1. Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to speak tonight. He will respond to President’s Obama Cairo speech – and to the administration’s pressure on the Israeli settlement issue. Israel’s two leading papers, Yediot and Maariv, carried almost identical headlines this morning. In Yediot it reads, “The speech of his life,” in Maariv it’s “The test of his life.” Hyperbolic journalism aside (in Israel newspapers are struggling too), there’s no sign at this point in time that Netanyahu is ready to do what Obama wants him to do. Obama’s Cairo speech hardly changed the region, and I don’t expect Netanyahu to change much no matter what he chooses to say. And as for leaks, assumptions, guesses, speculation – why not wait. It’s only hours away.

2. For some reason, pressuring Israel is now seen as a form of bravery on the part of the American President. Jacob Weisberg calls it “a gutsy step forward.” Peter Beinart says that “This crisis [with Israel] has already revealed something about Obama: he’s not timid.”  Sorry – but I can’t see how pressuring Netanyahu gets  counted as courageous. Whether one thinks Obama is right or wrong to demand an Israeli settlement freeze, there’s no price to pay here. Obama will not lose the political support of Jewish Americans because of it. He will not lose the support of Evangelical Christians over it (because he never had their support to begin with). In fact, as long as the President frames the issue as this dispute over settlements, he’s in no danger of losing the public-opinion battle.

3. Public opinion is tricky for Netanyahu within Israel, as a new survey published today by The Institute for National Security Studies demonstrates (not yet available in English, the Hebrew version is here): 57% support the dismantling of illegal outposts, 42% oppose settlement expansion, and 41% support settlement expansion, “but not if this leads to confrontation with the U.S. administration.” Only 17% of Israelis will support settlement expansion even if it leads to confrontation with Obama.

4. Assuming that Iran’s election results were forged – as most observers assume – an interesting trend emerges: while in most of the Arab world it is despotic secular regimes that are trying to hold reformers back because they claim to fear the emergence of democratic Islamic governments – in Iran what we see is the mirror image. A supposedly democratic Islamic regime is stopping more moderate reformers from gaining in the polls. Whether they want theocracy or democracy, in this region the people can never win over the desires of the ruling regime.

Pollster.com is usually just a solid site for those interested in politics. Today, it is also home of the most moving response I’ve yet seen to yesterday’s Holocaust Museum attack.

Here is Mark Blumenthal, writing about an experience he had at the museum last summer:

He walked away from me and wandered up to the museum staffer standing at the head of the long line leading to the elevators that takes all visitors to the museum exhibits. I thought for a moment that Pop was going to ask directions. I was wrong.

He thrust out his arm in the direction of the staffer, displaying the number the Nazis tattooed on his arm at Auschwitz just a few inches from her face. Without making eye-contact and barely breaking stride, Pop kept walking. Understandably, the staffer barely blinked. She didn’t make a move to stop him.

Pop kept walking right into the elevator that had just filled with the visitors that had been waiting in that long line. And even though the elevator was already quite crowded, he walked right in. Jake and I had to run past the guard to catch up. “Pop, Pop,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed, hoping to talk him into at least waiting for the next elevator.

The staffer inside the elevator must have heard me, because he smiled, held the door and said with smile, “We have room for Pop. You guys too. C’mon in.”

Go ahead, and keep reading…

Writing for Foreign Policy, Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations argues that Israel will not attack Iran. Cook, repeating a theme familiar to many writers, highlights “the importance that close relations with Washington has on the domestic political calculations of Israeli leaders.” In essence, what he says is that Israeli leaders cannot risk causing a rift with the U.S. because it would make Israeli voters uneasy and result in a change of government. Cook uses a well known example:

In June 1992, Israel’s voters booted Shamir from office in favor of Yitzhak Rabin, who enjoyed a sunny relationship with Bush until the U.S. president lost his own reelection bid. Shamir’s defeat at the polls was due to a combination of factors, including an Israeli economy that was struggling to absorb hundreds of thousands of Soviet immigrants, but the relationship with the United States loomed large during the campaign. Rabin’s platform, in part, accused Shamir and his Likud Party of wrecking U.S.-Israel relations. In the end, Israeli voters believed the country “was not being run right,” as some commentators argued that Likud had compromised Israel’s ability to defend itself because of the deterioration of relations with Washington.

While being careful not to portray Shamir’s defeat as the direct outcome of his battle with George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, Cook might leave many readers with just such an impression. In fact, this argument was made not only about Shamir, but also about Netanyahu’s defeat in 1999 — interpreted as a result of rocky relations with the Clinton administration.I have made similar arguments myself, but the fact of the matter is that much more complex stories unfolded in both cases — stories from which one can draw contradicting conclusions. On the one hand, it is true that both prime ministers weren’t successful in maintaining good relations with American presidents. However, the falls of both Shamir and Netanyahu were not the direct result of their contentious dealings with the U.S. In fact, both prime ministers lost their jobs when they decided to abide by American demands.Shamir went to the Madrid conference and lost the right-wing parties of his coalition, as the official site of Israel’s Knesset describes it:

The Twelfth Knesset officiated for three years and eight months, during which two governments presided, both headed by Yitzhak Shamir. The first of which – the 23rd Government – was forced to resign after a defeat in a no-confidence motion over the negotiations with the Palestinians. The elections to the 13th Knesset were brought forward following the breakdown of the coalition in Shamir’s second government. Three right-wing parties — Tzomet, Tehiya and Moledet — resigned from the Government in protest over the Madrid Conference.

Netanyahu faced similar opposition within his own camp after going to the Wye Plantation summit and signing accords that were unacceptable to members of the Netanyahu coalition: “The normal term of the 14th Knesset should have expired in November 2000. However, the Knesset passed a law for its early dissolution on 4 January 1999, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had difficulty getting the governing coalition members to support his Middle East peace policy, and the state budget for 1999.”It is worth remembering that both Shamir and Netanyahu were ousted by right-wing members of their coalitions. What this means for Netanyahu today — days before he is slated to speak in response to Barack Obama’s Cairo speech — is that keeping the members on the right of his camp happy is no less important (politically) than keeping the U.S. happy. As the right has proved twice in the past, it does not hesitate when it comes to abandoning what it considers a “disappointing” prime minister.

With all this talk about Obama engaging the masses in the Middle East, there’s one crowd he failed to engage effectively — or maybe didn’t care to at all. While during the electoral race Obama and his team were working extra hours to ease Israelis’ concerns about the unknown candidate (for domestic political reasons) — with some success — recent weeks have made Obama more suspicious to Israelis than ever before. According to a recent poll, 51% of them find the president’s policy “disappointing.”

Some left-wing writers and bloggers have argued that Israelis, generally speaking, might support Obama’s “plan.” They do not support settlement activities and do not want to get into a fight with the American administration over settlement freeze. Of course it isn’t that simple. Israelis support “freeze” in principle but oppose it if it applies to “natural growth.” That’s exactly the battle that the Israeli government is now having with the Obama administration. More generally, Israelis now have very little confidence in the president’s good intentions, as two polls published last week demonstrate.

One of them found that:

53 percent believed Obama’s policies were not good for Israel and just 26% said they were good. The rest did not respond. Fifty-one percent said Obama cared more about the Palestinian desire for a state than about Israeli security, and just 22% said he put Israel’s security needs first.

The other (Hebrew only) found that 59% of Israelis believe Obama favors the Arabs over Israel, and 29% went as far as to say Obama is “hostile” toward Israel (40% defined him “impartial” and only 21% said he was a “supporter” of Israel).

Note that both these polls were taken before the Cairo speech, and that new polls will be published later this week, from which we might learn how Israelis reacted to the president’s message. It is also worth noting that recent remarks made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might make it more difficult for Israelis to differentiate between her and the president. There are no reliable polls to indicate that Israelis trusted Clinton more than they trusted Obama to begin with, but that is a reasonable assumption (Israeli Americans overwhelmingly voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries).

Why is this bad news even for those hoping to advance the Obama administration’s goals? Because Israelis, time and again, proved to be more responsive to demands coming from administrations they trusted (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush), than to those coming from administrations they did not trust (the second half of Jimmy Carter’s term, George H. W. Bush).

In the AP report that Abe quoted the other day, President Obama says that he “recognize[s] the very difficult politics in Israel of getting that [stoping construction of settlements] done”, and in recent days there’s a new wave of speculation about whether this means the coming pulverization of the Israeli coalition. As most analysts see it, Benjamin Netanyahu is caught between the hammer (Obama) and the anvil (his coalition), and there’s no escape.

Today, the PM announced that he will respond to Obama’s Cairo speech next week:

“It must be understood, we seek peace with the Palestinians and with the states of the Arab world while trying to reach as much understanding as possible with the United States and our friends abroad,” the Israeli leader said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

This will not be easy. Netanyahu intends to confer with his coalition members, but the problem is that not all of them see things the same way. While some, like Labor’s Ehud Barak, will emphasis the “understanding” with the U.S part of Netanyahu’s promise, others, like Shas’s Eli Yishai might stick to sa different view:

“There is no need to panic,” he said, “While the Obama administration has a different outlook (regarding the settlements), we must uphold our principles.”

These conflicting views of coalition members, and the pressure on Netanyahu to respond positively to Obama’s demands, have added to pundits’ assumptions that a new coalition is likely to emerge soon. As Jeffrey Goldberg predicts:

Something is bound to break, and when it does, the Netanyahu government collapses. Which doesn’t mean that Netanyahu is out of power. It means that he then shares power with Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima Party. If I were an American policymaker, that’s the Israeli coalition I would hope for: Netanyahu-Barak-Livni, rather than Netanyahu-Barak-Lieberman. You watch: It’s coming. 

Sounds convincing, unless one takes into account how complicated the building of such a coalition would be. Haaretz’s Yossi Verter specified:

What Livni seems to want is this: that Netanyahu disperse the existing coalition, shred its guidelines and adopt Kadima’s policy. Then they would have something to discuss. A senior person close to Livni, who in fact would gladly join the coalition, predicted this week that such a scenario isn’t going to happen. In that person’s assessment, if Netanyahu gets into a situation in which he needs Kadima, it will be from a position of weakness. Livni will demand an equivalent rotation and also everything he offered her in the negotiations conducted after the election: the same number of portfolios as Likud, including foreign affairs and defense; adoption of the formula of two states for two people; and a continuation of diplomatic negotiations from the point at which they were stopped during the days of the Kadima government. It is true that large parts of Kadima are longing to join, the source admitted, but not Tzipi. She won’t let that happen.

If Livni gets Defense, Ehud Barak has nothing to do in the government. If Kadima’s policy is adopted, Netanyahu will lose control within his own Likud Party. If you imagine this Likud-Kadima-Labor coalition to be a stable one, think again. All three parties combined have 68 mandates. With “rebels” expected in all three parties, and the fragility of this new arrangement, there’s hardly enough to maintain a coalition that is more stable than the current one. What the public fails to grasp, over and over, is that stability in Israel depends not on having the right number of coalition members but rather on executing a consensual policy. Netanyahu’s speech, in ten days, will give him the opportunity to provide such a policy – one that will make most Israelis nod in approval. Only by achieving this, will he be able to keep his government alive.

What Israel’s foreign minister is trying to do is quite interesting. Not that I expect him to succeed, but he deserves credit for the creativity of this stylish attempt.

Avigdor Lieberman, while visiting Moscow, spoke about the danger of Iran’s military nuclear program. But while most news sources naturally focused on the headline — Israel will not bomb Iran — the more interesting part of what Lieberman said is the explanation:

“We do not intend to bomb Iran, and nobody will solve their problems with our hands,” he told reporters. “We don’t need that. Israel is a strong country, we can protect ourselves.”

“But the world should understand that Iran’s entrance into the nuclear club would prompt a whole arms race, a crazy race of unconventional weaponry across the Mideast that is a threat to the entire world order, a challenge to the whole international community,” he said. “So we do not want a global problem to be solved with our hands.”

What the foreign minister is trying to do here is cunning and counterintuitive. Lieberman is saying Israel won’t be doing the world’s dirty work. Iran is everyone’s problem as much as it is Israel’s. Moreover, he makes it sound as if it’s not Israel sitting and waiting for the world to take action, but rather the world waiting for Israel to find a solution to this nagging problem.

