Israeli Views: How Tense was the Obama-Netanyahu Meeting?

Following the meeting yesterday between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli journalists argued over the meeting's atmospherics.

Nahum Barnea in Yediot Acharonoth:

The visits paid by Israeli premiers to the Oval Office are usually like class reunions: everybody knows one another and likes one another. And even if the fondness is forced, contingent, it isn't hard to do it for the media. After all, we're all one big happy family.

Not last night. Obama and Netanyahu were as grim looking and formal as politicians can be.  Maybe it's the situation: it's hard to tell jokes when the issue at hand is the Iranian threat. Maybe it's the desire shared by both of them to demonstrate seriousness. Obama praised Netanyahu's "youth and wisdom." Netanyahu immediately remarked that at the age of 60 it was hard to talk about youth any more. Indeed, Obama after 100 days in office and Netanyahu after 50 look like two people who urgently need a vacation.

I don't know what Obama told his aides a moment after he parted ways with Netanyahu. Did he say to them: listen to me, there's a lot of justice to what that man just said and I believe him. Or, did he said: what a waste of time, that guy is only going to be trouble. The compliments the two men exchanged at the end of the ceremony were predictable and, as such, didn't convey much. Words that are spoken at the end of such meetings do more to obfuscate than to clarify the situation.

But the boundaries within which the Israeli government operates have now been drawn. There is an agreement about the severity of the problem posed by the Iranian bomb to regional stability, to world peace, to America and Israel. That is good. Netanyahu, who doesn't believe that anything can be gotten out of the Iranians by means of negotiations, failed to secure from Obama a commitment to an end date for those talks or, no less important, to the behavior that America will demand from Iran during the period of the talks. There isn't any deadline, Obama said publicly and privately.

That said, he set a deadline of sorts when he said that towards the end of the year the administration would assess the progress that had been made. If no progress has been made, the United States will try to persuade the world to tighten sanctions.

   Netanyahu can be pleased with the direction things have taken, not with the timetable. It would seem, for all intents and purposes, that Iran has a year and more to continue to promote its nuclear program.

That is something that Israel is going to be very hard put to live with.

 

   Obama conveyed the disparity between himself and Netanyahu when he spoke about an equation that was reminiscent of Ben-Gurion's famous statement about the White Book ("We will oppose the White Book as if there were no war in Germany, and we will enlist for the war in Germany as if there were no White Book"). Obama said: we will act to prevent Iran's armament irrespective of progress on the Palestinian issue, and we will act to promote the Palestinian issue even if Iran has nuclear weapons.

For Netanyahu, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is everything.

He was encouraged by the emphasis that Obama placed on regional peace. Obama expects the Arab states to take steps towards normalizing relations with Israel in tandem with progress in the negotiations with the Palestinians.

In an ideal world, that formula would be a wonderful basis for a solution: the Saudis will sell us oil, the Kuwaitis will buy high-tech from us, and we will remove roadblocks and discuss Jerusalem and the right of return with Abu Mazen.

In the real world, I'm afraid, that is a recipe for deadlock. The Saudis aren't going to sell us oil, the Kuwaitis aren't going to buy high-tech from us, and we will be liberated from the need to cope with the question of the territories.

And we will continue to squabble with the US administration over the settlement issue.

Ben Caspit in Ma'ariv:

What happened there? Everything. There were those close to Netanyahu who promised him in recent weeks that Obama would not embarrass him in his first visit to Washington and would try to make light of their differences. Obama never heard that promise. He deluged Netanyahu with "two states" at least three times, he spoke about the road map, and even "Annapolis," thanks to Avigdor Lieberman, got mentioned twice. He spoke about freezing settlements, of past commitments of the sides and the need to treat them seriously, about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, about everything. There wasn't a single blister that Obama didn't step on, and it didn't seem to bother him. He left no stone unturned with Netanyahu sitting by his side and listening attentively.

On the other hand, it was apparent that they had made a good connection. Obama's main gesture was the fact that he began his statements with the Iranian issue, and not the other way around. True, he saw no point in creating an artificial deadline for future negotiations with the Iranians but, on the other hand, he indicated that by the end of the year it would be possible to know whether the Iranians were serious or not. In other words, America would not let Iran exhaust it with talk forever. In the end, action will also be necessary.

Netanyahu can leave this first meeting with mixed feelings. Just like us. True, he was given a shower, but survived to talk about it.

Moreover, even cold water eventually warms up, or else you get used to it.There were, in the texts spoken in the Oval Office of the White House, a few interesting hints. Obama, who said that he felt confident in Netanyahu's political skills. What he meant was: don't bother me, Bibi, with your coalition problems. You're the prime minister, you have to know how to decide and how to take action.

Obama also said: I am confident that in time, in the coming weeks and months, we will make progress toward the goal (an independent Palestinian state). What he was saying was: no more procrastination.

Days, weeks, months. Not years. Forget it, Bibi, we're not about to form work teams and quarrel for half a year over every outpost. Obama also

said: the prime minister has a double advantage, he has both youth and wisdom. I am confident he will capitalize on this historic opportunity.

He meant to say: don't make the mistakes of your previous term, Bibi.

It's now or never. Learn the lessons from what happened to you before.

Netanyahu, for his part, replied in similar hints: the Palestinians and the Israelis will live side by side in peace and security. Meaning: leave me alone already with all this stuff about two states. That's hard for me to say, okay? I have coalition problems. On the other hand, how will the Palestinians and Israelis live alongside each other? In swimming pools? In cages? Obviously this means two states.

The terminology will take care of itself along the way, Netanyahu said, and meant that he didn't care what it was called, the main thing was that this Palestinian state  that everyone is talking about not have a regular army, that it recognize Israel as a Jewish state and not be able to smuggle arms and weapons over the border. In other words:

Netanyahu wanted to say what all the prime ministers before him said, but did this in such a way that the Americans, along with the rest of the world, would now sit on top of him with a steamroller and call him a rejectionist.

What does Netanyahu want? He wants the Americans to take care of Iran. He wants them to forget Israel's previous commitments. That they not annoy him with settlements. The fact is, Netanyahu says, we not only froze settlements, we also dismantled them. And the Palestinians? They built Hamas-stan in Gaza. Therefore, says Netanyahu, we need a new peace process.

That, it seems, it the gospel according to Netanyahu. To break everything and build anew. In Netanyahu's new process, you don't say two states, but you mean two states. You make the Arab states commit to normalization steps with Israel, you harness them to pull the cart out of the mud. And what does Israel do? Well, this is where Netanyahu gets a little stuck. He doesn't actually know what Israel does, or what makes him different from Olmert, Sharon, Barak, or even Tzippi Livni. After all, they all spoke loftily about a Palestinian state, but made no progress toward it, and earned cheers from the international community.

He doesn't talk about a Palestinian state, and he gets smacked on the head from the leader of the international community and it isn't entirely clear if the Palestinian state is not getting closer.

Matti Tuchfeld in Israel Hayom:

The Israeli political establishment seemed to have braced itself for the meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama. In the past two weeks everyone has speculated about the potential results of the meeting. Once those results were known last night, politicians from across the spectrum responded to the developments.

Likud MKs said they were pleased by the results of the meeting at the White House. "The predictions about a tense meeting were disproved," said MK Ophir Okunis, who heads the party's public response team. "The Obama-Netanyahu meeting proved once again the might of the relationship between the United States and Israel. The government is committed to the peace process with the Palestinians not on the basis of two states for two peoples but, rather, on the basis of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state."

Yuli Tamir of the Labor Party said: "Netanyahu has insisted on ignoring the unequivocal policy that has been introduced by the president of the United States, who regards the principle of two states for two peoples to be the key for stability in the Middle East. Today it is clear that the political tone in the Netanyahu government is dictated by Lieberman's rejectionism."

Israel Radio News interviewed Likud MK Benny Begin for his view:

Q:What do you make of yesterday's meeting?

   "I think that there is a great advantage in placing the cards on the table. Sometimes international and American diplomacy was and is filled with what is known as constructive ambiguity. I think we often sinned in this. I prefer constructive clarity, matter should be clear, even if there are disagreements."

Q: So there are disagreements?

 "Quite a few. They didn't crop up today. There have been disagreements between American administrations and Israeli governments for several years. And the friendship between Israel and the US remained even under adverse conditions."

Q:  President Obama went to the trouble of saying that within days and weeks or months, he wants to see progress in negotiations with the Palestinians and also linked Iran with the Palestinians. The question is how Israel will respond.

"I want to point out a fundamental problem in these matters. First, the ostensible linkage between Iran and its nuclear aspirations and our relations with our Arab neighbors in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza-there is no firm anchor to this linkage in reality. Iran is all around us, also in Lebanon, it also opened a branch in Gaza by means of Hamas. But the fundamental problem should be clear. I think that part of the problem is that both sides have been talking for many years in different languages. The Arabs speak clearly about rights and justice. Israel argues back in the language of security needs. Usually, the language of rights and justice has an advantage and we, for many years, neglected this language. It has been proved, in the last 15 years, in Oslo and after disengagement from Gaza, that there must be no distinction between the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the right of Israel's citizens to security and this must be stressed."