Tests ahead

The ‘government of change’ and the Biden administration

Israel’s novice Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the conclusion of their talks in Rome two weeks ago, “In the past few years, mistakes were made. Israel’s bipartisan standing was hurt. We will fix those mistakes together.” The implication was clear: Most things wrong with Israeli-American relations were the fault of Benjamin Netanyahu, and a new dawn in relations will now begin.

In the same vein, it was also reported that both governments aim to reduce provocations “that played a part in making the 11-day war that claimed at least 254 Palestinian lives and killed 13 people in Israel,” though it wasn’t made clear whose provocations. So there would not be misunderstandings, it was also indicated that “both governments will try to preserve Israel’s fragile governing coalition.” However, Lapid’s remarks show a basic misunderstanding of present political realities in the US that the new Israeli government will ignore only at its own risk.

The main thrust of the new government’s policy toward the US seems to be appealing to the Democrats’ hostility toward anyone and anything related to former president Donald Trump. Every Israeli government tries to be viewed as being close to the US administration. The results of Netanyahu’s political acumen in this respect – the Jerusalem Embassy, the “Abraham Accords,” defense cooperation, etc. – speak for themselves.

The new Israeli government will undoubtedly take the same tack with the Biden administration, as it should. Close relations with the American government and people must continue to be one of the highest priorities of any Israeli government. Not only for reasons of strategy and security, but considering that almost seven million Jews live in the US, also as the Jewish people’s nationstate.

Inherently, an American president is guided mostly by realistic and pragmatic considerations, and this would have been the case also if Netanyahu had continued in office. Paradoxically, it is quite possible that with the change of government in Israel the situation, at least in one respect, may now be more complicated. If hitherto problems in the relationship were often willfully attributed, especially by left-leaning politicians in both countries or by the media, to Netanyahu’s policies, how will possible disagreements, as there undoubtedly will be, be explained now when the former PM can no longer be held responsible?

Furthermore, though Israel’s changeling government will miss no opportunity to demonstrate perfect harmony with the Biden administration on as many issues as possible, its efforts are liable to be derailed or at least severely hampered by the changing political scene in the US and the rapidly radicalizing divisions, not only between Republicans and Democrats, but inside the Democratic Party itself. Demonstrably, the extreme Left of the Democratic Party (fraudulently calling itself “Progressives”) is exerting growing pressure on centrist Democrats, President Biden’s main political base, to change direction on different issues including the economy and social matters, but also foreign and defense policy matters, including more than a few related to Israel.

Although the extreme Left is a minority in both houses of Congress and in the Democratic Party institutions, the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate makes the administration dependent on the extreme Left in order to implement its policy. No longer satisfied with traditional Democratic positions, the ideologically motivated far Left is determined to make its influence and power felt in as many spheres as possible.

As an article in The New York Times said a few weeks ago, “The liberal wing of the party demands commitment to progressive goals... the brewing fight, which pits progressives against moderates more aligned with the president’s tactics, is exposing cracks in the party’s fragile strategy for enacting its economic plans.” However, it isn’t only economic plans, but a whole range of subjects which could change the face of America.

As Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chairwoman of the so-called Progressive Caucus that represents 93 House members, unabashedly put it, “He [Biden] is going to have to support our priorities.” For example, an initiative is now underway in Congress to restrict the administration’s freedom of action against Iranian proxy terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, in spite of the ongoing rocket and drone attacks on US military and diplomatic personnel.

THE DOMINANT force in the “Progressive” caucus is a group of leftist congresswomen, some of whom are Muslim, all of whom are anti-Israel, often with an antisemitic tinge. They can usually rely on the support of left-leaning senators such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and others. One of the key members in this group, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a native of Somalia, recently on Twitter compared Israel’s actions in Operation Guardian of the Walls and those of the US in Afghanistan to Hamas and the Taliban.

As an article on the widely read Politico.com commented, “The Israeli government may have changed hands, but the Democratic Party’s friendlier posture toward the Minnesota liberal’s view of the US policy in the Middle East is here to stay.” Omar previously also referred to American Jews in antisemitic terms. Twelve Jewish Congressmen publicly rebuked Omar, but others, such as Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, took her side, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a staunch friend of Israel, expressed only mild criticism.

However, Omar’s statements were not entirely atypical to trends in the Democratic Party. As Politico wrote, “Democrats are showing that they’re increasingly comfortable backing her [Omar] up, particularly as she hammers the Israeli government in ways that buck longheld bipartisan traditions in Washington. This friendlier posture toward Omar indicates that her party’s shift on America’s role in the Middle East was more than just a short-term fixture of the recent 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Omar’s outlook is shared by young Democrats in and out of Congress who are demanding that US policy toward Israel focus more on the Palestinians’ needs. The best known member of the radical “squad,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, added that she had also heard “from young Jewish Americans who were ‘fed up with the up-to-now accepted narrative’ about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

These statements do not necessarily reflect the opinion of a majority of the Democrats, but they indicate a slippery slope in the attitude toward Israel among segments of the American public. The picture is not all bleak, however, at least not yet. Two weeks ago, the House Appropriations Committee, for instance, approved with little opposition the 2022 State and Foreign Operation bill that included $3.3 billion in US security assistance to Israel, but this was to be expected as it conformed to the 2016 memorandum of understanding.

The bill also implicitly criticized the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other anti-Israel boycotts. Less positive, however, was that the bill also restored funds, though with certain caveats, to the traditionally anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council.

Friends in the Democratic Party tell me that though they are aware of what is happening, they believe this is an isolated trend and an aberration that is sure to pass. Their optimism will need to be substantiated. But what should be obvious to American Jews who traditionally play an important role in the Democratic Party, as supporters and voters and as opinion-makers, is for them not to appear to be disinterested bystanders rather than act proactively against the current anti-Israel, often indistinguishable from antisemitic, developments in their party.

How will the “government of change” deal with this problem, beyond its courting of the Biden administration and denigrating the Netanyahu government, at a time when tough tests await it already in the near future, including the nuclear agreement with Iran? In this connection, it should be noted that President Biden in his recent farewell meeting with outgoing Israeli president Reuven Rivlin, did not commit that the US would not enable Iran to become a nuclear threshold power now but only that it would not become a full-fledged nuclear power during “his watch,” i.e. four years or a maximum of eight.

There will also be tests on the Palestinian issue, although perhaps only at a later stage. Where the Golan Heights are concerned, it is, of course, much more pleasant to see the glass half-full, namely that “US policy regarding the Golan has not changed,” rather than the opposite, i.e. the Biden administration’s failure to explicitly acknowledge Israeli sovereignty there. On other matters, the new and inexperienced Israeli government will have to be watchful so as, indeed, not to be “surprised,” as Lapid and Blinken agreed in their recent meeting.