What President Obama should say after meeting with Netanyahu

While Vice-President Joe Biden was in Israel two weeks ago, the Israeli Interior Ministry’s District Committee for Planning and Construction approved the addition of 1,600 housing units in an east Jerusalem neighborhood beyond the Green Line. The ill-timed announcement has led to a very public spat between the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Some experts believe that the Obama administration’s reaction has given comfort to common enemies of America and Israel, such as Iran.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington, D.C. to speak at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference. On Tuesday, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Obama at the White House. Here is what President Obama should say after the meeting to diffuse the current imbroglio.

Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu and I had a long, productive conversation. We discussed many topics, including our recent public disagreement on settlement expansion.  While my position remains unchanged on the issue, the crux of the matter is this: Israel and the United States had an unbreakable bond before our public spat, have an unbreakable bond today, and will have an unbreakable bond long after anyone even remembers our recent disagreements.  

Let’s be clear. America’s relationship with Israel goes to the very core of who we are as country. Israel and the United States are both nations of immigrants who founded open societies after fleeing religious persecution. Politically, we our both democratic countries dedicated to liberal values. Morally, we both have committed ourselves to upholding the highest human rights standards, even in the midst of the most terrible conflicts.

And America’s connection to Israel is more than a temporary strategic alliance. It exists far beyond the political corridors of Washington. It is manifest everyday on the most personal of levels. Americans of all different religious and ethnic backgrounds feel a deep kinship and closeness to Israel. American college students regularly study abroad in Israel, American believers travel there in great numbers on religious tours every year, American innovators work with Israeli innovators on a daily basis to create the trappings of the modern world we too often take for granted, and American and Israeli scientists routinely collaborate to heal the sick and alleviate suffering all around the world. I could go on, but suffice it to say that the bonds our two countries share ideologically, economically, spiritually, and scientifically are extensive and deep.

Those who have suggested that I seek to weaken the special relationship between the United States and Israel are grossly misguided. I, like most Americans, share a very special fondness for this tiny Jewish democracy that has survived and prospered in the face of near constant conflict since its birth just over 60 years ago. I share the view expressed by Vice-President Biden when he was in Israel two weeks ago: You need not be a Jew to be a Zionist.  

And the truth of the matter is that even if I wanted to weaken America’s special bond with Israel, it would a difficult task to accomplish, not because of some all-powerful Israel lobby of myth, but because the American people simply wouldn’t tolerate it. There may be no issue that garners more grassroots, bi-partisan support from the American people than support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

This is all to say that those enemies the United States and Israel who may have taken comfort in the recent public spat between our two nations should understand that their comfort is misguided. Let me be more precise: As I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu in our meeting today, the United States remains committed to preventing the Iranian government from obtaining nuclear weapons.

We remain committed to stopping Iranian nuclear proliferation not just because it would be an intolerable threat to Israel, but also because a nuclear capable Iran would be an intolerable threat to the United States of America. At this very moment, members of my administration are working hard with Congress and world leaders to craft tough sanctions on Iran to encourage them to abandon their nuclear program. We will work tirelessly to do what is necessary to make clear to the Iranian government that nuclear proliferation is not in their national interest—peacefully if we can, by other means if we must.

Israel has outlasted dictators who have tried to destroy it throughout its short history and it will undoubtedly be a thriving, prosperous democracy long after those modern hostile voices calling for its destruction have been long forgotten. And because of this reality, I believe it is of the utmost importance, most of all for Israel and its neighbors, that there is a peaceful resolution to the long simmering Israeli-Arab dispute—a solution that creates a secure Israeli state recognized by all its neighbors as well as an independent Palestinian state.

I will continue to work with Israeli leaders, Palestinian leaders, and other Arab leaders toward this end. I can’t promise that there won’t be other disagreements between our two countries along the way. Some of these disagreements may even become public. But no one should ever question the special bond that exists between the United States and Israel, and the resolve that both our countries have in working together to do whatever is necessary to confront common adversaries who threaten both our nations.

Jamie Weinstein holds a master’s degree in the history of international relations from the London School of Economics and is a columnist for The North Star National. He can be reached via his blog, JamieWeinstein.com