Obama's Game Changer

West Bank Settlements and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations
June 8, 2009 | 1814 GMT


Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report

By George Friedman

Amid the rhetoric of U.S. President Barack Obamas speech June 4 in Cairo, 
there was one substantial indication of change, not in the U.S. 
relationship to the Islamic world but in the U.S. relationship to Israel. 
This shift actually emerged prior to the speech, and the speech merely 
touched on it. But it is not a minor change and it must not be 
underestimated. It has every opportunity of growing into a major breach 
between Israel and the United States.

The immediate issue concerns Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The 
United States has long expressed opposition to increasing settlements but 
has not moved much beyond rhetoric. Certainly the continued expansion and 
development of new settlements on the West Bank did not cause prior 
administrations to shift their policies toward Israel. And while the 
Israelis have occasionally modified their policies, they have continued to 
build settlements. The basic understanding between the two sides has been 
that the United States would oppose settlements formally but that this 
would not evolve into a fundamental disagreement.

The United States has clearly decided to change the game. Obama has said 
that, The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued 
Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and 
undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to 
stop. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to stop 
building new settlements, but not to halt what he called the natural 
growth of existing settlements.

Obama has positioned the settlement issue in such a way that it would be 
difficult for him to back down. He has repeated it several times, 
including in his speech to the Islamic world. It is an issue on which he 
is simply following the formal positions of prior administrations. It is 
an issue on which prior Israeli governments made commitments. What Obama 
has done is restated formal U.S. policy, on which there are prior Israeli 
agreements, and demanded Israeli compliance. Given his initiative in the 
Islamic world, Obama, having elevated the issue to this level, is going to 
have problems backing off.

Obama is also aware that Netanyahu is not in a political position to 
comply with the demand, even if he were inclined to. Netanyahu is leading 
a patchwork coalition in which support from the right is critical. For the 
Israeli right, settling in what it calls Samaria and Judea is a 
fundamental principle on which it cannot bend. Unlike Ariel Sharon, a man 
of the right who was politically powerful, Netanyahu is a man of the right 
who is politically weak. Netanyahu gave all he could give on this issue 
when he said there would be no new settlements created. Netanyahu doesnt 
have the political ability to give Obama what he is demanding. Netanyahu 
is locked into place, unless he wants to try to restructure his Cabinet or 
persuade people like Avigdor Lieberman, his right-wing foreign minister, 
to change their fundamental view of the world.

Therefore, Obama has decided to create a crisis with Israel. He has chosen 
a subject on which Republican and Democratic administrations have had the 
same formal position. He has also picked a subject that does not affect 
Israeli national security in any immediate sense (he has not made demands 
for changes of policy toward Gaza, for example). Obama struck at an issue 
where he had precedent on his side, and where Israels immediate safety is 
not at stake. He also picked an issue on which he would have substantial 
support in the United States, and he has done this to have a symbolic 
showdown with Israel. The more Netanyahu resists, the more Obama gets what 
he wants.

Obamas read of the Arab-Israeli situation is that it is not insoluble. He 
believes in the two-state solution, for better or worse. In order to 
institute the two-state solution, Obama must establish the principle that 
the West Bank is Palestinian territory by right and not Israeli territory 
on which the Israelis might make concessions. The settlements issue is 
fundamental to establishing this principle. Israel has previously agreed 
both to the two-state solution and to not expanding settlements. If Obama 
can force Netanyahu to concede on the settlements issue, then he will 
break the back of the Israeli right and open the door to a 
rightist-negotiated settlement of the two-state solution.

In the course of all of this, Obama is opening doors in the Islamic world 
a little wider by demonstrating that the United States is prepared to 
force Israel to make concessions. By subtext, he wants to drive home the 
idea that Israel does not control U.S. policy but that, in fact, Israel 
and the United States are two separate countries with different and 
sometimes conflicting views. Obama wouldnt mind an open battle on the 
settlements one bit.

For Netanyahu, this is the worst terrain on which to fight. If he could 
have gotten Obama to attack by demanding that Israel not respond to 
missiles launched from Gaza or Lebanon, Netanyahu would have had the upper 
hand in the United States. Israel has support in the United States and in 
Congress, and any action that would appear to leave Israels security at 
risk would trigger an instant strengthening of that support.

But there is not much support in the United States for settlements on the 
West Bank. This is not a subject around which Israels supporters are going 
to rally very intensely, in large part because there is substantial 
support for a two-state solution and very little understanding or sympathy 
for the historic claim of Jews to Judea and Samaria. Obama has picked a 
topic on which he has political room for maneuver and on which Netanyahu 
is politically locked in.

Given that, the question is where Obama is going with this. From Obamas 
point of view, he wins no matter what Netanyahu decides to do. If 
Netanyahu gives in, then he has established the principle that the United 
States can demand concessions from a Likud-controlled government in Israel 
and get them. There will be more demands. If Netanyahu doesnt give in, 
Obama can create a split with Israel over the one issue he can get public 
support for in the United States (a halt to settlement expansion in the 
West Bank), and use that split as a lever with Islamic states.

Thus, the question is what Netanyahu is going to do. His best move is to 
say that this is just a disagreement between friends and assume that the 
rest of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is intact, from aid to technology 
transfer to intelligence sharing. Thats where Obama is going to have to 
make his decision. He has elevated the issue to the forefront of 
U.S.-Israeli relations. The Israelis have refused to comply. If Obama 
proceeds with the relationship as if nothing has happened, then he is back 
where he began.

Obama did not start this confrontation to wind up there. He calculated 
carefully when he raised this issue and knew perfectly well that Netanyahu 
couldnt make concessions on it, so he had to have known that he was going 
to come to this point. Obviously, he could have made this confrontation as 
a part of his initiative to the Islamic world. But it is unlikely that he 
saw that initiative as ending with the speech, and he understands that, 
for the Islamic world, his relation to Israel is important. Even Islamic 
countries not warmly inclined toward Palestinians, like Jordan or Egypt, 
dont want the United States to back off on this issue.

Netanyahu has argued in the past that Israels relationship to the United 
States was not as important to Israel as it once was. U.S. aid as a 
percentage of Israels gross domestic product has plunged. Israel is not 
facing powerful states, and it is not facing a situation like 1973, when 
Israeli survival depended on aid being rushed in from the United States. 
The technology transfer now runs both ways, and the United States relies 
on Israeli intelligence quite a bit. In other words, over the past 
generation, Israel has moved from a dependent relationship with the United 
States to one of mutual dependence.

This is very much Netanyahus point of view, and from this point of view 
follows the idea that he might simply say no to the United States on the 
settlements issue and live easily with the consequences. The weakness in 
this argument is that, while Israel does not now face strategic issues it 
cant handle, it could in the future. Indeed, while Netanyahu is urging 
action on Iran, he knows that action is impossible without U.S. 
involvement.

This leads to a political problem. As much as the right would like to blow 
off the United States, the center and the left would be appalled. For 
Israel, the United States has been the centerpiece of the national psyche 
since 1967. A breach with the United States would create a massive crisis 
on the left and could well bring the government down if Ehud Barak and his 
Labor Party, for example, bolted from the ruling coalition. Netanyahus 
problem is the problem Israel has continually had. It is a politically 
fragmented country, and there is never an Israeli government that does not 
consist of fragments. A government that contains Lieberman and Barak is 
not one likely to be able to make bold moves.

It is therefore difficult to see how Netanyahu can both deal with Obama 
and hold his government together. It is even harder to see how Obama can 
reduce the pressure. Indeed, we would expect to see him increase the 
pressure by suspending minor exchanges and programs. Obama is playing to 
the Israeli center and left, who would oppose any breach with the United 
States.

Obama has the strong hand and the options. Netanyahu has the weak hand and 
fewer options. It is hard to see how he will solve the problem. And thats 
what Obama wants. He wants Netanyahu struggling with the problem. In the 
end, he wants Netanyahu to fold on the settlements issue and keep on 
folding until he presides over a political settlement with the 
Palestinians. Obama wants Netanyahu and the right to be responsible for 
the agreement, as Menachem Begin was responsible for the treaty with Egypt 
and withdrawal from the Sinai.

We find it difficult to imagine how a two-state solution would work, but 
that concept is at the heart of U.S. policy and Obama wants the victory. 
He has put into motion processes to create that solution, first of all, by 
backing Netanyahu into a corner. Left out of Obamas equation is the 
Palestinian interest, willingness and ability to reach a treaty with 
Israel, but from Obamas point of view, if the Palestinians reject or 
undermine an agreement, he will still have leverage in the Islamic world. 
Right now, given Iraq and Afghanistan, that is where he wants leverage, 
and backing Netanyahu into a corner is more important than where it all 
leads in the end.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090608_west_bank_settlements_and_future_u_s_israeli_relations