WarSclerotic

Keeping up warm relations, Israel Hayom, Shlomo Cesanam, November 6, 2015

(Please see also, Obama rules out Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before leaving office. — DM)

Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis, seen with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in the Knesset, says the two-state solution is “dead.” | Photo credit: Noam Revkin-Fenton

The imminent meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama won’t repair their soured ties, but it’s clear that their face-offs are on hold as Israel and the U.S. prepare to deal with Middle East instability.

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Two weeks ago, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon met with his American counterpart Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The defense secretary accompanied Ya’alon everywhere: to a memorial service at the Israeli Embassy marking 20 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on a visit to the American Cyber Command at Fort Meade, in a dialogue with students and to a laid-back meal at the Pentagon, at which a military choir performed “Jerusalem of Gold” accompanied by a violinist. The Americans promise that the warm welcome Ya’alon received will continue — even if not with the same intensity — for another two days, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to land in Washington, ahead of a Monday meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.

The meeting will not obliterate the soured relations between the two leaders. They “did not have a chance to meet” this year, but they did manage to publicly face off on important issues and policies. The main bone of contention is of course the understandings reached between six world powers on Iran’s nuclear program. Nevertheless, it is clear to everyone that the confrontations are over as is the discussion of whether the tension between the two leaders harmed the relations between their respective nations. Both sides agree that the threats, challenges and mutual interests supersede the various disagreements, and that new arrangements must be made for the future.

The agenda of the meeting will address coordination on a strategic outlook for the region. Two specific issues are up for discussion: Preserving Israel’s qualitative advantage over the rest of the countries in the region, and American aid to strengthen Israel during the next 10 years. The aforementioned edge was created as a result of the nuclear deal with Iran and the “compensation packages” the U.S. handed out to its allies in the Persian Gulf — first and foremost Saudi Arabia, but also countries like Jordan and Egypt. The aid comes in the form of information, technology, financial aid, weapons and ammunition.

The American aid will be provided under a 10-year plan. Former President George W. Bush signed the last aid deal, which expires at the end of 2017. Israel expects to fill up a “shopping cart” with items that already appear on a long list of requests, including a bump in the amount of defense assistance from $3.1 billion to $4 billion.

Since the deal will only take effect two years from now, diplomatic officials are discussing two separate lists: one for the long term, and a second that will give Israel the help it needs to preserve its advantage. The goals of the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama are based on the assumption that the Middle East is unstable, and will remain so for the next decade. That assumption is backed up by reports from teams of professionals in both the U.S. and Israel.

The bottom line, a member of Israel’s Diplomatic-Security Cabinet said this week, is that “the U.S. and Israel are in sync. They see eye to eye on the existing situation and have identical assessments of the changing situation in the region.”

Both Israel and the U.S., for example, agree that even after the Iran nuclear deal, the Tehran regime is no less dangerous. They both know that the Iranian money that was unfrozen when the sanctions were lifted, is already going to fund terrorism.

Netanyahu and Obama are going to talk about strategy, as the proposals for aid to bolster Israel are already known. But because in our region it is hard to know what the day will bring, both sides have built a model according to which “a variety of measures to provide a variety of solutions to a variety of threats” must be offered. The discussion in the White House will deal with all of the security ties between the two countries: Long-term financial aid; cooperation on cybersecurity; air, land, sea, and satellite power; intelligence; technological and defense development, including more Iron Dome batteries and similar defense systems, and the promotion of solutions that are still being developed. On everything relating to the immediate and broad-scale answer, Israel is asking for a way of defending itself against long-range and precision-guided missiles.

Netanyahu and Obama will also have to decide whether the time has come to strike a reciprocity deal — a defense pact between the two nations — that does not include a requirement to inform each other of certain covert actions, such as an attack on Iran. A deal like that would provide an answer for any scenario in which Iran breaks through to a nuclear bomb before the deal on its nuclear program is up.

“We left Gaza — and what did we get?”

But the headaches do not end there. When Netanyahu returns from the U.S., he will be facing two other important events: passing the state budget, which will among other things determine the defense budget, and the scheduled release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from a U.S. prison, which will mark the end of a long dispute with the Americans on the Pollard matter.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama is seen with utmost importance. Many officials at the diplomatic echelon argue that the meeting explains Netanyahu’s conduct these past few weeks: his measured responses to events in the field, the ban on MKs visiting the Temple Mount, the delay on committee discussions about construction in Jerusalem, and his remark that comparatively speaking, he is the prime minister who has allowed the least amount of building in Judea and Samaria.

On the other hand, Netanyahu is not hiding his official policy that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner with whom a peace deal can be made and that for now, Israel’s security and defense prowess in Judea and Samaria must be solidified without any visible changes.

The opposition and some media outlets have voiced criticism of Ya’alon, who is being accused of wanting to “manage” the conflict with the Palestinians and of directing “a policy of carrots” rather than finding a solution to it. Netanyahu, on the other hand, is accused of marking time and cultivating a vision in which we will “always live by the sword.”

The criticism is local, but it echoes throughout the world. That is why it was important to Netanyahu to issue a reply this week: “I’m not deceiving the public. We are living in the heart of radical Islam, and no policy we adopt will turn our neighbors into Norwegians or Swedes. We withdrew from every last [inch] of the Gaza Strip and didn’t get peace, [we got] rockets and terrorism. Therefore — with an arrangement or without one — we will always need the IDF to protect ourselves.”

Netanyahu is arriving in Washington as the head of a narrow right-wing government, most of whose members oppose a two-state solution. A member of his own Likud party, Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis, said twice this week — at a weekend cultural event in Beersheba and at a Likud conference in Kfar Saba — that “the two-state solution is dead.”

According to Akunis, “the idea is irrelevant and is no longer at all possible.”

The understandings and agreements between Israel and the U.S. are also tied into the American and European demand to “end the occupation” at any price and “prevent apartheid.” While the security and defense factor is in place, Israel has no solution when it comes to the world’s demands on the Palestinian issue.