The Netanyahu Years by Ben Caspit

Author:Ben Caspit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

49

Not Even One Brick

The second Netanyahu government was sworn in on March 31, 2009, at night, to avoid the awkward date of April 1. Netanyahu preferred to postpone the first meeting as leaders with President Obama for as long as possible. He was apprehensive about this meeting and wished to study the new president beforehand, to consult with his people, and to come to the meeting fully prepared. Ultimately, the meeting was set for May 19, 2009, almost two months after Netanyahu took office. In the meantime, his team had been trying to carry out an assessment of overall Israeli policy. They studied the various negotiations Olmert held with Syria, coordinated by Turkey (eight rounds of negotiations in Istanbul), they studied the conversations between Dov Weissglass and President Bush on the matter of settlements and expanding the West Bank settlements, they looked at the negotiating route in Annapolis with the Palestinians, and other strategic issues.

Netanyahu’s people were convinced they had made a thorough and extensive study of all these issues, but they were the only ones who thought so. Olmert’s people thought otherwise. They were surprised by the amateurishness of their successors. Netanyahu’s people were not interested in meeting them for a thorough and organized briefing. They were quick to settle in at their new offices. Shalom Turgeman, Olmert’s veteran political advisor, who also served Sharon and Barak, was overlooked. His overlap meeting with Prof. Uzi Arad lasted half an hour. Turgeman, a human database of all the sensitive negotiations, special relations, and interregional meetings held by Israel’s prime ministers since the days of Ehud Barak, went home without passing on any of this information to anyone, as did other senior officials. Some of the future glitches between Washington and Jerusalem can be attributed to this lame beginning.

Netanyahu always looked askance at Obama. The same thing can be said for Obama. Neither of them had any great expectations of the other. Obama was surrounded by people like Rahm Emanuel, who had squabbled with Netanyahu back in the Clinton days, as well as other Jewish officials who were not famous for their fondness of Netanyahu. Bibi, on the other hand, was awash with prejudice and saw Obama as a genuine strategic threat: left-wing, liberal, devoid of any real affinity for Israel or any noteworthy record with AIPAC. Netanyahu was certain that Obama would try to dissolve the discrete strategic understandings between Israel and the United States. It was the most sensitive issue on his agenda, a historical matter that went back to the days of Golda Meir and President Nixon and consisted of American backing for Israel’s policy of ambiguity vis-à-vis the nuclear issue, and the political umbrella that the United States provided Israel with over the decades. Knowing one of Obama’s main goals was nuclear disarmament, Netanyahu suspected that on this existential field he could expect a nightmare. A small Israeli delegation preceded the Washington visit to prepare the various issues. It included Bibi’s national security advisor, Uzi Arad; his political advisor, Ron Dermer; and Yitzhak Molcho, his personal emissary.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.