Netanyahu and the Hazards of the 2016 US Presidential Campaign Season

The US has announced through Vice President Biden that it will deliver fifth-generation stealth aircraft to Israel in 2016. Biden pledged America’s firm commitment to defend the Jewish state : “Next year we will deliver to Israel the F-35 joint strike fighter, our finest, making Israel the only country in the Middle East with a fifth-generation aircraft.” Biden was speaking at an Israeli Embassy event to celebrate the country’s 67th Independence Day. Israel bought 19 F-35s in 2010 for $2.75 billion and agreed in February to buy an additional 14 Lockheed Martin Corp. fighter jets for about $3 billion. Biden’s appearance at the event came after months of heightened tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama over Israel’s fierce opposition to Obama's plan to complete a deal that Netanyahu says will ensure Iran's eventual possession of nuclear weapons threatening Israel's existence. The very public Netanyahu-Obama disagreement over the deal has made some say that US-Israel relations have been harmed beyond repair, raising questions about continued American support for Israel. But, as Biden stood under a large Israeli flag, he promised that the US would always “have Israel’s back,” giving the strong impression that the US wants to step back from the battle and re-establish a US-Israel working relationship. Biden said the Obama administration and Congress : “has provided $20 billion in military assistance to Israel and cutting edge weapons to [help it] maintain a qualitative advantage against any potential opponent. We continue to discuss what more must be done in the near term and the long term to continue to strengthen Israel so it can maintain that edge.” Biden said the US commitment to Israel is nonpartisan, but his own allegiance to it is personal. ~~~~~ But, while Vice President Biden is affirming American support for Israel, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, in testimony before the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in charge of State Department funding, said the US will no longer automatically exercise its veto in the UN Security Council to protect Israel. Power specifically declined to rule out support for resolutions on Palestinian statehood or the “peace process,” saying : “We will look to see what will advance Israel’s security and what will advance peace in the region.…Our objective as an administration is what can we do to defuse tensions, what will it take to get those negotiations back on track.” When Committee members expressed skepticism, she replied : “We will continue to work extremely closely with Israel in New York. As you know well we have a record of standing with Israel when it matters." Power refused to rule out the possibility that the US would support resolutions in the UN Security Council to limit Israeli sovereignty to the lands within the 1949 armistice lines - the lines that Israel insists are indefensible. This is the position that President Obama has taken several times - and Israel has rejected - in trying to restart Israel-Palestine peace talks. This dichotomy in US policy leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his soon to be sworn-in new government little breathing space before needing to create and implement policies to lead Israel through an extremely trying period in its history. ~~~~~ The Jerusalem Post has given a somber evaluation of the situation. JPost journalist Caroline Glick sets out a daunting agenda for Netanyahu -- He must develop the means to cope with the deteriorating US relationship; he must quickly set clear strategies for contending with the consequence of the US’s strategic shift away from its allies and toward Iran’s nuclear project; he must determine the principles that will guide Israel's moves in dealing with the regional instability engulfing or threatening to engulf its Arab neighbors; and, he must set a clear policy for Israel-Arab relations. ~~~~~ The reality confronting Prime Minister Netanyahu is in many respects the same reality confronting the United States -- how to unravel the mess created by President Obama. First, by joining in the task facing the new American President and Congress of putting back into working order the Middle East partnerships so badly damaged by Obama's determination to cast aside all America's regional allies in favor of creating a new Iranian hegemony. Israel will play a big role in this reconstruction, along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates. But, the Jerusalem Post is right to suggest that Israel shouldn't just wait for 2016 -- because we still have little idea who the next US President will be. If, as many doubt, Hillary Clinton is elected, it will be not only a continuation of Obama policies, it will also mean dealing with a US President who mistakes photo-ops for policy leadership. In this case, Israel will need strong relations with Congress and the American people - something it already has and should maintain and deepen - to help guide American Middle East policy. If a Republican is elected, Congress and Netanyahu will have a strong partner to work with. And, in the next 18 months, while we all wait for a new US President, Israel will face a world and a Middle East much less stable than when Obama took office in 2009. The US military has less capability because of Obama's budget reductions and removal of general officers who refused to accept his doubtful decisions. Netanyahu, like Congress and the US military, needs to find the fine line between working as closely as possible with Obama to keep Israel's operational and intelligence relationship with the US military fully functional and halting Obama's occasional efforts to damage both Israel and the US militarily. At the same time, Israel will need to continue to build solid, if invisible, working relationships with the sunni Arab world. That will provide the buffer and muscle to see Israel through to November 2016, and make it a stronger US partner post-Obama. ~~~~~ Obama has made it very clear that he is committed to a policy of reaching a deal with Iran that will enable Iran to have nuclear weapons. Being quiet in the face of this terrible reality got Israel nowhere. But Prime Minister Netanyahu's famous speech before a joint session of Congress not only solidified congressional opinion behind him, it also gave the American public the confidence in its own opinion needed to stand up to Obama's foolhardy plan. Now, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is acknowledged to be problematic. And it is very unpopular. That kind of fact-based forceful defense of what is best for Israel, America and the Middle East will continue to serve Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel well. ~~~~~ Dear readers, all these political and military positionings will also serve another purpose. They will constrain the Obama administration from pressuring Israel with impunity to give up its future safety and sovereignty -- as President Obama seems determined to do by his support for the Palestinian Hamas terrorists and their equally dangerous West Bank Palestinian Authority brothers. The support of Congress and the American public enables Israel to withstand Obama administration coercion to end the fighting on Hamas’s terms. In addition, in recent weeks, Egyptian and Saudi media have expressed support for an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, if need be. This support will also make it difficult for Obama to take revenge on Israel. The cause of Israel is far from lost. It is as alive as it ever was. The goal for the next year and a half will be for Prime Minister Netanyahu to strike a steady, assertive, but not unnecessarily combative, course through the hazards of a US presidential campaign season.