By doing this, Lieberman not only pulls the rug out from under Israel’s enemies, but also confuses its friends for a calculated effect. His promise neutralizes the argument of all those screaming that the U.S. (not to mention other countries) should not go to war with Iran “over Israel.” But it also defuses the argument that bombing Iran — or using coercive measures against it — is crucially necessary for those wanting to save Israel.

Is it a sign of strength? Of weakness?

I think it’s a sign of despair. Maybe we are witnessing Israel’s last attempt to convince the world that it has a real problem to deal with. A problem that will not go away even if Israel doesn’t wave the red flag of warnings. A problem that will not go away even if Israel weren’t there at all.

One might be tempted to dismiss Israeli talk that the Obama administration is trying to bring down the Netanyahu government. However, when Robert Kagan reaches the same conclusion using sheer logic, the case seems perfectly sensible. The Obama team, he reminds readers, is pressuring Israel while trying to accommodate Iran: “This sets up quite an image: Unclench the fist at a government that daily calls us the Great Satan, while balling up a fist at a longtime ally.”

So what is the administration trying to achieve?

There must be a brilliant strategy in here somewhere. But from the outside, it isn’t obvious where the confrontation with Israel is supposed to lead… it is questionable whether any Israeli government could [freeze natural growth in settlements]. Perhaps the Obama administration is trying to bring the Netanyahu government down. Regime change!

Maybe Defense Minister Ehud Barak can help the administration understand that its strategy is bound to fail. Maybe his “surprise” meeting with the president is the beginning of the end of this public brawl:

During the meeting Barak presented Jerusalem’s position, whereby Israel is willing to remove 22 out of the 26 illegal outposts established in the West Bank after March 2001. The defense minister urged the US administration to reexamine the demand to freeze construction in settlements and settlement blocs that may remain in Israel’s hands as part of a future peace agreement.

This is not Netanyahu talking. It is the man sitting in Yitzhak Rabin’s chair as the head of the Labor Party.

In the course of writing an article for an Israeli newspaper (Hebrew only), I went back to reading Ronald Reagan’s September 1, 1982 speech on Middle East peace (the Reagan Plan) and Israel’s response to this long-forgotten initiative. As Israel and the U.S. are at odds again over the issue of “settlement freeze,” it is worth revisiting Reagan’s call for a settlement freeze:

The United States will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements during the transition period. Indeed, the immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks. Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs and a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated.

And on the day after, September 2, 1982, the Israeli government rejected this part of the Reagan plan:

In the Camp David agreement no mention whatsoever is made of such a freeze. At Camp David the Prime Minister agreed that new settlements could not be be established (though population would be added to existing ones) during the period of the negotiations for the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel (three months being explicitly stated). This commitment was carried out in full. That three month period terminated on December 1978…

Reagan, like Obama, wanted Israel to freeze “settlement activity.” Netanyahu, like former PM Menachem Begin, argues that even during a “freeze,” there will be no freeze of “natural growth” (”population would be added to existing ones”). Thus, the real question about Obama has to do with the intensity and ferocity with which he will pursue the goal of settlement freeze.

In other words: has Obama decided that even if freeze means the collapse of the Israeli coalition – and the demise of Netanyahu’s government – he is still going to pursue it without compromise? Since bringing about peace is not in his power, maybe some of his advisors believe that the toppling of Netanyahu’s coalition will allow Obama to gain the trust of the Arab world.

A number of good writers have already commented on “Obama and the Middle East,” a new essay by Hussein Agha and Rob Malley in the New York Review of Books.

So what does the article say?

Interestingly, the answer is “not much.” It says that life isn’t easy; that chances for peace aren’t great; that both Israelis and Palestinians have many grievances; that the U.S. failed, so far, in its attempts to reach an understanding. It also says a couple of more controversial things. For example, that Yasser Arafat deserves credit for the good things he did to advance the two state solution — Agha and Malley share a repulsive history as leaders of the the-failure-in-Camp-David-wasn’t-Arafat’s-fault camp.

The writers seemingly show some sympathy to Israeli settlers and suggest that the U.S. “recognize their views and concerns, consider their interests, and invite them to take part in discussions.” But this is a shameful trick. First, because it de-legitimizes the Israeli government, and essentially calls upon the international community to talk to Israeli political groups separately. Second, because it is only one more way for the authors to justify their insistence on talking to Hamas.

The piece is not very impressive because the more the authors stray from what happened and the more they delve into “what needs to be done now” – the less specific they become. Vagueness can be a sign of thoughtfulness, but it usually covers for a lack of new ideas.

Take a look:

The task, in other words, would not be to polish up answers to questions of borders, security, Jerusalem, or how to compensate refugees. That approach increasingly is becoming a sideshow, chiefly of interest to official negotiators. Nor would talk center on creating Palestinian institutions or extolling a two-state solution’s value in combating extremism or reshaping the region.

So what should we do?

There may be another way. Its starting point would be less of an immediate effort to achieve a two-state agreement or propose US ideas to that effect. Rather, it would be an attempt to transform the political atmosphere and reformulate the diplomatic process.

Transform to what? Again, there are no specifics, just aphorisms like “A new language would help; so too would a broader audience.” But what will we tell this “broader audience” (namely, Palestinian refugees, Hamas, settlers and the other groups the authors want to talk to)?

The most urgent task is to prepare the way for that day by countering the skepticism that has greeted and torpedoed every recent American idea, good or bad…

How? The great orator Obama will somehow better communicate with the alienated groups of the region, by telling them something the authors refuse to specify, from which a new plan, also un-specified, will emerge.

“The time is for a clean break, in words, style, and approach,” they write. We know that by time they mean “now,” or even more specifically, “next week” in Cairo. We know that by “clean break” they mean, “no more Bush.” We might also know what “style” means (Obama). But the two most important things – what new “words” and what new “approach” the authors would suggest – remain suspiciously vague. Either the proposals they have are so outrageous that even these two didn’t want to utter them out loud – or they have nothing productive to offer. Given Malley’s friendly past with Hamas and Agha’s time as an advisor to Arafat, and given the anti-Israel tenor of their previous work, I’ll leave it for you to decide.

