Israeli commentators on the tense relations between the US and Israel are missing a central point. Some are suggesting that Obama is inexperienced and is prone to making mistakes when dealing with the Middle East. It is typically asked: doesn't Obama know that he will only harden the Palestinian position and make the start of negotiations more difficult? These sort of explanations do not consider that Obama is definitely not naive and understands exactly what he is doing, but has a purpose that is not so easy to discern.
What is going on today is not a tactical crisis between the US and Israel that can be resolved by finding the right diplomatic language that will help them bridge their differences. Even if such a formula is magically found, it will not necessarily resolve the long-term problem that Israel has to deal with. After all, there was a 10 month settlement freeze in the West Bank that was supposed to be the formula that bridged between the US position that demanded a construction freeze in East Jerusalem and Israel's policy that opposed such pre-conditions for negotiations. But clearly that US-Israeli understanding did not even last until September 2010, when the ten months were to end, since President Obama has already re-introduced the freeze in Jerusalem yet again.
Any recommendations of how to make US-Israeli relations work again must correctly diagnose what exactly has changed on the American side. To accomplish this, it is sometimes necssary to get out of the limited context of Israel and the Palestinians and look more broadly at how US policy towards the world is changing under President Barack Obama. One of America's leading commentators on international relations from the Carnegie Foundation, Robert Kagan, noted in the Washington Post on March 17 that other American allies fear that Obama is changing the relationship of the United States with them. These include Britain, France, Japan, and India. In 2008, for example, Obama suggested that India needed to resolve the Kashmir question with Pakistan, so that the Pakistanis can shift their troops from the Indian border to the Pakistani border with Afghanistan. India regards Kashmir as being under Indian sovereignty, and does not want the US meddling in this issue. A year later Obama welcomed China having a role in South Asia, which India viewed as Washington recognizing the intrusion of Beijing into its backyard.
But the the British case is the most dramatic. In early March, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed in Buenos Aires, that Britain begin negotiating the future of its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands with Argentina. This was a major change in US policy and it angered many British officials in London. This shift has only accelerated debate in the British parliament over the future of the "special relationship" with the US, with a parliamentary committee calling on the British government to reconsider the extent to which it should closely coordinate with Washington. This came after the decision of President Obama to snub British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who made five requests for a bilateral meeting at the opening of the UN General Assembly in September 2009, but was turned down by Washington.
Israel should not seek comfort in the troubles of others, but it should understand that it is part of a wider pattern. President Obama does not see himself changing the status quo either internationally or domestically at the margins. His domestic focus on health care, instead of a safer goal of creating jobs, was part of his ambitious vision of transforming American society as a whole. Equally, in foreign policy, Obama is not just interested in following the initiatives of his predecessors but in providing his own design for the world in the future. As Robert Kagan wrote, Obama is departing from a 60-year old grand strategy that the US adopted in the past, and is hoping to replace it with something entirely new.
Since his June 4, 2009 address in Cairo, Obama has made it clear that he seeks to fundamentally transform the relations of the West with the Islamic World. He connected the 9/11 attacks to the historic tensions between the Islamic states and the West, which he explained, al-Qaeda exploited. By changing the relationship, Obama believes he is also removing the motivation for the next attack. He also may see his own personal role as a historical figure who can bridge between the two civilizations.
In short, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Obama believes that by creating a Palestinian state as soon as possible, his administration would be transforming the relations of the West with the Arab world and the Islamic countries, as well. If that is the case, then establishing a Palestinian state may be more important to the administration than creating the conditions for the parties to negotiate the issue among themselves. President Bill Clinton opposed the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in 1999, but will that still be the policy of President Obama in 2011?
What the Obama administration's grand design for the Middle East, aside from the Palestinian state is not clear. But if his administration seeks to re-fashion America's alliance system, the Arab states should not automatically celebrate the new direction of US Middle East policy. Who will be America's main partner in its outreach to the Islamic world? Will it be the old allies like Egypt or Saudi Arabia? Or will there be a new regional partner instead? The Gulf states have been seriously concerned that the US will develop new realtions with Iran at their expense, should the Iranian leadership agree at some point to Obama's offer of engagement. They know that Washington's top priority is to withdraw successfully from Iraq and Afghanistan without chaos ensuing. To achieve this goal, Obama will need cooperation from Iran rather than escalation.
As suggested earlier, what Prime Minister Netanyahu experienced in Washington was not just a tactical US-Israeli problem but the beginning of a strategic change in US foreign policy. The tensions in US-Israel relations is part of a much larger global shift that President Obama is initiating. It is not enough to go back to stories of Begin and Carter or Shamir and Bush and apply the lessons from those clashes to the present day. Only after the picture of where Obama is heading becomes clear, then will it be possible to chart a new course for Israel that will protect its interests and create a new a new basis for the US-Israeli alliance.
This article was originally written in Hebrew for Yisrael Hayom.
Sir, I fyou have read either of the Obama books you will learn that this man has some serious issues that have been unresolved since childhood. His approach and attitude resembles that of a teenage boy who thinks he has all the answers to the world's problems, yet he hasn't left home to experience the world on his own. The change in policy will be short lived. Though I have yet to see a good candidate worth to run against him, I am sure someone will step to the front in the next couple of years.