Obama’s Middle East gambit and the US-Israeli rift over settlements

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Barack Obama has irked the Israelis. Whether or not you support what he’s trying to do in the Middle East, a new Pew Research poll suggests the president has some damage control to do in the Jewish state. A Jerusalem Post post survey is even more dismal. On the day Linda Gradstein’s radio story about Mr. Obama’s sinking popularity in Israel aired on The World, this op-ed in the NYTimes got some attention. Aluf Benn is an editor at the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, Haaretz; and he’s calling on the US president to get to work selling his plan for reviving Middle East peace talks to the Israeli public. Benn writes:

Six months into his presidency, Israelis find themselves increasingly suspicious of Mr. Obama. All they see is American pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements, a request that’s been interpreted here as political arm-twisting meant to please the Arab street at Israel’s expense — or simply to express the president’s dislike for Mr. Netanyahu.

Benn’s piece got a quick response from the White House, via Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog:

“The President went before a Cairo audience in a speech co-sponsored by Al-Azhar with Muslim Brotherhood members in the audience and spoke of America’s strong, unshakable support for Israel,” one of the officials said. “He could have gone to a million different venues to say this, but he went to Cairo, and it wasn’t exactly an applause line. Isn’t it more important to say this to the Muslim world than it is to say it to an audience of Israelis or American Jews?”

Benn isn’t the only one calling on the American president to get going with a public diplomacy campaign aimed directly at the Israeli public. One of the voices in the latest episode of the American Influence podcast is David Makovsky. He told me that Mr. Obama will indeed have to do more to win over the Israelis if he hopes to have a chance at re-starting the peace process with the Arab states and the Palestinians. But Makovsky said now’s probably not the time to do that. First, he said the Obama administration needs to mend the rift over settlements. Then it’s time for outreach.

So, just how bad is this rift exactly? Some experts believe it’s a lot of hyperventilating over a disagreement between the staunchest of allies. Others say it’s more serious than that. Check out this week-long online debate at the Economist.com for different views on the question of whether or not Barack Obama is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs. One of the debaters, Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation (and a former advisor to Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak*), appears in our latest podcast. Levy is very supportive of Obama’s approach on the Middle East, including his demand that the Israelis halt all settlement expansion in order to help get talks with the Palestinians re-started.

One of the guest contributors to the Economist debate also appears in the podcast this week. Aaron David Miller talks about what’s at stake for Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and how the Israeli prime minister (according to Miller) is at odds with himself.

The Obama administration sent its A-Team to Israel this week. And, so far at least, no big breakthroughs on freezing settlement growth. Hardcore settlers are busy sending Mr. Obama and friends a message of defiance. But not all of the settlers are so inclined. For weeks, there have been reports that the two sides are close to compromise on halting most settlement growth (at least for a time). But former Middle East policy advisor Elliot Abrams told me that Team Obama is unlikely to get a better deal from the Israelis on this issue than George W. Bush did. We’ll see. As Levy urged me to remember, it’s early days.

*Correction: This post originally – and mistakenly – said that Daniel Levy advised the Israeli government of former prime minister Ehud Olmert, when he in fact advised Ehud Barak. The audio podcast made the same error. And I regret the mistake. -Matthew