November 25, 2008
Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign webpage intentionally looks a lot like Barack Obama’s. It even has a picture of the president-elect — though only in the Russian version, not the Hebrew one.
The Israeli opposition leader even calls himself the candidate of change in Israel’s upcoming election, but that is where the similarity ends. He and Obama have very different visions of what change means when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The change Netanyahu has in mind is shelving the negotiations begun at Annapolis, Md., a year ago by the Bush administration, while Obama’s idea of change is to breathe new life into them. The American view is shared by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the Kadima party leader who is running even in polls with Netanyahu to lead the next Israeli government.
A Netanyahu victory could put Jerusalem and Washington on a collision course — not immediately, but by the late spring, when both countries have their new governments and policies in place.
During his campaign, Obama said he intended to be actively engaged in Middle East peace talks from the outset. By contrast, Netanyahu says he wants to shut down the Annapolis process, which he considers a mistake and a failure. His allies also have indicated they won’t be bound by any agreement Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may reach with Syria, either.
Instead of negotiating a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, Netanyahu has said he wants to focus on “economic development,” not territory. He insists the Palestinians simply aren’t ready for statehood. That led Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to accuse the Likud leader of “closing the door to any chance for peace.”
The door Netanyahu wants to open — reopen — is the one to the Prime Minister’s Office. Elections are Feb. 10; trailing well behind Netanyahu, 59, and Livni, 50, is Labor party leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, 66.
During the 1990s, as opposition leader and then as prime minister, Netanyahu formed an alliance with congressional Republicans, neoconservatives, and Evangelicals in an attempt to block the peace policies of the Clinton administration and the Rabin and Peres governments. He will have trouble replicating that strategy in 2009; the Democrats will control both Congress and the White House, and the neocons have been discredited by their unpopular war policies.
In other words, it’s a very different Washington.
Strained relations with a popular president who won the support of more than three out of four Jewish voters contributed to Netanyahu’s stunning defeat in 1999. Israeli voters expect their leaders to preserve, protect, and defend the vital American relationship, and on Netanyahu’s watch it had sunk to its lowest point in the past 16 years.
The Jewish Right was happy with President Bush’s big-talk, little-action approach to the peace process, although Netanyahu thought even that was too much.
Many Israelis and American Jews would like to see a hands-on President Obama willing to press Israel to freeze settlement construction, remove the illegal outposts, lift many of the restrictions on Palestinian travel and commerce — things Bush only talked about but never acted upon.
With the backing of 78 percent of Jewish voters, most of whom support a two-state solution and want to see more American leadership for peace, Obama will have a strong base of support. Like the current U.S. and Israeli governments, many of these same voters believe failure to pursue negotiations on the fundamental issues — borders, sovereignty, security, refugees, Jerusalem, and water — will only strengthen the extremists and lead to more violence.
Netanyahu’s own political base is on the other side of the spectrum. He is looking to the quarter-million-plus West Bank settlers, their supporters, the religious parties, the nationalists, and the Russian parties for support. The center-left Labor Party and the leftist peace camp seem more interested in fighting among themselves than with Likud and the centrist Kadima.
If Netanyahu does become prime minister, a clash with Washington over peace policies could produce financial as well as political fallout. In a time of high unemployment, soaring deficits, and prolonged recession, look for intense pressure in Congress to cut foreign aid spending, and Israel’s annual $3 billion is the largest slice of that pie.
Just as American voters had to weigh the impact of their decision on Nov. 4 on their own interests as well as the nation’s global concerns, so, too, must Israelis find a balance between domestic and international interests when they go to the polls on Feb. 10.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a political analyst based in Washington, DC.
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