Israel Matzav

He's never seen Israel like this

I don't have the sense that most Israelis are spending a lot of time talking about Iran. If you listen to the radio here, you hear the same headlines that you hear in the US, but what to do about Iran isn't really a subject for debate here. We have debates about how to handle the 'Palestinians,' what price to pay for Gilad Shalit (if any), what to do about the schools in Emanuel and whether and by how much our taxes will rise this year. But I don't have a sense that people are debating what to do about Iran.

In fact, other than a phone call I had last week with a friend who has just been discharged (due to his age) from an elite army unit - who told me that there's going to be a war and probably a lot of casualties, and that people in his unit had been to Iran - I don't even have a sense that there's a lot of preparation going on here either. There's been no public push to distribute the new gas masks that people started getting a couple of months ago. There certainly hasn't been any reserve call-up that I've seen. Thank God, there also hasn't been any preparation of mass graves as happened before the 1967 war (are we more confident this time?). Silence. Because we all know what has to be done. For Israelis, it's just a question of who will do it and when.

Keep that in mind from an observer on the ground as you read William Galston's report of his trip to Israel.

Never before have I sensed such a mood of foreboding, which has been triggered by two issues above all—the looming impasse in relations with the United States and a possible military confrontation with Iran.

In response to American pressure that began shortly after President Obama took office, the Netanyahu government agree last November to a temporary and partial freeze on construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which averted an immediate crisis. The freeze expires in September, however, and it will not be renewed. As I write, the central committee of the Likud Party is meeting to consider a resolution supporting renewed construction in all parts of the country. Netanyahu has signaled that he will not oppose the resolution, which its proponents describe as a way of pinning him down and removing all ambiguity about Israel's future course. The Prime Minister is scheduled to visit the United States in early July and to meet with President Obama. In the face of an Israeli stance that will torpedo the current proximity talks in the fall, what will the president say to him? If Netanyahu leaves Washington without a clear sense of the U.S. stance, he and everyone else will interpret it as a signal that he can stay the course at minimal price.

There are persistent rumors here that the Obama administration hopes to bring down the current Israeli government and replace it with a more tractable coalition. Don't hold your breath. The potential new coalition member--the Kadima Party headed by Tsipi Livni—will not join unless Netanyahu fundamentally alters his stance in the negotiations with the Palestinian. Headed by Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline forces in the current coalition will not accept Kadima unless it accepts a tough government platform including the transfer of Israeli Arab villages to a new Palestinian state in return for the incorporation of major West Bank settlements into Israel. Netanyahu's stated position is that he will accept Kadima as an addition to the coalition but not as a replacement for Lieberman and Company. To bring about a new coalition without the hardliners, the Obama administration would have to threaten Israel with measures at least as tough as the ones George H. W. Bush and James Baker implemented two decades ago against the Shamir government, risking a huge domestic political backlash.

Looking farther east, most Israelis—including many who are very dovish vis-a-vis the Palestinians—believe that only military force can prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power in the near future, and they cannot understand why the United States resists this conclusion. According to Ha'aretz, eyewitnesses on the ground support a recent report from the Times of London that Saudi Arabia has agreed to open its airspace to Israeli aircraft "as part of preparations for a possible attack on Iran." (Israel refused to comment on this report, which the Saudis of course have denied.)

Obama's priorities regarding this region are misplaced to the point of being irrelevant. He's now been in office for nearly 18 months and he's still acting as if there's hope to 'engage' Iran and as if the top priority for our region is the 'Palestinians.' They won't and it's not. If Obama insists on spending the entire summit with Netanyahu next week discussing the 'Palestinians,' I hope Netanyahu has the you-know-what's to get up and walk out. Because if that's what Obama wants to discuss (and by the way, I think Galston has it right both on the freeze and on the prospects of Livni replacing Lieberman and the Right in this government - it's not going to happen), Bibi is wasting his time in Washington and ought to be back here preparing the country for the reality of a strike on Iran.

Jennifer Rubin adds:

As Galston observes, “the sand in the hourglass is running down quickly. Some time this fall, an administration headed toward a midterm election with a faltering economy and negative developments in two war zones may confront a genuine Middle East crisis. We can only hope that its contingency plans are in place and that they’re better than BP’s.” Unfortunately, we know — thanks to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — that there really isn’t much contingency planning going on.

.... There is foreboding in Israel because the realization is sinking in that the Obama administration in all likelihood will not be there to defend the Jewish state — either diplomatically or militarily — when Israel needs America most. You would think American Jewry would be gripped by the same sense of foreboding as their brothers and sisters in Israel – and motivated to do something about it. But like Obama, they are, in Galston’s words, “playing for time.” I hope that they at least have a contingency plan better than BP’s and a sense of urgency to put it into action.

I don't think anyone here ever expected Obama to do anything for us militarily. If Bush didn't do it (regardless of whether he was tricked out of doing it by the 2007 NIE), Obama certainly was never going to do it. But Israel has never asked the US to fight its battles. If there's a sense of foreboding here regarding Obama and the US, it's over the lack of diplomatic cover. The sense of foreboding derives from the way the Obama administration has piled onto Israel over the flotilla, over the 'peace process,' over the 'Human Rights Council' and over a slew of other issues that have come up over the last year and a half. They've been subtle about it. But in Obama's bizarre world, exercising a veto at the UN is a sign of failure. If we attack Iran, will we be looking at a Chapter 7 resolution in the Security Council (mandatory action by all states) to try to force us to stand down? Will we be made into a pariah state like apartheid South Africa of the 1960's and 1970's? No one can say.

What can be said is that after November, our prospects with Obama can only get worse. If the midterm elections are a bloodbath, Obama may see himself as a one-term President and figure he has nothing to lose by coming down on us harder. If the Democrats hold their own, Obama is likely to figure he has nothing to lose in continuing to behave the way he has until now. That argues for an Israeli attack this summer or fall - before the US midterm elections.

Jennifer keeps harping on the American Jewish community. I understand why she does that, but I have no real expectation that the American Jewish community is going to do anything to help us. I'm also not sure anything they can do with this President in office has a shot of being effective short of withholding campaign contributions (as happened six weeks ago). After all, this is how the American Jewish community behaved in the 1940's during the Holocaust. So much of the younger generation there is intermarried and doesn't see any importance to a state of Israel anyway. How could we rely on them?

Yeshuath Hashem k'heref ayin (God's salvation is like the blink of an eye). We can only hope and pray that we merit it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:55 AM