"Building consensus for new proposals is the best plan of action," US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, advises the Israelis. If he were not the US chief diplomat, one could say that his words sound almost like a parody.
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Blinken, who visited Israel recently, referred to the legal reforms promoted by the current government. He praised President Isaac Herzog's efforts to reach a compromise and gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a short lecture on the components of democracy as he comprehends. "Respecting human rights, equal justice for all, equal rights for minority groups, the rule of law, a free press and a strong civil society," he advocated.
But there was something strange about his claim. First of all, how is it his business? Israel is not a banana republic and it is our right to decide how we will conduct our public life. Minister Orit Strock answered Blinken in the most appropriate way when she said that "democracy is first of all the country's duty to determine its path according to the vote of its own citizens, without foreign intervention."
Second, the American political system is the complete opposite of a "broad consensus." The basic rule in the US is binary politics. "The winner takes it all. The loser goes home."
In Israel, on the other hand, the elections are relative and the parliamentary structure requires the building of coalitions. No single party has ever received 61 seats in the Knesset. The actual existence of any government is based on achieving a broad consensus. This is at a time when in the US almost nothing obtains any agreement from the political opponent, certainly not in internal affairs. Either the Republicans rule or the Democrats rule. There is no middle ground.
The promiscuous behavior of the opposition leader is no different from that of the mother who agrees to cut her baby in half in King Solomon's judgment. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid knows that forecasts of the weakening of the economy are the most substantial catalyst for divestment.
Take, for example, Barack Obama's healthcare reform in 2012. In US terms it was no less dramatic than Yariv Levin's planned legislation in Israel. The Democratic administration at the time, of which Blinken was a part, enacted it despite all opposition from the Republicans. And this is just one example.
The political extremism in the US is child's play compared to what is going on in Israel. In the US, the parties block each other in Congress, even if it means paralyzing government activity – something that has not happened here even over the past four years and five election cycles.
What about Blinken himself? Nothing in his decades of experience in government shows that he has any specialization in passing reforms. He is a professional in national security, and, among others, promoted special US funding for the production of the Iron Dome ten years ago. This budgeting continues to this day, and Netanyahu has even thanked Blinken for it.
But in general, his resume includes cases of conformism. So neither his personal experience nor any US political tradition gives Blinken the right to tell Netanyahu that "building a consensus for new proposals is the most effective way to ensure that they will be accepted and that they will last." Other considerations drive his actions – political considerations.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
The circles of influence surrounding Blinken are J Street, the New York Times and Thomas Friedman. They, and others on the Jewish-American Left are putting pressure on him, publicly and behind closed doors, to intervene in what is happening in Israel, and it doesn't matter that only recently there were elections in Israel. Their version of democracy is US coercion.
Blinken knows that intervention is problematic and therefore is tiptoeing between the drops, maneuvering between the pressures from the US-Jewish home ground and what he knows is considered prying into Israel's domestic affairs. To his credit, he made it clear in a talk with journalists on Tuesday that "the Israelis themselves are the ones who need to work on them" and that the demonstrations around the country are "a very healthy part of a vibrant democracy. I draw inspiration from that." So he did not cross any boundaries. As disclosed in this newspaper, Blinken will wait until the end of the legislative process in Israel, and only then will the administration express its opinion on the reform.
Blinken's caution contradicts the prophecies that the Left in Israel want to be fulfilled, that the Americans will stop Netanyahu from what he's doing. Lapid plays dumb and says that "I will never call for international pressure," but in the same breath adds that "this is what happens." On another occasion, he claimed, "with a government of racists and extremists, the US is no longer Israel's closest ally. They are polite and all, but they think that we are retreating from democracy."
It's definitely a good thing that Blinken is not following Lapid's call, and he also probably understands that the Left, both in Israel and in the US, is using him as a political lever to fight against the Right-wing government. But the trouble is that the opposition leader's promiscuous behavior is no different from that of the mother who agrees to cut her baby in half in King Solomon's judgment. As a former minister of finance, Lapid knows that forecasts the weakening of the economy are the most substantial catalyst for withdrawal of investment. He also understands, or at least he should understand, that criticism about the loss of US support is what is gnawing away at it. And he doesn't care.
Playing the same tune again
This is not the first time that Netanyahu's opponents are willing to take the State of Israel hostage, just to cause harm to the prime minister. The same lies that the "Just not Bibi" camp is spreading these days about the supposed damage to Israel's status around the world because of the reforms, were also told a decade ago, under different excuses. Then the Israeli media was bursting with lies about "political isolation" and fables, as if Netanyahu was boycotting the democrats and being boycotted by them.
The most influential ambassador Israel ever had in Washington, Ron Dermer, was described by commentators and politicians as a "Republican activist who has been prevented entry into the White House." For many years the general public and political systems were bombarded with incessant lies.
And what was the truth? Netanyahu has always made a point of meeting with every Democratic congressman and senator who came to Israel, but Dermer set a precedent when both President Obama and his then-vice president, Joe Biden, came to speak at major events at the Israeli Embassy. Contrary to that written in the media and as disclosed in Israel Hayom, Dermer's connections in the Obama White House were so intimate that for one of the president's speeches at the time, he rode in the car of the chief of staff, Denis McDonough, as if he were one of the president's men.
Netanyahu's opponents are now trying to rehash the same accusations that were made in the last decade, and the facts once again do not bother them. Because in the current round, the Americans are being very gentle with Israel, despite the rifts in position. No condemnations. No criticism. On the contrary, there is dramatic progress and US round-the-clock efforts to integrate Israel into the Visa Waiver Program – and no gift could be greater than that.
Netanyahu, for his part, is contributing his share to the calm atmosphere that is so important to the US administration. He has not attacked Biden and his associates for their hesitant policy towards Iran. And he actually did not even take action after the massacre in Neve Ya'akov. No construction in Judea and Samaria or in Jerusalem has been promoted. No blame was put on the Palestinian Authority. Illegal weapons were not rounded up in Jerusalem. Nothing. If Lapid or Naftali Bennett had been satisfied with zero response from him after such a serious attack, Netanyahu would have torn them apart from the opposition.
So Blinken got the consensus he asked for. But not between supporters and opponents of the legal reform, but between him and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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