uExpress.com: Georgie Anne Geyer by Georgie Anne Geyer -- (03/11/2010) SANDS OF U.S.-ISRAELI RELATIONS CONTINUE TO SHIFT

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03/11/2010

SANDS OF U.S.-ISRAELI RELATIONS CONTINUE TO SHIFT

WASHINGTON -- On the surface, the meeting of Vice President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week in Jerusalem looked like business as usual. The Israelis were snippy about their policies being perfect, and the U.S. rushed in to assure them we were forever faithful.

But then, in less than a day, everything suddenly changed -- and these changes, it turned out, paralleled deep sociological shifts going on underneath that surface.

After an announcement made by the Interior Ministry, whose minister is a far rightist or nationalist, that it would approve 1,600 new housing units for Israelis in disputed East Jerusalem, the vice president kept the Israeli leader waiting 90 minutes. The Israeli announcement came as a particular surprise since both Israel and the Palestinians had agreed only on Monday to begin peace talks.

When they finally got to a notably strained supper, the American group had decided to use the word "condemn," a word seldom used with Israel or, indeed, in any "diplomatic" missives.

Said Biden: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel."

But there were few informed observers, including in Israel itself, who did not believe that that was exactly what this announcement was designed to do. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the Netanyahu administration's position has been to announce more and more settlements, thus eating up land that either belongs to Palestinians or that would be part of a Palestinian state.

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By the end of the encounter, the Israeli government had apologized to the United States. But this unfortunate incident only underlined to the world the way American-Israeli relations have reached a give-and-take of public intransigence and obsequiousness, and of private resentments. And this incident had come about essentially because the Israel that America pretends it is dealing with is no longer the real Israel.

For the last 14 months, the White House has publicly embraced the idea that it could bring peace to the Middle East. President Obama acted as though the two primary parties, Israel and the Palestinians, did not make peace only because they somehow did not understand. They must only be informed of the rationality and benefits of such peace.

It does not appear that Barack Obama, for all his multiple talents, understands the sheer will to destruction, the stubborn hatred of "the other" and the pleasure that many gain from destruction and mayhem. So he sent the talented former senator George Mitchell as his special peace envoy, and he totally misread the Middle East, where people on all sides kill themselves to spite their enemies every day of the week.

At the same time, Washington has been full of whispers about the way Mitchell, who is of Lebanese descent, was treated on his trips to Israel. Netanyahu's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a far rightist and head of the "Israel is Our Home" party, which is largely made up of Russian emigre Jews, had refused to personally escort him out of the Foreign Ministry -- a rank diplomatic insult. But the White House still believed in peace.

The underlying problem here is that the Israel the U.S. thinks it is dealing with is the Israel of the Holocaust. These were the superb Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, the Ashkenazim or German Jews, the Golda Meirs, the Abba Ebans, the Shimon Pereses. Of these, only the gallant Shimon Peres is still active in politics.

Foreign Minister Lieberman, however, is from Moldova, that small former republic of the Soviet Union that lies between Rumania and Ukraine. At home, he was a nightclub bouncer. He recently said that Russia, not America, was Israel's best friend. This is not surprising, because in fact, of the roughly 1 million or so Russian Jews who were permitted to emigrate to Israel in the last 25 years, most of them are probably naturally anti-American. (Most Israelis will also tell you that at least a quarter of them are not Jews at all, but only Russians who wanted to leave.)

These new Israelis, along with the Sephardim, the "Oriental Jews" who largely emigrated earlier from the Arab countries, are virtually all extreme nationalists and take pleasure in expansionism over lands where Arabs live. And they are backed up by large numbers of American Jews in the settlements; particularly in the Arab city of Hebron, the Jewish settlers seem to all come from Brooklyn.

The situation is not hopeless. The Israeli government recently spoke of building a joint civilian nuclear plant with Jordan under French supervision -- but Jordan said that could not be done until the Palestinian question was solved. Even Avigdor Lieberman says he has somewhat changed his former hard line on a Palestinian state -- but these words are never translated into realistic offerings.

So for the moment, the best thing possible would be for the Obama administration to indulge in some harsh realism about Israel. It is still true that America holds the card to peace in the region, but if it really wants movement, it will have to play a tough game. Wandering around the Middle East talking about peace when there is no peace is never going to do the trick.