Monday, January 02, 2017
On Loving
Another Country
During the campaign Donald Trump declared his love for Israel,
but as George Washington warned, such sentiments should have no place in
statecraft.
A demonstrator holds a card
reading 'I love Israel' and another holds an Israeli flag during a counter
demonstration against Al-Quds Day, an event intended to express solidarity with
the Palestinian people, on July 25, 2014 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo: Carsten
Koall/Getty Images)
Say what
you will about Israeli political leaders, you can always count on them for one
thing: They will do whatever they believe necessary to ensure the security and
wellbeing of the Jewish State.
Love is a sentiment at odds with
cold calculation.
The same
cannot be said of American political leaders, notably so when it comes to
US-Israeli relations. There, the interests of the United States routinely take
a back seat to other considerations. Chief among those considerations is
domestic politics.
“I love Israel.”
So declared Donald Trump while campaigning for the presidency. A candidate
professing to love Poland or Canada might meet with raised eyebrows. Yet
especially during presidential election years, over-the-top expressions of
regard for Israel have become de rigueur. Like promising to take care of vets
and protect social security, it’s what you do to raise money, reassure key
constituencies, and ultimately win votes.
Of
course, love is a sentiment at odds with cold calculation. A lover is in some
senses a captive, susceptible to being deceived or manipulated, especially when
love is not reciprocal. For that reason, as George Washington wrote when
warning against the danger of “passionate attachment,” such sentiments should
have no place in statecraft.
The
challenges Israel has faced since its founding, powerfully reinforced by the
history of the Jewish people, have curbed any Israeli inclination to indulge in
passionate attachments. Jewish Israelis love one country – their own. True in
the days of Ben-Gurion, this remains equally true in the age of Netanyahu.
From the
outset, therefore, self-interest rather than affection governed Israel’s
attitude toward the United States. And with good reason: Cultivating warm
relations with Washington held the prospect of shelter and protection. So David
set out to befriend and indeed to beguile Goliath.
Over
time, courting the United States paid dividends. American largesse helped make
Israel the military powerhouse that it is today. American diplomatic cover
shielded Israel from being sanctioned for actions that Israelis deemed
essential to their security, but that others saw as needlessly provocative,
reckless, or brutal.
Benefits
accruing to the United States proved more difficult to specify. Even so, both
parties concurred on one point: American support for Israel was crucial for
advancing the cause of peace. Or to state the matter more bluntly: Absent US
backing for Israel, peace became impossible.
Pursuant
to this overarching objective, one US administration after another devoted
itself to working out the details of a “two-state solution” ending the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians. As those efforts proved unavailing,
maintaining at least the appearance of a viable “peace process” became an end
in itself.
On that
score, US policymakers for years on end pressed Israel to refrain from
expanding Jewish settlements in territory occupied as a result of the 1967 war.
Israeli self-restraint was never going to magically produce peace. Yet
unchecked settlement expansion made the “two-state solution” ever more
improbable. It also prompted suspicions that David might be playing Goliath for
a fool.
Credit
Mr. Netanyahu with deepening such suspicions. Through words and action, the
Israeli prime minister made clear his contempt for Washington’s request that
Israel suspend further settlement activity, even while pocketing a $38 billion
US aid package. With an audacity that Vladimir Putin must surely admire, a
grandstanding Netanyahu inserted himself directly into American politics,
seeking to undermine the authority of a sitting president and then ingratiating
himself with his as-yet-to-be-inaugurated successor. Yet these qualify as mere
slights. Netanyahu’s real offense was to expose the peace process itself –
erstwhile justification for US policy — as a complete charade.
By
abstaining from a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement
policy, the outgoing Obama administration tacitly acknowledges that it has been
had. Secretary of State John Kerry’s subsequent headline-grabbing speech
directly criticizing Israel elaborates on that admission. In effect, Obama and
Kerry concede that in the present-day US-Israeli relationship, David holds the
upper hand. Goliath, its love unrequited, foots the bill.
Waiting in
the wings, of course, is Donald Trump, urging Israelis to “stay strong” until
Obama departs office. To judge by the early indicators, especially Trump’s
selection of David Friedman to be US ambassador to Israel, the next
administration will loudly celebrate what others whisper with chagrin: The
two-state solution is indeed dead. And good riddance. Henceforth, the United
States will give Israel what it wants, without even the appearance of expecting
a quid pro quo.
However
unwittingly, Netanyahu, Obama and Trump have thereby collaborated in radically
reformulating the basis of US-Israeli relations. No longer does the
relationship rest even nominally on a mutual commitment to a negotiated peace.
For Netanyahu, power obviates the need for negotiations, an argument that prior
US administrations including Obama’s contested, but one that Trump seems
certain to endorse. No longer a partner in the quest for peace, Goliath becomes
instead David’s unquestioning enabler.
In return
for what? The assumed alignment of US and Israeli interests, so carefully
nurtured over decades, has ceased to be self-evident. For an Israeli government
that considers peace unachievable, unconditional US support may, at least in
the short run, prove beneficial. Whether it will benefit the United States,
imperiled by the absence of Middle East peace, remains to be seen.
Will love
alone sustain US support for Israel? Perhaps. But a lover who gives without
getting may eventually tire of such an arrangement. When love dies, watch out.
As for
those who count on Donald Trump to ensure that the United States will remain
faithful to Israel, it’s worth noting that Trump himself has been anything but
a constant lover. Just ask the first two Mrs. Trumps.
This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Andrew J.
Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at
Boston University, is the author of America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military
History, which has just been published by Random House. He
is also editor of the book, The Short American Century (Harvard
Univ. Press), and author of several others, including: Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and
Their Country (American Empire Project);Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, The New American
Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, The Limits of
Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project), and The Long War: A
New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment