With the approval of the outgoing Knesset, Israel is moving toward early elections that will send its people to the polls on September 4. The decision will allow a new government to be in place in advance of the U.S. presidential contest that will take place two months later. If Israeli opinion polls are correct that will mean even if President Obama is re-elected, he still will be faced with his old antagonist Benjamin Netanyahu as his counterpart in the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Since Obama spent much of his first term seeking to undermine if not oust Netanyahu from office, the timing of the elections may be no coincidence. Past American presidents such as the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton sought to intervene in Israeli elections to procure a more pliant Israeli negotiating partner. But with Obama fighting hard to hold onto Jewish votes by assuming the pose of Israel’s best friend, he dare not take a swipe at Netanyahu before the September vote. Given the lopsided result that pollsters expect, it might not make a difference even if he did try it.
Some kibbitzers have asserted that Israeli polls that show Netanyahu’s coalition gaining seats should not be misinterpreted as a personal mandate for the prime minister, as his Likud Party is likely to get only 30 or 31 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. That’s a foolish argument. If that is how the voting goes, such a result would still place Likud as the largest party by far and in position to command an easy majority with its normal coalition partners. Due to its proportional voting system, no party has ever won a majority on its own. But a new poll sponsored by the left-wing Haaretz newspaper shows Netanyahu is also the overwhelming choice of Israelis to be their prime minister.
In the poll, Israeli voters were asked which of the several party leaders they wanted to see become prime minister. Despite the multiple choices available, nearly a majority — 48 percent — chose Netanyahu. His closest competitor was Labor Party head Shelly Yacimovich at 15 percent. The only others to register anything beyond minimal support were Yisrael Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman (who serves as Netanyahu’s foreign minister) at 9 percent and Kadima’s new leader Shaul Mofaz, who got only 6 percent despite his claim to be the only viable alternative to the incumbent.
The survey also asked Israelis what they thought of the criticisms of former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak were “messianics” who aren’t fit to lead the country. That result will also give no comfort to Netanyahu’s foreign and domestic critics who have hyped the story about Diskin as it noted Israelis disagree with the assertion by a 51-25 percent margin.
While four months can be a lifetime in politics, given the utter lack of support for Netanyahu’s putative rivals, his re-election is close to a lock. This has to frustrate Obama, who has made his distaste for Netanyahu no secret. It also sets up a possible timetable for the confrontation with Iran that may not conform to the president’s plans.
As some of Netanyahu’s Israeli critics have noted, the timing of the Israeli election probably takes an attack on Iran off the table until after September. But that was the case anyway. An Israeli strike while the P5+1 talks with Iran were ongoing was always unthinkable. But that does leave a window of two months between the two elections that might allow an Israeli offensive against Iranian nuclear targets in advance of the U.S. elections, a juxtaposition that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to oppose or punish Israel for such a decision.
Count me among the skeptics that Israel would choose to act unilaterally under those seemingly favorable circumstances. But Iran notwithstanding, by securing his re-election in advance of 2013, Netanyahu is ensuring that a U.S. president will not be able to use his clout to try and get him defeated the way Clinton did in both 1996 and 1999. Netanyahu’s overwhelming democratic mandate will largely insulate him against U.S. pressure even if Obama is also re-elected.
In the United States, Jews overwhelming supported a liberal for president. That man, Barack Obama, has tried to drive the U.S. to ever greater debt and overflowing social programs that will, if left to their own, bankrupt the country. He has pressured Israel to abandon claims to parts of Jerusalem, to limit natural growth of cities and towns, and who wants to force a peace treaty with the PA that wants nothing of the kind with Israel. n nAcross the way, the tiny country of Israel, whose citizens are primarily Jews, are overwhelming supporting the Likud party, a non-liberal party (for lack of a better term), and their overwhelming choice for prime minister is a man who values free markets, has put Israel's economic engine to work for tremendous benefit to his country, and is, for all intents and purposes, seen as a hawk who courageously defends Israel's right to self-defense and self-determination. n nMoreover, the two leaders are less than personal friends and the president has consistently shown contempt for the Israeli leader. n nWhy do Jews in the U.S. support Obama when the Jews of Israel, whose lives are actually at stake, support a man who is in such stark contrast to Obama? It is time for American Jews to see that when it comes to Israel, to issues that every Jew who cares a wit about other Jews wold agree are important, that they should support a man of the mold of Netanyahu; not Mr. Obama. n nIt is stunning, and perplexing, that American Jews do not see what our brothers and sisters in Israel see as to what a leader is and should be. I am baffled by it and have come to think that American Jews are simply blind.
