens that Obama is first and foremost concerned with what strokes the immense ego and cult of personality called Obama. Otherwise, you and all of Israel are going to get burned.
Your comments seem less about Iran and Israel and more about your bitterness about losing the 2008 election.
Oops! Looks like someone just leveled the playing field…
Bitterness has little to do with. Overcoming the rubes led by the Master Rube is more the concern…
Mr. Arens is just being logical, rational and realistic. Obama is not acting rationally. Is Mr. Arens really saying; how can anyone be that stupid? For Mr. Arens it must look really stupid to be doing everything in your power to destroy your own country. It must look to him like suicide and Obama while destroying America is trying to get Israel to commit suicide too.
When Iran gets the bomb, which Obama by his delay tactics has almost assured they will do, we are on the target list either first or second and Amb. Arens knows it. Therefore in his mind dealing with Iran must be the top of Obama’s priorities. It is not. Obama is like a stupid teenager who gets the keys to the house, the cars and the liquor cabinet while they parents are away, invites all his friends over and parties down all weekend and ends up destroying the house the cars and his parents reputation all in a two day binge.
Obama finds it easy to destroy and tear down but has no capacity to create or build up. We have a bully thug in the White House and it should make everybody want to puke. What a mess we already have to clean up. Let’s all hope we get that opportunity. The vultures are beginning to circle.
The Precedent isn’t trying to get Israel to toe any line. He just hates the West and Israel is the frontier of the West in the Middle East. This is nothing but a mission of destruction, just as is being practiced on the US and Europe.
We should all consider ourselves lucky that The Precedent is such an incompetent imbecile – and I mean “imbecile” literally – as The Precedent has shown many times that he has the mathematical sophistication of a retarded 8th grader and surely didn’t score over 420 on the math section of his SATs.
The Precedent sees himself as the avenging angel of the third world (something he picked up while growing up in Indonesia) and is looking to do nothing less than destroy the West. If anyone thinks this is hyperbole, than try and name one position or policy of his that has not been directed at exactly this effort. But, we bear a lot of the responsibility for this, as we have a man who spouts totally nonsensical notions such as “profit and earnings ratios” and then we let him lecture us on finance and monetary policy and climate theory (when it’s clear that he can’t even handle simple arithmetic with fractions) without anyone having the guts to say, “The Precedent is DUMB. Really, really dumb.” And he clearly is.
But, hey, maybe I’ll change my mind when the windfall when my health care premiums are “reduced by 3000%” (as if anyone with a brain could even make such a moronic mistake).
The longer people treat the Indonesian Imbecile as if his IQ is over 84, the more pain and suffering the West will endure, and it is looking to be fatal – which was the only intention The Precedent ever had, to begin with.
And we thought Obama’s trashing of our ally Israel was due to accidental incompetence. Now we know it is by design.
Moshe Arens is the best of the best because he is in it for the Jewish people; and he “gets it”: the actual market conditions; not the self fulfilling prophesy inherent in the servant of ideologue/s.
I still disagree with one thing he is quoted as saying; I believe the actions of the USA are only consistent with a policy of keeping the tyrant dictators that parade as religious, in Iran, in power at all cost and that they should have a nuclear weapon as soon as possible.
USA demand no Jews in parts of Jerusalem!
Clinton/USA is demanding a terror state (like Iran or an entity like Al Qaeda) be established on the West Bank/Gaza…
… while the US/EU claim to be at war (Iraq/Afghan) with the same terrorist they demand set up a state on the West Bank/Gaza.
Testing new forum software!
Arens is one of the few respected statesmen in Israel. In fact, the ONLY thing he has in common with President Peres is their age. Otherwise, they are like night and day. Peres is a delusional peace fantasist, married to a Lawrence of Arabia pathology. Arens is a light onto the nations, an elder statesman of high repute.
The posters would do well to heed his words and take them seriously.
Of course it’s by design: “No blood for oil.” There are 1.5 billion Muslims, who control 40 percent of the world’s cheap energy resources, versus a Jewish state of several million with no oil. Obviously the default “realist” foreign policy is trading Jews for oil. It’s the pragmatic thing to do, we have a pragmatic president, and who just so happens to have spent a life time hanging out with Anti-semites. What did you expect? The transformational post racial president?
In fact, I would even argue that Obama is rather in the position of Ford and Nixon. Faced with a recalcitrant North Vietnamese, funded and armed by the Russians and the Chinese, Nixon sought to reinforce the South Vietnamese by normalizing relations with China, reinforcing the Sino/Soviet split with victory on the battlefield too. At the time only Nixon could have established relations with China. However, that meant enforcing the Peace Treaty ending the Vietnam War when the democrats wanted to “Come home America.” A democratic congress reduced aide to South Vietnam and forced Ford not to enforce the peace treaty when the NVA resumed war–”there is no military solution,” as they said at the time (except for the enemy). Just think of Israel as South East Asia, the Arab world is the new China to be courted, and only a black President Obama could really end the “apartheid” Jewish state in return for normalizing relations with the Muslims, all for “peace in our time” with the imposed Saudi plan. The parallels are interesting as we seek regime change in Israel and regime survival in Iran. Even the Turks, a Nato member, is on the peace train leaving the station. However, the Turks and the Persians and the Arabs have always been at each other’s throats when they didn’t have Israel to kick around. Oh, and China got its nukes too, in 1964, its first fusion bomb in 1967. In the seventies it became fashionable to argue that Vietnam was the wrong war at the wrong time: seems we now have the same people running foreign policy saying Israel was the wrong state at the wrong time in the wrong place.