So — is there a connection between Palestine and Iran? Is there “linkage”?

Defense Minister Ehud Barak says no, and also believes the Americans should better understand this:

“It’s not as if the moment the last outpost is dismantled, for reasons of the rule of law and the country’s authority over its citizens, the Iranians will abandon their nuclear ambitions,” Barak said. “This is why these things need not be [presented as] directly interdependent.”

But does Prime Minister Netanyahu understand this simple truth? The answer is probably yes, but what he said yesterday might mislead the public into concluding otherwise:

“I identify the danger, and that’s why I am willing to take unpopular steps such as evacuating outposts. The Iranian threat is above everything,” Netanyahu reportedly said. “There are things on which you have to compromise.”

In fact, what’s happening here is fascinating: Israel started by claiming there is no linkage. Its position later evolved into there being linkage: “The road to Palestine goes through Tehran” and not the other way around. Americans, though, weren’t convinced. They insisted that traditional linkage is unavoidable in order to bring other Arab countries on board in stopping Iran. In essence, the Obama administration has argued that one can’t hope for Arab cooperation without showing progress on the Palestinian track. But now, as both Barak’s and Netanyahu’s statements demonstrate, we are at a new stage: Israel is the one admitting that there’s linkage. The irony though is that this concession comes not from Arabs’ demanding linkage, but rather because of Americans. Barak still hopes to reeducate the Obama administration. Netanyahu soberly admits defeat. Linkage is a fact of life not because of Iranians, Palestinians, or other Arab countries. It’s a fact of life because of, well, the Americans who believe in it.

Adding to Rick’s fine points regarding “two state solutionism,” note that former Israeli general and National Security Advisor Giora Eiland has written a short-but-sharp compilation of “America’s seven false assumptions” on the two-state solution. “Had the US administration undertaken a real assessment and examined the fundamental assumptions underlining the [two state] solution, it may have reached different conclusions,” Eiland writes. The seven crux issues are:

• Do Palestinians want a state in line with the 1967 borders, or do they want much more?
• Can the differences between Israeli and Palestinian leadership be bridged?
• Do Egypt and Jordan have any real interest in solving the conflict?
• Will a final status agreement actually bring stability?
• Is this the right time for reaching an agreement?
• If one wants Arab support on Iran, does one need to make progress in Palestine?
• Is there only one solution to the conflict?

So while Israel and the U.S. will be wasting a lot of precious time negotiating a “deal” on evacuation of outposts, and while Netanyahu will be wasting a lot of political capital in trying to prevent his coalition from collapsing due to these negotiations, it will be easy to forget that none of this really matters. The twenty-six outposts can be evacuated, agreement on settlement-freeze in some form can be reached, final status negotiations can be resumed — unfortunately, peace may still be as elusive as it is today.

According to these reports, the President and his staff are well aware of the political constrains limiting Bibi’s ability to “freeze” settlements and evacuate outposts in the West Bank:

Many people in Washington seemed to be more interested in the life expectancy of the current Israeli government than in Netanyahu’s positions. To a large extent, the answer to that will be dependent on Obama: The more he pressures Netanyahu to “stop the settlements,” the greater the prime minister’s coalition problems. Netanyahu is in a trap: The more he tries to persuade Obama he can provide the diplomatic goods, the quicker his coalition will expire.

After the Bibi-Obama meeting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to seize the initiative, promising evacuations (this serves Barak well, politically speaking, as it helps him explain to the center-left why joining Netanyahu’s government was the right thing to do).

But yesterday, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon clarified that “settlement construction will not be halted,” drawing a fine line between “illegal” outposts that “the government will not permit” and “the construction in the settlements within the framework of natural growth” that the government will not halt, not even under pressure. As I explained here last week, the discussion of the settlement issue is often erroneously framed in black (freeze nothing) and white (freeze all) – while in fact things are much more nuanced and complicated.

But while Yaalon (of the Likud Party) is willing to play along and settle for outpost evacuation – a position Netanyahu himself seems able to live with – some members of the Netanyahu government draw the line further away from the American position:

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman emphasized his opposition on Sunday to unilaterally dismantling illegal outposts in the West Bank, and said that such a move should be part of the greater peace process which inevitably would require equivalent action from the Palestinians. 

With Lieberman taking this position, the other right-of-center parties will not be able to lag far behind. The religious Shas and the Jewish House will have to resist any evacuation, giving Bibi the headache of possible confrontation with the Americans, but also the benefit of showing Obama and Hillary Clinton that his ability to give them what they want is limited. He can only hope that these two very shrewd politicians do understand that a demand for political suicide is not a realistic one.

Asking silly questions has become a habit for headline-seeking pollsters. Today, it was Tel Aviv University’s turn:

Some 23 percent of Israelis would consider leaving the country if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, according to a poll conducted on behalf of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Sounds scary? Yes, if you merely follow press releases; no, if you do some research (something not all journalists find necessary).

First, there’s nothing new about this finding, and the number of Israelis fearing a nuclearized Iran hasn’t increased. This study, conducted for the Herzliya Conference back in January, asked: If a hostile state in the region is threatening Israel with nuclear arms, will you be willing to live in the country? The response: 81% (of Jews) said yes. A year earlier, in 2008, the percentage was exactly the same: 81%. Namely, about 1 in 5 Jews might consider leaving Israel. Since for Israeli Arabs the percentage is a bit higher, the 1 in 4 figure from the more recent study is old news.

But even so, is it even important that Israelis say they may consider leaving the country because of a nuclearized Iran? Consider the same Herzliya poll. To the question “Would you be ready to move and live in a different country?” 6% answer “definitely yes,” 34% say “depends on circumstances.” That is 40% of Israeli Jews (for Israeli Arabs, the percentage is much lower this time around) who might consider leaving under certain conditions.

Think about this figure, and suddenly, the new poll doesn’t look grim at all — on the contrary. If 40% of Israelis might consider leaving under certain conditions, but only 25%, if Iran becomes nuclear, the conclusion is that almost half of those prone to “consider” do not think that a nuclearized Iran represents a sufficiently severe circumstance to warrant leaving.

Yesterday Jennifer Rubin linked to a new poll and pointedly remarked that:

Perhaps the most interesting response comes to this question: “Given that Iran has publicly threatened to annihilate Israel, would Israel be justified in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities?” 67% of Republicans, 47% of Democrats and 57% of Independents answer “yes.” That’s a rather startling and wide gap according to party identification, far wider than the gap regarding the generic “should we care about Israel’s security” query.

She is, no doubt, correct in writing that this is a “wide gap.” However, contrary to what readers might think, a 20% gap on Israel between American Democrats and Republicans is the norm rather than the exception.

Here’s one example from January 2009, regarding the Gaza war:

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

And here you can find two older instances of the gap:

Take, for example, a recent Gallup poll about Americans’ most- and least-favored nations. Israel, fairly popular with Americans, is “viewed more favorably by Republicans than by Democrats,” the survey reports. Eighty-four percent of Republicans rank it favorably, compared with only 64 percent of Democrats. This is hardly a new phenomenon: Back in 2006, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that Republicans favored alignment with Israel over neutrality in the Israeli-Arab conflict 64 percent to 29 percent. By contrast, only 39 percent of Democrats supported alignment with Israel, while 54 percent favored neutrality.

I can list many such examples, but I think the point is clear: Democrats’ support for Israel is not nearly as strong as Republicans’. Not even Democratic activists deny this, as was evident in a 2007 interview with Ira Forman, head of the National Jewish Democratic Council: “Most recent polls,” Forman admitted, “show Republican voters are more supportive than Independents and Democrats. Most of this difference is accounted for by the overwhelming support given to Israel by Evangelical Christians.” That indeed might be the reason for the “gap.” But explaining the gap is just another way of admitting it exists.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu did their thing, and even the fearsome elite punditry isn’t sure if Obama ended up “being the sucker” (Martin Indyk), or if Netanyahu was “outmaneuvered” by the President (David Ignatius).

To me, Obama’s attempt at a new and ambitious peace plan seems demonstrative of the validity of Jacob Weisberg’s judgment the other day: Obama “shows signs of suffering from the arrogance that often accompanies brilliance. It’s unlikely, for instance, that Obama can function as his own grand strategy guru on foreign policy. But he doesn’t seem inclined to give that job to anyone else.”

Yesterday, John Hannah pointedly criticized Obama’s Iran strategy, by saying that “given the history of tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes seeking nuclear arms, we must also acknowledge that the Obama strategy reflects the triumph of hope over experience.” Today we can say a similar thing about his rumored plan for Middle East quick fixes.

Ten days ago, as I was writing about the U.S., Israel and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), I recommended a study by Emily Landau of the Israeli Institute For National Security Studies:

[I]n this 2004 paper, she points to one of the NPT’s most disturbing failures: “the gap between continued expectations of the NPT’s role in preventing nuclear proliferation and its real ability to confront emerging international realities in the guise of states seeking nuclear capability widened.” This happened not because the NPT was poorly implemented, but because the NPT is inherently incapable of halting the spread of nuclear proliferation.

Since this is a fairly old study, I feel obligated to report that Landau just wrote a new one addressing the question on everyone’s minds: The U.S. and the NPT: Israel on the Line?

This question was catalyzed by a statement from Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller. Gottermoeller said that “universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea — also remains a fundamental objective of the United States.” Well, does the Obama administration intend to pick a fight with Israel over an issue that is most sensitive and essential to Israel’s security?

Landau’s updated answer is yes and no.

The “no” is a short-termistic:

[T]he immediate context of the statement underscores that it does not in itself indicate a break with past positions. The timing of the speech was determined by the NPT PrepCom cycle, and within this context it is standard US practice to express support for the NPT, including the hope that all states eventually join.

The “yes” applies to the long-term:

[I]t is difficult to disconnect Gottemoeller’s words from the broader disarmament agenda that President Obama has embraced of late, especially with regard to the expressed need for greater balance of emphasis among the three pillars of the NPT.

And Landau doesn’t forget to explain why an attempt to broker Iran’s denuclearization in exchange for Israel’s denuclearization would not be sensible:

Because proliferation issues are strategic and political, equating Israel with Iran is highly problematic. There are many important differences that distinguish between these two states, not least the fact that Iran cheated for years on its commitment to remain non-nuclear: according to the 2007 NIE, it was actively working on a nuclear weapons program from the 1980s up until at least 2003, while party to the NPT. Moreover, not only has Iran targeted Israel as a state it would like to see eliminated (whereas Israel has never issued any such threats), but it is threatening to disrupt the entire region due to its hegemonic agenda. Israel’s nuclear deterrent is a central linchpin of its defense against an existential threat that Iran is seeking to put in place with its own nuclear activity.

Will this convince “the Sullivans of the blogsphere”? One wonders.

A new survey demonstrates the extent to which Jewish-Arab relations within Israel have been deteriorating in recent months. According to the findings, only 41% of Israeli Arabs support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, compared to 65.6% in 2003.

The poll predates operation Cast Lead in Gaza, so we can only imagine how the numbers look today.

The study, conducted by a Haifa University professor, reveals that  “53.7% of Israeli Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist as an independent state, compared to 81.1% who recognized that in 2003.”

And even more astonishing, “40.5% of Arab Israelis believe the Holocaust never happened” — or so they say. Prof. Sammy Smooha, who conducted the survey, doesn’t actually believe them. He says, “the 40.5 percent denial rate reflects a protest more than actual disbelief in the Holocaust.”

In a radio interview this morning the scholar seemed sympathetic to the view expressed by the “alienated” population of Arab Israelis. One can, however, trust his statistical skills without having to draw the same conclusions. Israeli Jews will likely be disturbed by these findings — but will not blame themselves, or their state for Arab alienation. There is no shortage of Arab leaders’ offensive statements and Arab mobs’ violent demonstrations to remind them of  Jewish estrangement.

The numbers presented today will, no doubt, lead some voters to support the party most focused on suppressing Israel-Arab resistance to Israel’s well being — Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu.

