By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
In July 2022 U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel. He hailed their strategic partnership and pointed to “a bedrock of shared values, shared interests and true friendship.”
What a difference a year makes. The two countries are now barely on speaking terms. What happened? It’s called an election, and last November it brought former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back in power.
He has formed the most right-wing government in Israeli history and is now at loggerheads with the country’s Supreme Court, accused of being an out-of-control body trying to block his political agenda. And this has greatly displeased the liberal Democrats in Washington.
President Biden and his foreign-policy team have strong opinions about who should be running the Jewish state that is echoed by most Democrats and the liberal mainstream media. So the formation of a government with a prominent role for such controversial politicians as Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party and Bezalel Smotrich of the HaZionut HaDatit (Religious Zionism) Party is enough to set their teeth on edge.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, who leaves his post this summer, has been the main conduit for what are unwelcome messages to Netanyahu. He suggested that if the new Israeli government deviated from the positions of the Biden administration, the relationship between the United States and Israel could suffer. Nides did not shy away from publicly taking sides, and, tossing diplomatic protocol to the wind, called on Netanyahu to “pump the breaks on judicial overhaul.”
Nides on Feb. 16 hit back at Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who had said that the envoy should mind his own business. “I really think that most Israelis do not want America to stay out of their business,” he said, referencing the support that Washington has provided Jerusalem for decades.
“The protests are an internal Israeli political issue, and any foreign ambassador commenting on this issue, but particularly an ambassador of a friendly nation like the United States, is crossing a line,” Chakli responded in a March 9 interview.
Chikli has called the Jewish progressive organization, J Street, a “hostile organization” and one of its funders, billionaire activist George Soros, “one of the greatest haters of Israel in our times.” On July 11 he also accused Biden of colluding with former prime ministers and current opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Ehud Barak. “Biden’s circle coordinates with them every time they want to inflame the protests in Israel.”
Revelations that the U.S. was funding some of the key left-wing NGOs instrumental in organizing the recent wave of protests didn’t help. One example was the Movement for Quality Government, a longtime leader in anti-Netanyahu efforts.
The administration was also reportedly furious after Netanyahu’s son Yair tweeted that the U.S. State Department was conspiring to topple his father’s government through CIA financing of mass anti-Netanyahu demonstrations.
Biden himself telephoned Netanyahu on March 19, for what was described as a “candid and constructive” conversation. In private, administration officials said, the conversation was even more blunt, indicating that Israel’s image as the sole democracy in the Middle East was at stake. The president’s conversation left little doubt that the administration is no longer concealing its displeasure and concern over the processes spearheaded by the government.
“Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that they get this straight,” Biden indicated March 28 when asked by reporters about the health of Israel’s democracy. “They cannot continue down this road,” he said at a press conference. “And I’ve sort of made that clear. Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise.”
Biden answered with an emphatic “No” when he was asked if he would be inviting Netanyahu to the White House. “Not in the near term,” he said. He invited President Isaac Herzog, who holds a purely ceremonial office, to visit the White House instead. And even then, five Democrat representatives boycotted Herzog’s July 19 address to Congress, while nine others voted against a resolution stating Israel is not an apartheid state..
During an interview with CNN July 9, Biden slammed the Netanyahu coalition as “the most extreme” Israeli government that he’s ever seen. His unusually frank comments appear to have been directed at Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Both hold key roles in the Netanyahu government: Smotrich serves as finance minister, and Ben-Gvir is the national security minister. Ben-Gvir retorted that “Israel is no longer another star in the American flag.”
What the White House wants is a more pliable Israeli prime minister who will keep quiet about the nuclear threat from Iran and who can be intimidated into not acting to forestall that deadly threat to Israel’s existence.
But the strained relationship is about more than just policy disagreements or specific politicians; it is an unavoidable ideological rift between U.S. Democrats and an increasingly conservative Israeli nation. A Gallup poll conducted Feb. 1-23 showed that more Democrats, at 49 per cent, sympathized with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, with 38 per cent.
Will the long-standing bipartisan support for Israel in the United States be a thing of the past? Don’t be shocked if the United States eventually applies sanctions on Israel. Must Israel sooner or later look for friends elsewhere?
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