Israel Matzav

Oren more concerned about Dems in Congress than about Obama

In a wide-ranging Tuesday interview at his office with Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, said that he's more concerned about support for Israel becoming a partisan issue in Congress than he is about the Obama administration.

Oren pushed back at reports that senior Obama administration officials are all over the map on Israel policy. The conventional wisdom pits National Security Advisor Jim Jones and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice as advocating a tougher line, while Biden and the National Security Council's Dennis Ross are said to be more inclined toward the Israeli position. According to Oren, in private communications, the messages are all identical.

Oren's real worry is not the White House, but Democrats in Congress. "My deep concern is that American support of Israel will become a partisan issue," he said, referring to a Jan. 26 letter urging Israel to ease the Gaza blockage that was signed by 54 Democrats and zero Republicans.

He also said that statements from Democrats immediately after the flotilla incident were often harsher on Israel than Republican ones.

Oren also talked about the 'tectonic rift' comment about Israel's relationship with the Obama administration, and tried once again to back off the quote that was attributed to him in the Israeli media.

Oren also responded to reports that he told a private group that U.S.-Israel relations were "are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."

He acknowledged that the U.S. approach to Israel had changed since President Obama took office, but said that it has both positive and negative consequences for an Israel that is adapting to the new atmosphere.

"The Obama administration is not a status-quo administration; it came in with a policy of change," Oren said. "It's not headed in a direction of abandonment, it's a shift and our job is to figure where that shift is going and how to adapt."

He also predicted that as the Obama administration gets more experience in dealing with Middle East politics, it will slowly but surely come back around to agreeing with more and more of Israel's positions.

"My working assumption is that any encounter by American policymakers with Middle East realities almost invariably redounds to Israel's favor," he said.

Unfortunately, that is likely wishful thinking on Oren's part. The Obama administration has given no indication of being sympathetic to Israel and certainly not to its Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

Oren also reports that Tuesday's meeting between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to be highly visible and will attempt to change the image that the two do not get along. He also raises a concern that sanctions against Iran could lead Iran to attack Israel through Hamas and Hezbullah (although Oren supports implementing the sanctions).

Read the whole thing.

Jennifer Rubin adds:

But it is clear that Oren must walk on eggshells. The shift in U.S. policies, he insists, has both “positive and negative consequences.” (What are the positive ones? Hmm. He doesn’t say.) And he confesses that he has neither asked nor been told whether the U.S. would block a UN effort to launch its own flotilla investigation. If you have to ask, it’s not a good sign, certainly.

It is hard for even the most skilled diplomatist to disguise the truth: the U.S.-Israel relationship is more frosty than at any time in recent memory — and the Israelis are hoping (at least in public) that inexperience, rather than animus, accounts for Obama’s conduct toward the Jewish state. Israel, no doubt, is working hard on plans to defuse the existential threat it faces, since betting on Obama to come through is a gamble no Israeli government can undertake.

Sorry, but this is animus and not inexperience. He's been going after Israel since Day One, right out of the starting gate.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:21 AM