It’s worth remembering that denial is an all too easy form of provocation: Yasir Arafat once denied that a Jewish Temple existed in Jerusalem, saying: “For 34 years they have dug tunnels, the most dangerous of which is the great tunnel. They found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod.” This stupidity never ends.

In the many predictions of what’s going to happen tomorrow in the meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, a lot of attention is being paid to the possibility of Obama demanding a “settlement freeze”:

Settlements will be on the agenda when President Barack Obama, who supports Palestinian statehood, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is skeptical about it, meet at the White House next week. Vice President Joe Biden told Israel supporters in Washington on May 5 that settlement-construction must stop, the strongest statement on the subject so far from the administration.

The problem is the phrase “settlement freeze.” As a slogan it’s catchy, but in practice the discussion between the U.S. and the Israeli government is much more nuanced. There’s the “freeze” on new settlements (Israel doesn’t build any); there’s Israel’s commitment to remove illegal outposts (and the sub-issue of who determines what’s illegal); there’s the issue of building within existing settlements – those that are part of “settlement blocks” (which will presumably remain in Israeli hands according to the 2004 “Bush letter to Sharon”), and those that aren’t part of the blocks; there’s the issue of building only for “natural growth”; there’s, of course, the question of building in greater Jerusalem.

Thus, when Amr Mussa of the Arab League speaks about cessation of Israeli settlement building, it is one thing:

“They [Arab leaders] must not meet with [Netanyahu] if building in the settlements continues and if demolitions of (homes) in Arab villages continue. This will change the demographic balance and undermine our cause,” he said Sunday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East.

Mussa wants to freeze everything — Jerusalem included. But when special international envoy Tony Blair talks about a freeze he presents a much more realistic approach, one similar to the position espoused in the Bush letter:

But in a way for the Palestinians … the biggest problem they have are the restrictions actually right in the heart of their territory. And some of these restrictions, I mean many of them relate to settlements rather than to the protection of Israel proper. So that’s why if they are expanded, and particularly if they are expanded in certain areas, they do change the realities in a way that at a certain point makes it hard to describe a Palestinian state in viable terms.

Blair wants a freeze – but is willing to focus on “certain areas.” Since no Israeli government can agree to freeze in Jerusalem, and most Israeli governments will acknowledge that there’s an Israeli commitment to evacuate outposts, the issues are: what areas should be off limits for new development and whether “natural growth” can be blocked. As I’ve mentioned before, Ehud Barak thinks not – and he isn’t the only left-of-center leader who feels that way. President Shimon Peres, visiting Washington last week, reportedly told Joe Biden that “Israel cannot instruct settlers in existing settlements not to have children or get married.”

The problem with discussing this nuanced topic in superficial terms is that whatever Netanyahu does or says – whatever concessions he makes – he will not be able to take the “freeze” off the table. If he evacuates outposts, if he prohibits all construction in all settlements behind the security fence, there will still be a lot more to freeze – and more to complain about. If Israel drags its feet on the issue it’s because Israeli leaders know this.

Two consecutive polls in Israel converge to constitute a seemingly similar conclusion: Israelis support a two-state solution. But what a difference wording can make.

In YNet yesterday, it was conclusive and definitive:

Some 58% of Israel’s Jewish public backs the “two states for two peoples” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Smith Institute poll commissioned by YNet revealed… According to the poll, which was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled trip to Washington, 37% of Israeli Jews are opposed to the two-state solution, while five percent of those surveyed had no opinion on the matter.

In Haaretz this morning the numbers are similar, but with a caveat:

Asked about the peace process, 57 percent of respondents, or 280 people, said that Netanyahu should tell U.S. President Barack Obama that he supports a two-state solution when he visits Washington next week. Only 35 percent said Netanyahu should not give his consent, while 8 percent were undecided.

So, while the first poll indicates that most Israelis support a two-state solution, the second poll barely reveals that Israelis want Netanyahu to tell Obama he supports a two-state solution. Since the first poll doesn’t even specify the wording of the question asked to respondents, one wonders what it is that Israelis really want… Do respondents who want Netanyahu to tell Obama he supports a two-state solution also support it themselves?

What we do know for sure is that Israelis, frustrated by the performance of their leadership, are already “disappointed” by Netanyahu. The two polls I mentioned support such conclusion, seconded by a score of other polls (if you read Hebrew you can see two examples here and here). In most polls half of Israelis aren’t happy with Netanyahu’s performance so far. A lot of it has to do with the week-long process of approving Israel’s budget, but this makes Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama next week much more complicated politically. If his visit to the U.S. ends on a tense note — the week after his government performed miserably in budget negotiations — the public will grow even more restless and unhappy with his government. Bottom line: politically speaking, Netanyahu has much more to lose than Obama from a dispute. This might not make him a wholehearted supporter of a two-state solution, but it can conceivably push his rhetoric in that direction. Existentially speaking, it’s a whole different matter.

The Israeli version of the Monica Lewinsky scandal has the public captivated. Today, when former President Moshe Katzav appeared in court for the first time — denying allegations of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape — all TV and radio stations live-streamed the event. The former President, who had complained bitterly in the past that the media was sentencing him without ever giving him the benefit of the doubt, took the opportunity to repeat these allegations:

Here I won’t be sentenced without being seen, without being heard, and without having all the material of the investigation read… We are heading out on a long and difficult battle to clear my name. God willing, I will remain innocent.

The most striking element of Katzav’s denial — inspiring déjà vu in American observers — is his claim that he never had any sexual contact with any of the women testifying against him. This undermines the credibility of his version of the disputed events, as Katzav was ready to admit sexual contact had occurred when he negotiated a plea bargain in mid 2007.

Katzav later decided to cancel the bargain his lawyers reached, and the result is the renewed trial that started today. It remains to be seen if the scandal will have the Lewinskyesque legs in the Israeli media.

I don’t know whether this report is accurate but I doubt it is. It reads that “The United States has set October as its target for completing the first round of talks with Iran on its nuclear program, according to confidential reports sent to Jerusalem” — but is based on “classified notice reporting on a meeting between a senior European official and the special U.S. envoy on Iran, Dennis Ross.” That’s second or third hand reporting. Contradicting it, just a week ago, an American official spoke on the record with reporters:

White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer told foreign journalists Wednesday that “it’s not appropriate at this time to be trying to establish timetables, but rather seeing how the engagement can move forward.” 

