The Israeli press must have been happy to wake up this morning. While the arrival of American Vice President Joe Biden in Israel was an event, no one expected much more from it than the usual exhortations of goodwill and a few gestures toward reviving the peace process. Yesterday’s announcement by the interior ministry that it has approved the building of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a religious neighborhood in East Jerusalem, however, handed our hapless press corps nothing less than a full-blown diplomatic incident.
The circumstances under which the plans were approved and announced remain unclear, with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Eli Yishai claiming that it took place without their knowledge and professing their embarrassment over the timing of the announcement. According to Haaretz, Yishai professed on Israeli radio that “The district committees approve plans weekly without informing me,” and “If I’d have known, I would have postponed the authorization by a week or two since we had no intention of provoking anyone.”
The report goes on to say,
Netanyahu told Biden during their meeting in Jerusalem earlier in the day that he had had no prior knowledge of the decision to authorize the additional construction, and added that the program had been drafted three years ago and only received initial authorization that day. It could take several months, Netanyahu assured him, before the program is granted final approval.
It is true that the Netanyahu government has been quite explicit about not including Jerusalem in its voluntarily settlement freeze, and that the plans in question have been given only technical approval and may never actually be put into effect. Given the labyrinthine nature of Israeli government bureaucracy, moreover, it is at least plausible that both men were genuinely ignorant of what their own subordinates were doing. Nonetheless, the Obama administration, currently struggling at home, is attempting to salvage its reputation in the Middle East by restarting negotiations and Ramat Shlomo is over the Green Line in the East Jerusalem the Palestinians claim as their future capital. As anyone could have predicted, the Palestinians are now up in arms, negotiations may be once again in jeopardy, and there is no doubt that, as a result, Biden is extremely displeased. Indeed, according to Haaretz, the vice president responded to the announcement by issuing a written statement that read, in part, “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units…. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.” This is the rough diplomatic equivalent of a shrieking fit of rage.
Given Netanyahu’s preference for appearing stable, statesmanlike, and in control, not to mention his own enormous personal investment in the special relationship with the United States, none of this can be particularly encouraging. A man who has built much of his career on image and on controlling that image, Netanyahu now looks weak, feckless, and barely in control of his own government. Ben Caspit, a columnist for the Hebrew daily Maariv, summed up the situation in scathing terms that have, unfortunately, yet to appear in English. In my own crude translation, Caspit states in part that Biden “arrived here in order to try and rebuild the chemistry between the White House and Jerusalem, to dispel suspicions, to create some kind of relationship, maybe a new beginning. And what happened? Within a quarter of an hour, we lost him too.” Employing two extremely derogatory Yiddish terms, he concludes, “The shlemiel is the one who dumps hot soup over the shlemazel. Benjamin Netanyahu is both.”
Caspit’s rhetoric may be – in the finest tradition of the Israeli media – unduly harsh, but there is no doubt that Netanyahu has some damage control to undertake. The question that immediately springs to mind, however, is how did such a diplomatic debacle occur? If the announcement and its timing were, in fact, intentional, a handful of possible scenarios immediately suggest themselves. They are, of course, speculative, but in the wasp’s nest that is Israeli politics, they are not entirely out of the question.
If Interior Minister Eli Yishai was aware of the announcement and Netanyahu was not, as Caspit himself hints, then one must keep in mind that Yishai is not from Netanyahu’s Likud party, but rather the religious Shas party. Yishai does not answer to Netanyahu, but to his party’s “spiritual leader,” an elderly and easily irritated rabbi named Ovadia Yosef. Historically speaking, Shas has tended to play the role of power broker in various coalitions, and it is not impossible that Yosef, Yishai, or both decided to take this opportunity to remind Netanyahu that Shas remains a powerful independent member of the coalition that is more than ready to play the spoiler should the need arise. Moreover, while Shas tends to be more dovish than some of the other religious parties, they were less than thrilled with the settlement freeze and the Obama administration in general, and may have decided to take it upon themselves to remind the Americans of who actually controls Jerusalem; something with which, ironically, Netanyahu may not be entirely unhappy.
It is also possible, of course, that Netanyahu was himself aware of the announcement and its timing, and allowed it to go forward. While this seems unlikely, given his need for US approval of a possible military strike on the Iranian nuclear program, it is at least plausible for two reasons: First, it would signal to Netanyahu’s right wing coalition partners that he will not bow to American pressure to make unacceptable concessions – particularly in regard to Jerusalem – and that he is willing to absorb considerable political damage as a result.
Second, it would play into what may be Netanyahu’s long term strategy in regard to the Obama administration. He may be convinced (as many Israelis are) that Obama is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to Israel’s interests, and that any serious resumption of the peace process at Obama’s hands can only be to Israel’s disadvantage. As a result, Netanyahu’s plan may be to simply wait Obama out. Aware of the fact that American public opinion is still overwhelmingly pro-Israel and equally aware of Obama’s growing domestic unpopularity, Netanyahu could simply be playing out the clock until the midterm American elections in November, expecting – not unreasonably – that the Democrats will be handed a major defeat and a far weaker and more pliant Obama administration will be the result.
If this is the case, then Netanyahu’s tactics would be well within the Israeli political tradition. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, for example, tended to feign illness in order to stave off meetings at which uncomfortable demands would be made. While he has done nothing so crude, Netanyahu may nonetheless have succeeded in staving off the possibility of painful negotiations – and possible concessions – at relatively low political cost and, in terms of his coalition, possible political advantage.
All this being said, the most likely scenario is indeed the most obvious: that this incident is the result of bureaucratic mismanagement and extremely bad timing. Even if this is the case, however, the long term advantages Netanyahu may gain in the face of a short term debacle are still real. Any good politician has to be able to turn crisis into opportunity when the need arises, and for better or worse, Netanyahu is an excellent politician.
Benjamin Kerstein is Senior Writer for The New Ledger.
