The Israeli press is convinced that President Obama is on the cusp of retreating from the decades-long "special relationship" between the United States and the only functioning Western-style democracy in the Middle East because the new administration views the threat of an Iranian nuclear missile through different lenses than the toughies from the Bush era. Netanyahu faces impossible politics, internally and externally. Israelis believe that the relationship with the United States is the crown jewel of their diplomacy and one thing that prime ministers can't mess up. Alienating the Clinton administration was one major reason why Netanyahu was voted out of power in 1999. Flash forward to 2009: the United States believes that Netanyahu's coalition is already fraying, and there's not a whole lot of incentive to deal with a government that might not exist by this time next year. Israel's convoluted political system - which is, it must be said, more fair than anyone else's in the region - ties the hands of prime ministers who don't command respect.
The United States foreign policy establishment's consensus opinion on
the Middle East right now is that the solution - a Palestinian state
next to an Israeli state - is clear and obvious. The biggest obstacle
to reaching it is that Israel's government is more confident that it
can delay the inevitable giving up of land, and that the Palestinian
government is too weak to negotiate with anyone.
What's more, there are fewer obstacles to peace in Arab world - and
more favorable signs coming from its leaders - than at any time in
recent memory. The King of Jordan recently proposed a "57-state"
solution The King of Jordan is pushing for a comprehensive "57-state"
solution - one that would simultaneously solve all of the outstanding
problems and would wind up with the complete Arab world's recognition
of Israel.
Syria has sent signals through Europe, the United States and directly to Israel that it is ready to talk about everything.
The trouble: it's as if the sense of urgency has been lost -- not by
the Arab world or the West - but by the powers that be in Israel and
the Palestinian Authority. Expect to see the perfunctory - American
concern about expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, aid
packages to the Palestinian Authority, mutual expressions of
friendship, body language analysis by the cognoscenti.
On the surface, Syria still agitates for control of the Golan Heights;
Israeli settlements continue to expand; Hamas and Hezbollah still
refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and still get money and
guns from Iran and Syria; racism rises in Israel; water disputes plague
the region, etc. etc.
Long-time Israel watchers expect Netanyahu to avoid an explicit
endorsement of the two-state solution before an American audience, but
they expect him to announce something specific about the resumption of
talks with the Palestinian Authority, which were, shall we say,
suspended, after last year's war.
Americans who pay only peripheral attention to the Middle East peace
process don't realize why Egypt is so important to the implementation
of the "two state solution," and without some context, it's not
immediately obvious what the United States and Egypt have in common.
One tie that binds Egypt to the United States and Israel is its
uncompromising opposition to the Iranian nuclear bomb. Egypt's
intelligence agency is one of our best sources about that subject, and
about Palestinian radicalism -- and that's one major reason why the
Bush and Obama administrations are going out of their way to protect
the extent of Egyptian complicity in a variety of controversial U.S.
national security programs.
Hamas and Hezbollah threaten Egypt's interests -- its foreign minister
recently accused the Shi'ite axis of deliberately stoking the embers of
the Mideast conflict. The recent Gaza incursion by Israel led to a
flight of refugees across the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt accused Hamas of
orchestrating the exodus in order to provoke a border conflict. A week
and a half ago, 25 alleged members of Hezbollah were arrested inside
Egypt and accused of plotting terrorist attacks.
That's one reason why Mr. Obama plans to speak to Muslims from Egypt in
June, even though its democratic institutions are weak. Egypt has
historically represented the secular center of the Muslim world. And
its interventions could be the key to Middle East peace.
Our foreign relations must morph from man's best friend spawning freedom into amicus curia.