It’s Obama Who Should Apologize
By Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary Magazine
November 10, 2015
Milbank’s piece is interesting
in that it gives us a clear view of how the left is abandoning Israel all the
while claiming that it is the Jewish state and Netanyahu that are responsible
for the breach in the alliance. He thinks the prime minister should have come
back to Washington in a penitential frame of mind, asking pardon of Dear Leader
for having had the gall to oppose his Iran nuclear deal. More to the point,
Milbank is following White House talking points claiming that it was Netanyahu
who destroyed bipartisan support for Israel
According to Milbank,
Netanyahu’s defense of his country’s interests on a matter of life and death
— Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons — drove “a deep wedge through
America and the American Jewish community.” He then follows that accusation
with an indictment listing Netanyahu’s comments about Arab incitement to
terrorism and the fact that some members of his government and staff have said
disagreeable things about Obama and the Temple Mount.
But Milbank is incensed that
rather than arriving hat in hat begging for forgiveness, Netanyahu is not
backing down on his opposition to the nuclear deal. Nor is he snubbing the
conservatives that supported Israel’s stand. Though he spoke at
the hostile liberal Center for American Progress (to
the dismay of its staff), the fact that he
also spoke to the American Enterprise Institute is, according to
Jeffrey Goldberg (whom Milbank quoted approvingly) a case of him “deciding to
troll Obama.”
Milbank is right that liberals and
Democrats are not as supportive of Israel as they once were. But where he’s
dead wrong is to place the blame on Netanyahu for this.
It should be recalled that a year
ago there was a solid bipartisan consensus in Congress for increased sanctions
on Iran and against a nuclear deal that would grant Tehran a path to a bomb. The
breakdown of that consensus wasn’t the work of Netanyahu. It was President
Obama who treated the Iran nuclear deal as a partisan litmus test and
strong-armed the overwhelming majority of Democrats in both the House and the
Senate to back it.
Netanyahu did walk right into the
president’s trap when he decided to accept former House Speaker John
Boehner’s invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress on Iran. But there
was nothing unprecedented about doing so. What was new was the
administration’s determination to make Democrats choose between loyalty to
Obama and their campaign pledges to ensure Israel’s security.
Moreover, the
polls that show Republicans far more likely to back Israel than Democrats have
been trending in that direction since the 1990s and have nothing to do with the
Obama-Netanyahu feud.
As for the prime minister’s
other offenses, while he
overstated the case about the Mufti of Jerusalem influencing Adolf Hitler,
Milbank shows his own abysmal ignorance by merely putting Haj Amin al-Husseini
as a “Palestinian cleric.” The Mufti was a close collaborator with the Nazis
and his incitement of religious hatred toward Jews in the 1920s and 30s provides
a direct precedent for current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s similar
incitement in recent months that helped launch the current wave of Palestinian
terror.
It’s true that some of the
statements coming out of the Likud have been embarrassing for Netanyahu as he
tries to manage relations with a hostile Obama administration. But he can start
apologizing for everything his supporters say when the president asks
forgiveness for the steady stream of insults and taunts emanating from the White
House toward Netanyahu (“chickensh*t”) in the last few years.
Are many American Jews alienated
from Netanyahu? Yes, they are. But the reason for that is the same explanation
that applies to Democrats. Most liberal Jews put party loyalty to the Democrats
over any affection for the Jewish state. That’s why so many meekly fell in
line behind the president on Iran. That, like Milbank, they also blame Netanyahu
for the lack of peace with the Palestinians is merely evidence of their
disconnect from the reality of the Middle East. It is the Palestinians who have
repeatedly turned down peace offers from Israeli governments, including the one
run by Netanyahu. But just to show how detached he is from reality, Milbank
cites the protests of far-left Israel-haters/anti-Semites like the ANSWER
coalition and crackpot ultra-Orthodox Jews who represent no one but themselves
as evidence that the pro-Israel coalition is falling apart on Netanyahu’s
watch.
It is true that the gradual
takeover of the Democrats by its left-wing base has undermined, though not
destroyed support for Israel in the party. And the parallel trend that has led
to nearly unanimous support for the Jewish state by Republicans is disconcerting
for the left. But bipartisan political support for Zionism is baked deep into
the political DNA of this country and not even as adept a politician as Obama is
able to completely destroy it. Netanyahu knows that the next president is likely
to be a better friend to Israel than the current one and he will patiently bide
his time for the next 15 months hoping that Obama will be too overwhelmed by his
foreign policy failures to pick another fight with Israel. But if that happens
and Democrats again fall into line against Israel, that will be the work of
Obama, not Netanyahu.
Apologies will be due for what
happened in Washington in the last year. But given the reliance of the president
and his apologists on Iran’s good behavior to vindicate their attacks on
Israel and its leader, it is they who will, sooner or later, have to account to
posterity for the fact that they have undermined America’s alliance with its
sole democratic ally in the Middle East in the feckless pursuit of detente with
Iran.