After Four Years of Feuding, Have Obama and Bibi Finally Made Up? - Tablet Magazine
After Four Years of Feuding, Have Obama and Bibi Finally Made Up? - Tablet Magazine
On Friday, Bibi Netanyahu’s government announced it was planning additional settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. European capitals have demanded an explanation from Israeli diplomats, and the U.K. and France have contemplated summoning home their own envoys in protest. But the White House’s criticism has been fairly muted. “We oppose all unilateral actions,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday, “as they complicate efforts to resume direct, bilateral negotiations.”
To be sure, the White House is somewhat constrained in criticizing Israel for “unilateral actions” after Mahmoud Abbas went to the United Nations’ General Assembly to declare Palestine an independent state. And with delicate negotiations over the fiscal cliff foremost on the president’s agenda, the administration seems loath to give Republicans an opportunity to attack President Obama over Israel.
Still, the reticence is striking. Compare the White House’s language this week to its response in March 2010 when Israel announced that 1,600 new East Jerusalem housing units were approved during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit. The administration went ballistic. At the president’s instructions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chewed out Netanyahu on a 45-minute phone call, which was conveniently leaked to the press. The administration “condemned” the “insulting” action, using language rarely used by one ally to describe the actions of another.
Some predicted that a second-term Obama would exact a certain amount of revenge against a world leader who openly challenged and even lectured him in the White House—but it appears the opposite has happened. The administration was strongly supportive of Israel during Operation Pillar of Defense, and the fact that it happened after the presidential elections was proof of Bibi’s good sense of timing and that Obama recognizes Israel as a strategic asset, not merely as an electoral chip. If the past few weeks are any guide, and with Netanyahu almost certain to win again in January, it looks like the dark ages of Obama-Netanyahu warfare may have ended.