19 June 2010
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The Changing Nature of US-Israel Ties
By Hanan Nasser
International Peace Studies Centre (IPSC)
The US policy toward Israel has been placed in the limelight once again following a barrage of international criticism of a deadly Israel attack on a humanitarian flotilla headed to the besieged Gaza Strip. The United States found itself compelled to take a different approach to Israel in order to succeed in regaining its role as the main sponsor of the peace process and to keep the fragile Israeli-Palestinian indirect talks from falling apart. Such change, which has not been drastic, can be found in several positions taken by the administration under President Barack Obama.
The Obama administration is facing two situations: on the one hand it is committed to protecting Israel’s security but at the same time determined to present itself as an honest broker and to break away from the previous administration’s policy toward the Israeli state and the Middle East peace process. As such it is treading a tricky slope in its attempt at confidence building with the Arab and Muslims world while maintaining its historic and strategic alliance with Israel.
The US administration is trying to show that its support for Israel was no longer unconditional. A most recent example to that was the disastrous Israeli commando’s raid on the “Freedom Flotilla” that was heading to the besieged Gaza Strip carrying humanitarian aid.
While Washington issued a mild statement in reaction to the attack, it did not stop the Security Council from issuing a statement condemning the raid. However, the United Stated worked to soften the tone of the statement ensuring it did not call for an independent international investigation or explicitly condemn Israel. In return, according to Israeli press, it was the United States that gave the green light for an Israeli probe committee after it had initially objecting to its composition.
On another level, the White House has on several occasions declared the situation in the Gaza Strip as “unsustainable” calling for a “new procedures” to deliver goods into the coastal strip. Although it stopped short of calling for an immediate and complete end of the blockade, the White House has been pressing Israel to ease the siege and change “current arrangements”. The European Union piled more pressure on Israel calling this week for the “immediate, prolonged and unconditional” of all Gaza crossings and described the siege as illegal.
In a move perhaps aimed to assuage the Palestinians after the raid, the United States reportedly halted funding for a wall being constructed along Egypt’s border with the Strip, the Egyptian daily Al Masri Al Yawm reported this week. Last week, Washington approved a $400 dollar grant to the Palestinian Fatah movement.
As Israel continues to find itself increasingly isolated on the international level, it announced Thursday a decision to ease its land blockade in order to allow certain products into Gaza. It remains to be seen how committed the Israeli government will be and to what extent the decision is binding and will be implemented. Coinciding with the increasing international pressure on Israel, such a step can clearly be seen in the context of damage control in the aftermath of the attack on the flotilla. However, it could be said that the US pressure coupled with that of the EU has yielded some results, even if they fall short of a major breakthrough for the peace process as a whole or the people in Gaza in particular.
The United States is also attempting a different approach on another level in an attempt to reassure skeptics. In a mild break from previous positions, the United States backed a document at the end of a conference to review the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty in New York last month calling on Israel to become a signatory. The watered-down document also calls for a UN meeting in 2012 of all countries in the Middle East to agree to the creation of a “zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction”. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons but has maintained a policy of ambiguity. The United States has often been criticized for its double standards on the matter for keeping silent over Israel’s nuclear activities. The US backing of the document is a mere tactic to ward of such criticism as Washington spearheads a campaign to impose harsher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Such slight shifts cannot be seen in isolation of recent deterioration in bilateral ties between the two traditional allies this year.
A major diplomatic row between the two states erupted earlier this after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in Arab East Jerusalem coinciding with the arrival in the region of US Vice President Joe Biden to try to restart proximity talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The move prompted a harsh reaction from Washington and in March
Although tensions have eased since then, Israel this week revived the Ramat Shlomo plan, in a move that threatens to rekindle tensions and endangers the ongoing proximity talks under the auspices of US envoy George Mitchell. According to the Lebanese As Safir newspaper on Wednesday, the Israeli Ministry of Interior approved the plan which had been shelved at the request of the American administration. Mitchell arrived Wednesday in the Occupied Territories.
Israel’s continued defiance to US calls for a freeze of settlement building raises the question as to whether it is indeed becoming a “burden”, as Mossad chief Meir Dagan said on Tuesday, to the United States at a delicate stage of peacemaking and as it is still reeling under the pressure of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States needs to succeed on at least one foreign policy front and to gain the trust of Arab and Muslim government that regard its policies with suspicion.
US-Israeli relations cannot be seen outside the context of US security and the safety of its armies in the region, and this is something that American officials are well aware of. Any Israeli provocation or confrontations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and especially in East Jerusalem will automatically undermine US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan increase the risks of attacks in those areas. The fact that the United States was now viewing its ties with Israel in the wider regional context was most evident when US Vice President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a closed meeting in March, that what Israel was doing “undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace”. The remarks were reported by the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
As the United States works hard to keep proximity talks alive, it continuously finds itself in situations – such as with the flotilla raid – where it must prove it is indeed as unbiased and changed, while protecting its interests with Israel. Such challenges can indeed be seen as a burden and have only served to delay any breakthroughs in the indirect negotiations and therefore in the imminent resumption of direct peace talks.
However, even if Israel is indeed becoming a liability, how radical can we expect any change in US policy to Israel be? In terms of the peace process, perhaps the United States should offer a grand gesture toward the Palestinians in general and those in the Gaza Strip in particular. The United States should put a mechanism in place for Israel end the blockade and not just to relax the land siege. International observers can be stationed at border crossings as a way to silence Israel’s security concerns. Such a move has been suggested by the European Union, which had previously managed Gaza’s main crossing with Egypt. Such a move can only be done through sincere pressure on Israel to lift the blockade on the coastal area. However, while US leverage over Israel appears to the Arab world to be waning, in light of the Israeli defiance to US calls not to obstruct the peace process, the American administration can and does play an influential role in restraining Israel and achieving needed progress when there is a political will and interest to do so.
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