Get free updates via

• Email
• Web/RSS Feed
• Facebook
• Twitter

• Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler (jerusalem)
• Friday, January 01, 2010
• Inter Press Service

As a result, just when his natural allies are turning against him, suddenly, Obama is being crowned by Israelis as a solid statesman who may yet hold the key to constructive conflict resolution.

A year ago, before Obama was elected, the staid British weekly ‘The Economist’ ran on its website a ‘global electoral college’ to show voting patterns by people around the world had they been able to participate in the choice for the next U.S. leader.

In only two countries did voters favour Republican candidate John McCain over Obama - Macedonia and Israel. In Israel, sentiment was 56-44 against Obama. In a few other spots of simmering conflict, such as Georgia where there was hope for a tough U.S. policy, the contest was even. Elsewhere, Obama enjoyed an enthusiastic embrace.

In the wake of Obama’s triumph, the stern attitude among Israelis about what they portray as 'the severity of the ways of the world' was re-enforced.

With Obama eight months into the White House, a poll conducted jointly by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research and the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University showed just 12 percent of Israelis describing his policies as 'supportive of Israel'.

Despite the political context — Obama’s Cairo speech and his insistence on a total Israeli settlement freeze - the poll indicated that 64 percent of Palestinians found Obama's policy more 'supportive of Israel', whereas 40 percent of Israelis thought it was the other way round and that he was identifying with Palestinian demands.

All of a sudden, there is a remarkable turnabout, at least in the Israeli perception.

On the eve of the recent Nobel Peace Award ceremony - as if Israelis had the political prescience to forecast Obama’s own turnabout speech in Stockholm - a poll by the Washington-based New America Foundation found 41 percent of Israelis now rate Obama 'favourably', against 37 percent who rate him 'unfavourably'.

Aluf Benn, Israel’s top diplomatic correspondent, captured that mindset in his column in the popular ‘Haaretz’ newspaper. What he calls Obama’s 'Realist Manifesto' strikes a realistic cord with the ordinary Israeli.

'The U.S. president summed up his political worldview in seven words: ‘‘I face the world as it is. Not, that is, as Messiah, not as prophet, and not as dreamer. Rather, as a leader who recognises the limits of human nature and sees statecraft as a power game. A leader who envisions the highest ideals, but who understands that they cannot be attained through willpower and persuasion alone.'

Since the controversial Obama 'make-war-to-make-peace' speech, there has not been another poll. But there is little doubt that the trend continues - a marked recovery by the president in Israeli public opinion.

Said one well-placed Israeli official: 'It’s not that Israelis are coming around to what used to be projected as the ‘Obama way’, but that they feel he now recognises that change can happen, but only if it’s not pie-in-the-sky.’’

The official who prefers to remain anonymous added: ‘’When he was nominated for the prize, most of us were sceptical. But now, with his acceptance speech, most people feel the president is coming to terms with the way we see the wider problems of the Middle East and the sober way in which they need to be addressed.’’

What sways Israelis is not the charm of Obama’s rhetoric but that he is not afraid to go against expectations of a ‘Prince of Peace,’ and that he acknowledges that, sometimes, he may have to don the mantle of ‘Prince of War’.

As for Benjamin Netanyahu, Benn used to be an unmitigated critic. In recent months, he has lauded the 'change' in the Israeli prime minister and the 'wisdom' of his piece-meal approach to peace-making with the Palestinians.

After Netanyahu’s two difficult encounters with Obama, and his flagrant tripping-up of the Obama peace initiative that was built on Israel accepting his demand for a settlement freeze, Benn still went so far as to advise his readers that Netanyahu should be 'trusted' not to lead Israel into a dreaded confrontation with the White House.

He lists the points that, in his view, U.S. and Israeli leaders share. Of their most recent respective policy decisions — Netanyahu's partial settlement freeze and Obama's stepping-up of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan - Benn writes: 'Both came out against their own political base: Netanyahu against the Right, Obama against the Left. Both ignored ideology: Netanyahu has surrendered ‘the right of Jews to live anywhere in the Land of Israel,’ and Obama has given up on peaceful conflict resolution.'

Even the ‘New York Times’ seems ready to accord credence to this popular Israeli conception that Netanyahu understands the realities of power.

Contrary to most international headlines which cast the Israeli leader in the role of ‘prince of war’, the paper buys into the Israeli reading that Netanyahu is transforming into a peace-maker, in the very way that Obama has moved in the opposite direction.

Under the heading 'Uneasy role: Netanyahu, the conciliator,' a Times dispatch from Jerusalem reports uncritically, 'There is a school of thought, both here and in Washington, that Mr Netanyahu is going through the same shift experienced by previous hawks who became more conciliatory as prime minister.'

There is residual refusal to accept the thesis that Netanyahu and Obama are operating on the same plane from those who still hold the conviction that Obama remains ‘prince of peace’ and Netanyahu ‘prince of war’.

But, sources in the prime minister’s office acknowledge that Netanyahu is banking on this conception of new-found 'common qualities' between him and the U.S. leader and that it will lead to a restored confluence of interests between Israel and the US. And, that, it might even create what had seemed most unlikely just months ago — a vibrant alliance between Obama and Netanyahu personally.

An outstanding question remains, however: Will this Israeli projection of 'similarities' between Obama and Netanyahu in fact translate into an agreed policy,

Or, in contrast, will Obama be able to build on his surprising new popularity in Israel finally to prod Netanyahu in the direction the U.S. chooses for Middle East peace-making?

Until now, Netanyahu has largely called the shots.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

Other options