Obama and Netanyahu: On a Collision Course?

The new Israeli and American administrations appear to be on a collision course. The basic assumptions underlying policy-making in Jerusalem, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in Washington, under President Barack Obama, are mutually exclusive.

As most Israelis see things, the Palestinians are not ready for peace. They are not ready because most, to judge by the popularity of Hamas (it won the 2006 general elections and, according to commentators, would win a future vote), will not agree to a compromise that involves the existence of a Jewish state. Hamas’ 1988 “Charter” describes Jews as the initiators of World War I and World War II. It posits all of Palestine as a sacred Islamic trust “till the end of days” and states that all Muslims are obligated to contribute to the jihad that will destroy Israel. Hamas leaders may occasionally talk about a long-term “truce” if Israel agrees to withdraw to the 1967 borders and accepts the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, but they assure the faithful that the struggle will be renewed, sooner or later, until Israel’s demise.

The Palestinian “moderates,” steered by the Palestine Liberation Organization, with the Fatah Party constituting its chief component, and the Palestine National Authority, headed by Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, also appear bent on Israel’s destruction—though they are playing a more careful, duplicitous game than their fundamentalist brothers. When speaking to Western journalists and American officials, Abbas endorses the “two-state solution.” But when questioned closely, he rejects a settlement based on “two states for two peoples,” as former U.S. President Bill Clinton described the necessary denouement. Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a “Jewish State” and continues to insist on the Palestinian refugees’ “right of return” as a necessary part of any settlement. It appears that what he is striving for is a two-state settlement that consists of two Arab-majority states—one that already has an Arab majority (West Bank-Gaza) and the other (Israel) that will have an Arab majority once the five million-odd refugees are repatriated.

The tactical rupture between Hamas, which refuses to even pretend to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist or to renounce terrorism, and Fatah makes a Palestinian unity government unlikely. And any compromise Abbas offers or reaches with Israeli negotiators on security, Jerusalem, refugees or borders will be assailed by Hamas as treason. Hence, no deal—or, at best, a deal signed but never implemented.

This is something Obama’s officials may, in private, understand. Publicly, the American administration prefers to project optimism, partly to placate the Arab and Islamic worlds. So it will insist on going through the motions. And the Netanyahu government, however conciliatory it will appear to assuage American sensibilities, will be unable to make territorial concessions to an enemy it views as implacable. Withdrawal from the West Bank will mean Palestinian rocketing of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion International Airport and the greater Tel Aviv area, much as the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip resulted in the rocketing of Ashkelon and Ashdod.

Any real progress on the Palestinian front is also unrealistic because the pressing issue on the Middle East agenda is the Iranian nuclear program. Here, too, are grounds for an Israeli-American collision. The problem lies not so much in Washington’s principled preference for negotiation (Israelis would also prefer diplomacy) as in the lack of synchronicity between the projected diplomatic timeline and the Iranian advances toward nuclear bomb-making capability.

Israeli intelligence believes that Iran will have this capability in 12 to 18 months. The Americans believe it might take another year. Meanwhile, Iran has been dragging its heels, and negotiations with the U.S. have not even started. If and when they do start, most Israelis believe the Iranians will continue their delaying tactics to buy additional time. Israel will then gently try to prod the Americans to set a time limit.

Israelis assume that American-Iranian negotiations will go nowhere and that the Americans will move to impose additional U.N. sanctions. But with Russia and China stonewalling, it is unlikely that sanctions with sufficient bite will be introduced."

This will leave Washington and Jerusalem facing the choice of a nuclear Iran while relying on deterrence or on militarily assaulting the Iranian facilities, which are dispersed and deep underground.

For Israelis, these bombs, coupled with a fanatic Islamist leadership, represent a mortal threat. For Americans, Iran is far away—and currently without the ability to hit American cities. Hence, Israel’s motivation to strike is much greater than America’s—though its ability to do so effectively is much smaller.

An Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, however successful, would probably trigger Iranian (and Hezbollah and possibly Hamas) rocket attacks on Israel and possibly attacks on American holdings in the Gulf and Iraq, as well as world-wide terrorism by Tehran’s Shi’ite proxies. But not striking will leave the Iranians free to build A-bombs that they may use against Israel.

The U.S. and Israel face momentous, awful choices in the coming months. The re-election (or “re-election”) as Iran’s president of the hardline (and Holocaust-denying) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of course, adds little ground for optimism in both Washington and Jerusalem. But in spite of the odds, let us hope that they do not lead to a collision.

Benny Morris, who teaches Middle East history at Ben-Gurion University, is the author of 1948, A History of the First Arab-Israeli War and One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict.