Obama’s presidency and Netanyahu’s return to power coincided in early 2009, and it led to profound and open disagreements over both the Palestinian issue and Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Obama was determined to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and successfully pressured Netanyahu to publicly accept the notion of a two-state solution, which he did in a speech at Bar Ilan University. However, they ended up in a public and bitter disagreement, which culminated in Netanyahu’s decision to criticize Obama’s policy toward Iran in a speech to a joint session of Congress in March 2015. This did not prevent the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but after Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, Netanyahu played a role in his decision to withdraw from it.
Netanyahu’s decision to take on the U.S. president in Congress represented a sharp change in the paradigm mentioned above. Unlike most of his predecessors, Netanyahu did not mind openly quarreling with the president of the United States, but actually saw a political advantage in it and was not penalized by Israeli public opinion for it. In the United States, however, Netanyahu’s policies led to the perception that Israel had abandoned its policy of bipartisanship in American politics and shifted toward reliance on the Republican Party. This resulted in significant criticism of Israel in the Democratic ranks.
What makes today’s crisis different
Against this backdrop, the current crisis in the U.S.-Israeli relationship is very severe. It is reminiscent of the October War’s end in 1973, when a U.S. administration, having helped Israel transform an initial setback into a victory, sought to use the war’s ambiguous outcome as the starting point for transformative regional diplomacy. But a similar transition from war to a new diplomatic order is currently not in the cards.
Washington and Jerusalem’s profound policy differences are compounded by Biden and Netanyahu’s negative personal relationship. The Biden administration seems to believe that a change in government and prime minister in Israel is essential for the conduct of effective U.S. policy and a shift to a new regional order. Netanyahu, in turn, is clearly interested in an open confrontation with Biden, regarding it as an asset in his quest to survive Israel’s domestic political crisis. Worse, both parties are now openly interfering in each other’s domestic politics. Netanyahu abandoned a long-standing policy of working with both sides of the aisle and is leaning heavily on the Republicans, while Biden and his allies openly or implicitly express an expectation to see a new prime minister and government in Israel.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-and-netanyahu-a-crisis-in-perspective/
I commend all to read the article in its entirety.
Raider