Contrary to what critics on the left tend to argue, Israel isn’t the only one thinking that a deadline is necessary. Nicholas Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and today a Harvard Professor, had more Iran-related negotiating hours in recent years than anyone, and he seems to think that prolonging the talks will not produce for better results:

“We’ve got to negotiate from a position of strength. We can’t go hat in hand to these negotiations and think by just talking we are going to make progress,” Burns said. Any negotiations with Tehran must have a strict timetable and include a previous agreement with both Russia and China for harsh sanctions if the talks fail, Burns said. And they should be backed up by the possibility of military action, he added.

Assuming that the U.S.-Iran dialogue will start in earnest only after Iran’s June election, October seems like a sensible date to Israel:

“It is important that the dialogue with Iran be limited, and if after three months it will become clear that the Iranians stalling and are not shelving their nuclear program, the international community will be required to take practical measures against them,” Lieberman said in a meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday.

Whether or not there’s some truth to the fresher report from Jerusalem, “deadline” talk will be at the center of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s talk with President Obama next week. According to many reports, Obama realizes that the Iranians might be playing for time, and the Senate report, confirming Israel’s claims that “Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb in six months,” gives Netanyahu some additional ammunition for this meeting. The danger one might detect in the different, sometimes conflicting reports on “deadline yes or no” — is that time can’t only lapse in negotiations with Iran — it can also pass in negotiation over the right deadline for negotiation.

If the Obama administration’s intention was to sow confusion in Israel, it definitely succeeded with the Assistant Secretary of State’s remarks calling for  the Jewish State to “declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal” and become party to a proposed Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — about which Noah wrote yesterday. Two Israeli columnists — both vastly knowledgeable on the subject at hand — have responded to the news today. Bonen Bergman of Israel’s leading paper, Yediot Achronot, raises the red flag:

Is there a connection between Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming meeting with President Obama at the White House and the surprising statement by the American State Department Tuesday? If this is the case, then this is (yet another) worrying harbinger from America’s direction and this time in respect to a particularly sensitive matter.

Aluf Benn of Haaretz raises a white flag:

Israel’s Foreign Ministry rushed to issue calming statements, and justifiably so. The American declaration is nothing new; it has been heard several times before, even during the friendly years of the George W. Bush presidency. President Barack Obama, who has committed in every possible forum to preserve Israel’s security, does not intend to “close Dimona” while Iran threatens to wipe Israel from the map. [Or does he? -- ed.]

There’s a problem with this NPT round of debate — actually, a recurring problem with most NPT debates: this is such a complicated issue that most people writing about it aren’t even close to understanding what’s at stake. So while I do understand the urge, I really see no point in debating the Sullivans of the blogosphere (yesterday he asked  ”Why should the United States have to pretend that Israel has no nuclear weapons when everybody knows it does?”). Fortunately, the dialogue between proliferation professionals in the U.S. and Israel is usually insulated from blogosphere flame-wars. The people Obama has appointed to handle those matters know how to answer the questions to which Sullivan has no answer.

Adding my two cents, I’d rather quote from a serious study by Emily Landau of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Landau, unlike most pundits, knows what she’s talking about, and in this 2004 paper, she points to one of the NPT’s most disturbing failures: “the gap between continued expectations of the NPT’s role in preventing nuclear proliferation and its real ability to confront emerging international realities in the guise of states seeking nuclear capability widened.” This happened not because the NPT was poorly implemented, but because the NPT is inherently incapable of halting the spread of nuclear proliferation. Landau explains:

The extent of the gap today is captured by the following two statements, the first reminding us of what the US anticipated might happen with regard to nuclear development at the time the treaty was being negotiated, and the second representative of the current sense of disillusionment with the NPT, due to its demonstrated inability to stymie determined proliferators:

“After the NPT, many nations can be expected to take advantage of the terms of the treaty to produce quantities of fissionable material…In this way, various nations will attain a well-developed option on a bomb. A number of nations will be able to detonate a bomb within a year following withdrawal from the treaty; others may even shorten this period.”

US Department of State, Policy Planning Council, May 1968

“The [IAEA report on Iran] is a stunning revelation of how far a country can get in making the bomb while pretending to comply with international inspections.”

Gary Milhollin, as quoted in the New York Times, November 13, 2003

“The assessment from 1968 indicates that at the time of negotiation the expectation was that the NPT would in fact very likely not stop a determined proliferator, and may even enable its proliferation. Thirty-five years later, there are expressions of surprise that the NPT was not able to effect what in fact it was never intended to do.”

Next time anyone wonders why Israel sees no point in signing the NPT, let them start by reading this study.

While a vast majority of American Jews feel comfortable with President Obama and hold his policies in high regard, a majority of Israelis don’t yet know what to make of his plans regarding Israel. A newly released survey commissioned by Bar-Ilan University’s BESA center and the Anti Defamation League found that:

While 60 percent of the respondents in the survey said they had either a “somewhat favorable” or “very favorable” opinion of Obama, and 14% said their attitude toward him was unfavorable, only 32% of the respondents said they approved of Obama’s policies toward Israel, and 21% said they disapproved. Fully 47%, however, had no answer regarding those policies, an indication that people were still forming an opinion.

The poll was taken in advance of a conference on U.S.-Israel relations to be held at Bar-Ilan later this week (I’ll be speaking at this event on the question: Does the Democratic Majority have a problem with Israel?). And while it clearly shows that Israelis were not immune to American and international enthusiasm for Obama’s electoral victory, they do make a distinction between admiring his achievements and worrying about his future policies.

While in a similar poll taken last year, 73% of Israelis said “that President Bush’s attitude towards Israel is friendly,” the number willing to say the same of President Obama is much-much smaller (38%). So — “Is there a threat to Israel from the United States under Barack Obama?” Israelis aren’t exactly screaming “no.” They do hold fairly strong and negative opinions of Obama’s prospective policies:

51% do not believe that the U.S. should hold direct talks with Iran (32% support such talks).