Short answer: No. “Hard power” means military force, for example dropping bombs and sending troops. Obama’s aggression has not met that point. The original phrase “soft power”, from which “hard power” derives, was coined to mean diplomatic force short of using the military.
Israel should not bite the hand that feeds it. America wants a peaceful two state solution and Israel is about 75% of that goal. And right now Israel is not dancing to the right music. We will not be hiring a new band so its time for Israel to get some new shoes. However, I am cynical. I dont think Israel has ever liked the tune or the dance so eventually I think America should invite all the other players (visible and invisible) into the arena for another direction. This is where I hope Obama goes in his second term. That would probably change the setting, for the better. Because the past, dont work.
And when have the Palestinians made a single compromise on anything, ever? Israel is supposed to make unending concessions so that the Pallys will deign to talk to them- and then more concessions are demanded. It’s like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football- and all the while both Hamas *and* Fatah continue to declare, openly that the only acceptable solution is the destruction of Israel. Nothing has changed one iota since Khartoum.
“And right now Israel is not dancing to the right music.” The tune you are asking Israel to dance to happens to be a funeral dirge. You like dancing to funeral dirges? That aside, If Obama is re-elected you’ll eventually change your handle from Poor Citizen to Poorer Citizen.
Your Al Qaeda opinion is, of course, rabidly anti-American. If your terror state is set up on the West Bank/Gaza; the terror attacks coming from there will also reach America…as you well know…
Poor Citizen yet again woolly left wing, antisemitic, Islamophile moonbat thinking from you. Tell us what you mean by ” a two State solution” dont just parrot things you hear? You see the Mohammedan ARAB Invaders of the Holy Land (you got an alternative story of how and why THE ARABS are there if so enlighten us) already have TWO Mohammedan ARAB Invader States, Jordan and Syria, and OVER 75% of what was the original REGION the Mandate of Palestine and EGYPT, yet ANOTHER Mohammedan ARAB state, also OCCUPIES the Sinai. So tell us WHY the Mohammedan ARAB Invaders need ANOTHER state and what HISTORICAL , moral and logical reasons do you have that it should be partly carved out of ISRAEL , who as the REAL historical residents of the WHOLE area have have LESS than 25% of the land now. N.B. The definition of an ARAB is a resident of or descendant of an ethnic group resident in the ARABIA Peninsular.
Poor Deluded Citizen,
If America’s aid to Israel is being used to appease the Arabs on Israel’s expense, then America is not feeding Israel but blackmailing her, and Israel would be better off without it.
Viewed from America, it’s customary to see Netanyahu and the Likud as “hardliners” and “Far Right”, but in fact in Israel they’re considered moderates. For the great number of Israeli Jews who have shifted to the right in the course of the past twenty years or so, being right-wing means believing in a Jewish One-State Solution: Israel Jewish from the river to the sea, emptied of all those who dispute its right to exist as the State of the Jews. The local Arabs (“Palestinians” falsely so called) will have be to driven out, all of them, for there to be a just and viable peace.
Americans, please concentrate on your internal affairs (the economic crisis, the neo-Communist takeover etc). American aid to Israel may once have been in true friendship; now, in the hands of the Jew-hating, Muslim-sympathizing neo-Communist in the White House, it amounts to extortion. The aid must and will cease. It won’t be easy for Israel, to be sure, but the gain of freedom to liberate Israel of all anti-Zionist actors will have made it worth it.
It is better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.
I suppose it is only natural that most of the commentary on the Palestinian Israeli conflict should be centered on what Israel will or will not do to achieve peace, what possible outcomes could include, how much pressure this or that country, orgnization, or bloc of nations is willing to exert on Israel to “make peace.” Unfortunately all that commentary is entirely irrelevent since by now it must be blindingly obvious that Israel has already done everything it takes to “make peace” with the Palestinians and the Palestinians have either ignored every offer or rejected it out of hand. Look, Ehud Barak offered Arafat everything including dividing Jerusalem into Palestinian and Israeli halves and Arafat just ignored it. Ariel Sharon destroyed Jewish Communities in the Gaza Strip, and offered to do more of the same elsewhere, and the Palestinians just ignored him. Ehud Olmert did much of the same, even offering to expel up to a 100,000 Jews from their homes, divide up Jerusalem with the Palestinians, and accept thousands of Palestinian “refugees” into Israel, and he was ignored as well. This is because the Palestinians demand and will accept only one agreement, and that is the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel and the genocide/expulsion of all of our Jewish citizens. For the Palestinians this is the only red line, and indeed, their only serious demand, and unless it is an integral part and parcel of any “peace settlement” or “two state solution,” they will never sign off on it. Thus far we Israelis have not elected a government or a Prime Minister willing to run on a platform of national suicide, although what could happen if Kadima ever takes over is anyone’s guess.
