What makes a pro-Israel president?

In Obama and the Jews Thomas Friedman writes:

What does that tell you? It tells me several things. The first is that America today has — rightly — a bipartisan approach to Arab-Israeli peace that is not going to change no matter who becomes our next president. America, whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, is now committed to a two-state solution in which the Palestinians get back the West Bank, Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem, and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank, offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel.

That of course the final deal that Friedman “knows” everyone accepts. At this point I’d ask what “offsetting land?” If that wasn’t enough to get Arafat to stand down from the Aqsa intifada in early 2001, why should it even be on the table at this point?

But I don’t agree that there’s a bi-partisan agreement. Part of the difference will be what aspects of the peace process will be emphasized. Sure President Bush (as Friedman notes) has complained about Israel building on its own territory. But that hasn’t been his emphasis. I suspect that it would be the emphasis of a President Obama, so emphasis is not trivial, because it will presage how well the President will work with Israel and with how much tension.

President Bush, as Friedman doesn’t point out, did lay out what he saw were Palestinian obligations. These are points that President Bush doesn’t emphasize enough anymore. Peace will not come, as Friedman would have it, if Israel would just stop building “settlements.” There needs to be a change of mindset among the Palestinians that has not happened. Nor is it likely to happen any time soon.

Friedman then goes on:

The notion that a President Barack Obama would have a desire or ability to walk away from this consensus American position is ludicrous. But given the simmering controversy over whether Mr. Obama is “good for Israel,” it’s worth exploring this question: What really makes a pro-Israel president?Personally, as an American Jew, I don’t vote for president on the basis of who will be the strongest supporter of Israel. I vote for who will make America strongest. It’s not only because this is my country, first and always, but because the single greatest source of support and protection for Israel is an America that is financially and militarily strong, and globally respected. Nothing would imperil Israel more than an enfeebled, isolated America.

And while granting that President Bush’s empathy for Israel is a positive he writes:

But what matters a lot more is that under Mr. Bush, America today is neither feared nor respected nor liked in the Middle East, and that his lack of an energy policy for seven years has left Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies — the petro-dictators and the terrorists they support — stronger than ever. The rise of Iran as a threat to Israel today is directly related to Mr. Bush’s failure to succeed in Iraq and to develop alternatives to oil.

This is convoluted. Two of the things that have led to the growing Iranian influence in the Middle East have been the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and from Gaza, strengthening both Hezbollah and Hamas two Iranian proxies. These two retreats are policies that Friedman supported without reservation. It would be nice if he were capable of admitting his mistake.

The failure in Iraq isn’t what’s strengthened Iran. It has given Iran a new battleground. Still it was the deposing of Saddam that’s strengthened Iran. At least for now. But would a strong Saddam still in power be less of a threat?

As far as the oil argument it’s totally in the realm of science fiction. No president can decree that alternatives can be found. These are works in progress. Science does not advance in response to fiat.

The first, and most important, is the situation on the ground and the readiness of the parties themselves to take the lead, irrespective of what America is doing. Anwar Sadat’s heroic overture to Israel, and Menachem Begin’s response, made the Jimmy Carter-engineered Camp David peace treaty possible. The painful, post-1973 war stalemate between Israel and Egypt and Syria made Henry Kissinger’s disengagement agreements possible. The collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s defeat of Iraq in the first gulf war made possible James Baker’s success in putting the Madrid peace process together.What all three of these U.S. statesmen had in common, though — and this is the second criterion — was that when history gave them an opening, they seized it, by being tough, cunning and fair with both sides.

What got Anwar Sadat to got Jerusalem? Why it was Jimmy Carter’s efforts to draw the Soviet Union back into the Middle East peace making after Sadat had expelled the Soviets. Jimmy Carter was the beneficiary of his own incompetence.

And James Baker got the Madrid conference going. What exactly did that accomplish? It perhaps set the table for Oslo, which then enabled Arafat to launch terror from immediately on Israel’s borders and eventually to the Aqsa intifada. Again, what exactly did it accomplish?

I don’t want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs’ face too, or one who, as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it, “loves Israel to death” — by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America’s interest, like building settlements all over the West Bank.

I know about the second. That’s been a theme of Friedman’s ever since he’s had an op-ed column (and perhaps even longer.) However he does indeed agree with the former. Here’s Friedman from 1996, putting words into President Clinton’s mouth:

”In the meantime, some free advice. First, surprise everyone: Close the tunnel door. Announce that while Israel is fully within its rights as the sovereign power in Jerusalem to open the new tunnel door, this issue has become so inflamed, and become such a distraction from your real objective of building a secure peace, that you have decided to review the tunnel-door issue and will close it meanwhile. Yes, some of your hard-line colleagues will criticize you, and the press will say you flip-flopped. But the majority will see it as a real act of statesmanship. It will deprive your critics of the argument that you’re out to scuttle peace and it will force everyone to give you a second look.

What had just happened. Netanyahu had presided over the opening of a tunnel in Jerusalem. Arafat had, in response, organized a response of terrorism, known as the “tunnel riots.” According to Nadav Shragai, Netanyahu had cleared the tunnel opening with the Wakf in advance. So Netanyahu took a step, that should have been uncontroversial, Arafat betrayed his commitment to forswear terror and Friedman thought it correct for Clinton to lean on Israel and not get in Arafat’s face.

Back to the present, and Friedman’s conclusion:

It’s a tricky business. But if Israel is your voting priority, then at least ask the right questions about Mr. Obama. Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what’s in his heart on Israel (what was in Richard Nixon’s heart?) and focus first on what kind of America you think he’d build and second on whether you believe that as president he’d have the smarts, steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises.

I’ve been pretty open about my misgivings about Sen. Obama. This so-called “whispering campaign” is simply a new synonym for “criticizing Sen. Obama.”

I don’t know what was in President Nixon’s heart, but when the chips were down in 1973 he did send weapons to Israel. And for all his professed love of Israel, President Clinton in 2000, when Israel responded to the Aqsa intifada signed onto a condemnation of Israel in the UN. Who would I expect a President Obama to be more similar too?

In comments below, my co-blogger Daled Amos had a very sensible way of looking at the candidates:

I agree that McCain is preferable to Obama, but I would not go so far as to say that McCain “loves” Israel–I would not even go so far as to say that he is a friend of Israel. McCain is pro-Israel to the degree that he sees that the interests (and existence) of Israel dovetails with the interests of the US. That is the most that we can expect of any US candidate/President.

That’s a lot more realistic and honest that anything Thomas Friedman wrote:

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.