Good news, if true
If Israelis thought Bibi was going to launch an attack on Iran before the November elections stateside his numbers wouldn't be so high, not his faction, not his PM popularity. It would be the height of irresponsibility to base an attack on a lame maneuver of playing the American political calendar for tactical advantage. Maybe Obama would be boxed in or maybe his political id would be liberated. Who knows. It's worth doing or it isn't. But the best timing is the timing that doesn't weigh the action down with a lot of extraneous unpredictables. The second year of Obama's next term, for example, and not a high flying hail Mary based on breaking his balls over the High Holy Day season. n nBibi is popular precisely because he has become extraordinarily adept at operating within the constraints of the limitations of Israel's Parliamentary faction system–instituting a kindler, gentler Shamirism, sticking with robust if disparate-outcomes oriented free-enterprise. Meanwhile, let's not forget that Israel has national health insurance, compulsory draft and, to come, national service (that conservative hawks in the U.S., gosh, seem in no hurry to revive, eh?) and, oh yes, gays serve openly in that army, for years. The desire to see Bibi live out in technicolor the sharp hues of his rhetorical framing is to confuse sizzle with steak.
Israel's health insurance features two main planks of Obama care: a) a universal mandate for all Israeli citizens to sign up with healthcare providing entities, b) the state assumes the national responsibility to provide for the health care of all of its citizens. Somehow this gets all forgotten by those expecting Bibi to be the caudillo anti-O.
We really do not know for certain whether there will be an attempt to affect Iran’s sprint for nukes. I expect something this year, which may not be the kind of frontal bombing sortie hypothesized around here. I do not believe that Israel is going to go alone. There will be others, and their contributions will be unique to their circumstances. Israel should use these contacts to establish better ties to ordinarily hostile states in order to agree on a hostility free sustained period of time. Israel is actually a stabilizing force for many peoples in the region.
Romney is, in my view, a less than an ideal candidate. When he speaks, he sounds as if he is mouthing the words of his advisers. Where is the man. The flap over his choice for spokesperson bodes poorly for someone who must be a unifying figure. He needs to count on conservatives for their support, yet he is busy trying to woo the wrong constituency. Looks bad right now, real bad.
best2003, what possible relevance does any of the health care or domestic policy issues have to do with Israel's foreign policy, its need to survive, and Obama's personal distaste for Bibi and his at best incompetent response to the war against Israel? Your observations may be accurate, but to the extent they have any relevance it is to show that Bibi is not the ogre imagined by the J-Streeters, the other Obama worshippers, and the blame Israel Firsters.
The deal is that some of Bibi's supporters imagine him as a Zionist Palin-clone heading a SuperJew Tea Party Nation. They project–and don't get the flavor of Israeli concerns and prefrerences, in domestic and foreign policy.
besht, as I see it, Obama is making a very flawed socialized medicine system much worse and is in fact taking care and treatment possibilities away from senior citizens. Don't equate or liken Israel's health system to the American one. And for various reasons, the Israeli system cannot be duplicated.
I make no bones for Obama's quasi governmental quasi insurance company bureaucratic subsidy package substitution for a fundamental consideration of the inherent perils of health care delivery in a nation with a demographic overhang of senior citizens and baby boomers on their way to becoming elderly. And yeah, either severe budgetary cut backs in Medicare fee reimbursement for senior citizens are going to go into effect or, from what I read, the whole thing goes off a cliff. But left to its own devices the health care market will still get progressively dearer in price and seniors won't be insured or those with pre-existing conditions will face waiting periods on reimbursement after signing up & etc. & etc. Israel is yes, probably unique in the ratios of working to non-working, youth to aged and the inverse benefits of scale: a relatively small population.
besht, I find it hard to believe that his Israeli followers have delusions of that kind. If you mean his US followers, I agree that misconceptions about Israeli domestic issues and politicians abound. But Bibi would seem the most palatable choice for conservatives in the US, even those who cherish the delusions that you have pointed out.
Yes yes yes, not his Israeli followers, G-d forbid, his supporters here in the United States. And yes yes, he is an excellent temperamental fit to the American conservative psyche, Jewish and non-Jewish. Still, for this old pooch, the week by week temperature taking as to when (not if, that isn't even a question for many) Bibi (and Ehud) will corral the IDF staff and go for gold over Tehran's nuclear facilities is getting old. Scanning Israeli media I don't get the sense that this is yet a burning imperative for the wider Israeli public. Am I wrong?
btw–in response to Israel Channel 2 speculation that Bibi and Barak would go air mobile on the Iranian mullahs after elections in Israel secured a clear sky for a transition government into a new center-right coalition (and with opponents in the American political process supposedly immobilized like Bambi in the headlights of pre Nov. 2012 fear of the Jewish/Israel/Zionist/neocon lobby)–in response to these scenarios, also mentioned here, Bibi said.
Most American, non-Orthodox Jews' ethnicity is Judaism and their religion is Leftism and Leftist/Liberal values. Israel is not in the top five voting values/concerns and most American Jews would vote for Jimmy Carter again as the Democratic candidate rather than vote for Moses as the Republican candidate. Most American Jews are not blind, but they only can see wearing their narrow, tunnel vision glasses with left-wing lenses, not Jewish/Torah value lenses.