63% believe that American “reconciliation with the Muslim and Arab world” will come at “Israel’s expense.”

Only 5% have a “great deal of confidence” in Obama’s ability “to make the right decisions” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (32% have “some” confidence, 37% “little” or “very little” confidence).

Israel’s president Shimon Peres is supposed to relay these concerns — toned down, of course — to Obama in a conversation today. But at least on Iran, Peres’s message is predictable: if you must talk, talk. But Israelis are getting restless. As Eric noted, nearly 66% said in the poll that they’ll support an Israeli attack on Iran, and 75%of those who support a strike will not flinch even if the Obama administration were to oppose such a move.

In a long interview with Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak one can read a lot of gossipy detail about the man and the Labor Party, but also learn a few important things:

1. Barak (at least for now) isn’t planning on being the opposition within the coalition. Especially endearing are the words he has for none other than Israel Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman:

“Behind Lieberman are hundreds of thousands of voters who gave him 15 Knesset seats,” Barak says. “Some of the people who are now with him were formerly my comrades. I served in the army with [Yitzhak] Aharonovitch, Sofa Landver was a member of Labor and Danny Ayalon was my political secretary and I promoted him.”

How do you feel about being part of a coalition government with Yisrael Beiteinu?

Barak: “Their people and voters are absolutely fine, and Lieberman is a member of the same government of which I am a member and I respect him now.”

2. There’s no daylight between Barak’s position of expanding settlements and Netanyahu’s:

First of all, we have nothing against that [expansion] within the [existing] settlement blocs. We also say to the Americans that we believe – in accordance with a letter from president George W. Bush, too – that they should be part of Israel even in a final-status agreement. In the settlements, in the isolated ones on the other side of the [security] fence, the only things that are happening are expansions that I would say are for natural needs.

3. Barak strongly believes that peace with the Palestinians depends on the latter’s ability to have a government with which Israel can cut a deal:

Do you think that a Palestinian leader possessing broad authority could reach a settlement with us within a few months?

“In my opinion, yes.”

4. Barak doesn’t shy away from promoting ideas similar to Netanyahu’s controversial “Economic peace” – only he uses different language. Since the interview was not translated fully, here’s the relevant answer, which can be found only in the Hebrew edition:

Think for a minute on the regional context. Without interfering with the Palestinian track and other tracks to run the course that’s viable for them, imagine that we start a dialogue on big regional projects. For example, Turkey. In eastern Turkey there’s a lot of available water, and in parts of Syria, Jordan, in the Palestinian Authority there’s thirst. Imagine what happens if we create a set of trust building steps between us and the Arab world. It starts with small things – like flying to Bangkok not through Nairobi, and shortening the flight by three hours…

But these are small steps…

Yes, these things, presumably baby steps. Exchanging scholars – even Middle East experts between universities in the Gulf and Tel Aviv of Haifa University. These small steps break barriers.

5. He believes, “We are not in a position of being able to tell the Americans whether to talk to the Iranians,” but advises against delusional policies: “learn from the professionals about what is going on in Iran, what they are doing behind the smokescreen, acquaint yourselves with the intelligence material, and from this you will understand that they are working determinedly to deceive, confuse and blur things, and that under the headline of ‘nuclear power for peaceful purposes,’ they are striving to achieve military nuclear capability.”

The next paragraph was also omitted from the translation:

If Iran keeps moving toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons, without being stopped, this will break all international barriers, and we will enter a process of nuclear race because Egypt and Turkey wouldn’t stand still, neither would Saudi Arabia. It will be a situation in which within 10-15 years we will find nuclear material at the hands of a terror group that will attack in New York, Antwerp or Ashdod.

Perhaps that point should be reiterated in several more languages.

A couple of days ago, James Kirchick and I both wrote about the dissenting position taken by the dovish Jewish lobby on the Gaza operation. Here’s Kirchick:

[A]t a time when the vast majority of Israelis and American Jews support what Israel is doing, J Street steps out of the shadows as the voice of communal dissent, joined by the likes of the United Nations and the Guardian editorial board (even the Arab League tacitly supports what Israel is doing, seeing that Hamas is an Iranian front). J Street has the right to its extreme leftist, capitulationist opinions, but it does not have the right to claim, as Ben-Ami once did, that it represents the “broad, sensible mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews.”

An article in the Jewish Forward, written by rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism — a liberal Jewish organization, no doubt — proves that Kirchick was right: J Street can’t claim to represent the American Jewish majority. It can’t even claim to represent the view of a liberal Jewish majority. Yoffie, a liberal himself, as even J Street acknowledges, writes this:

It is not easy for me to write these words. I welcomed the founding of J Street and know many of those involved in its leadership. Furthermore, I am a dove myself. I support a two-state solution, believe that military action by Israel should be a last resort and welcome an active American role in promoting peace between Israel and her neighbors. But I know a mistake when I see one, and this time J Street got it very wrong.

The handlers of J Street didn’t like Yoffie’s article, to put it mildly:

It is hard for us to understand how the leading reform rabbi in North America could call our effort to articulate a nuanced view on these difficult issues “morally deficient.” If our views are “naïve” and “morally deficient”, then so are the views of scores of Israeli journalists, security analysts, distinguished authors, and retired IDF officers who have posed the same questions about the Gaza attack as we have.

Yet they provide little evidence or sources regarding these “analysts” and “authors.” Do they even exist? In fact, when the operation started, most dovish Israelis, among them authors Amos Oz and A.B Yehushua — the Left’s unofficial deans — supported it. Truth be told, a growing camp within the Israeli Left now supports a cease-fire — but very few opposed the operation in its initial stages the way J Street did. As I’ve shown here, even the left-wing Meretz Party supported the operation when it started.

And even assuming that Meretz’s position is more in sync with the one espoused by J Street today, it is still not the position of Israel’s Left — not even by a stretch — unless by the Left what we really mean is the radical Left. The centrist Kadima and the center-left Labor are part of the coalition managing the war. Meretz — according to most polls — represents barely 5% of Israel’s population. If J Street argues that a similar percentage — or even double that percentage — or even five times that percentage of American Jews agree with them — it is still far from the “broad mainstream” they claim to represent.