As long as obstacles to power are added, instead of being taken away from the likes of Sheikh Salam al Hoziel, Nonie Darwish, Zuhdi Jasser, Tawfik Hamid, Wafa Sultan, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Bat Yeor and Walid Shoebat – we will see more proof of Henry Ford’s saying that what we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.
massaraksh
Your statement, “De Gaulle bombastically promised to defend Israel till the end if only Israel had given up the right of self defense and ignored its neighbors clear preparations for war” sounds a lot like the promises made to Clemenceau by David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson at the end of the first world war. Well, it didn’t work in 1919, it didn’t work in 1967, and it will
never work.
Everything obama does is by design. He is a handicap to the USA, and a disgrace to African Americans (though, sadly, most African Americans refuse to see this). And if most Americans had been watching and acting intelligently, they would have seen, since Election 2008, what an arrogant, narcissistic flake obama is. As one commentator stated, he has spent most of his life hanging out with antisemites (and anti-Americans too, for that matter). So, of course, disdaining friends of the USA is only part of the mindset of someone determined to discredit the world’s leading Western nation: a.k.a. as “OLD HAT” for obama. What is so surprising about anything the fake American president (or pres carter #2) says or does? Long ago I came to expect the worst treatment of Israel by obama, than by all previous American presidents in history. Politically and ideologically, he PERSONALLY will have to change drastically, before I can ever expect any positive influence for Israel, from him.
It’s becoming clear that Obama is following the same script de Gaulle used in order to strengthen relations with the Arab world by throwing Israel under the bus in 1967. Even the rhetoric sounds the same! De Gaulle bombastically promised to defend Israel till the end if only Israel had given up the right of self defense and ignored its neighbors clear preparations for war. The Israeli leaders understood that de Gaulle was engaged in a dishonest and despicable game at their expense and Israel did the right thing by staging a preemptive strike against Egypt & Syria (Jordan entered the war later despite being implored not to).
We may see the same farce playing out again. Clearly, President Obama sees Israel as a root cause of the US problems in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world. In fact, with close friends like the late Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and others it was to be expected.
It’s not going to be easy for Obama to abruptly cut Israel off b/c of its Jewish and (even more importantly!) non-Jewish supporters. Most Americans understand that sacrificing Israel won’t put an end to the Jihad against the West in general and the USA in particular; it’ll only whet the appetites of the Jihadi dreamers. It’s the Gardens of al-Andalus that don’t let them sleep at night, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
Some observations:
1) The excuse, “Oil for Jews” is poorly thought out by the wonks in the State Department. To whom will the Arabs sell their oil if not the West. All boycotts by oil producers will be short-lived. Our world is more interconnected now than in the past.
2) Part of Obama’s opposition to Israel stems from its success in the economic development field. American socialism will not compete well against Israeli capitalism. The President will have yet another reason to seek Israel’s emasculation. Not a good idea to have an alternative around for people to point to.
3) Multiculturalism will be enforced upon America through Obama’s use of immigration policies, like Britain’s, which were designed to buck up the Labour Party voting base, but will cause blood to flow in the streets of Britain before 2020 at the outside. The President will not relinquish office until America collapses and perhaps not even then.
4) Regarding the status quo between the Palestinians and the Israelis, any rational person not driven by ideology would conclude that a relatively durable peace is already present and that forced changes will produce unknown results. In all other circumstances, stability is preferred by policy makers over change. Not with regard to Israel. If Obama pushes the Israelis to the edge of a cliff, they will not step back that last bit for him. It will become “Obama’s Intifada.”
Israeli leaders have gotten old and seem to unable to grasp new realities. Arens was a superb man, but he is 84. Peres is even older. Is it any wonder these men cannot comprehend what has changed. The American administration appears to have long ago accepted Iran as a nuclear state. This isn’t just Obama, it was Bush as well. The fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate report was the clincher. It was a set up and we all knew it.
America is a huge country, and it is thousands of miles from Iran. We do not feel the threat the way Israel does. That is just the reality. Missile defense systems, adequate bomb shelters to survive beyond the initial fireball zone of any nuclear explosion (2-3 km) and retaining enough territory in the West Bank to disseminate the population both before and after a strike to lessen the impact of a strike on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or Haifa are what should be the priorities for Israel.
Check out his 1995 book, the administration at the time was trying to undermine Likud and support Labour, and constrained Israel by withholding the needed arms.
Gee where have we seen that before?
The fact is, America’s friendship is largely a fraud, Obowmao is just clarifying the facts…
Poor Citizen blames it all on Israel. Never mind the fact that Hamas, the current rulers of the Palestinians, explicitly calls for the extermination of Jews in their charter – not “settlers”, not “Zionists”, not Israelis, but Jews. Apparently Poor Citzen is just jim dandy with that.
Everything obama does is by design. He is a handicap to the USA, and a disgrace to African Americans (though, sadly, most African Americans refuse to see this). And if most Americans had been watching and acting intelligently, they would have seen, since Election 2008, what an arrogant, narcissistic flake obama is.