WASHINGTON – The US administration famously tried to “reset” the relationship
with Russia at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first term. To
reinforce the fresh start, then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton presented
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a mock red “reset”
button.
Unfortunately, in a harbinger of how that effort would fare, the
Russian on the button was spelled incorrectly, reading “overcharged” instead of
“reset.”
Now there’s a new term, and with it a new reset.
This
time, instead of Clinton traveling to Europe, Obama will fly to Israel to offer
his own words to open a new chapter with Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
So far, it appears that “shalom” – peace – won’t be one of
them.
The statement recited by the White House Tuesday after Israeli
media reported on the visit made no mention of working to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, it referred to Obama and Netanyahu
discussing “the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern,
including Iran and Syria.”
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay
Carney said, “We have here obviously a second term for the president, a new
administration and a new government in Israel, and that’s an opportune time for
a visit like this that is not focused on specific Middle East peace process
proposals.”
He noted that while the subject would presumably come up in
Obama’s meetings with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas, “That is not the purpose of this visit.”
While those words aren’t
encouraging for those who want to see Obama get personally involved in the peace
process in his second term, it does suggest that his effort to turn over a new
page with the Israeli government could succeed.
For starters, the White
House is setting expectations low. High expectations – with US demands for
Israelis, Palestinians and Arab states that were never met – contributed to
dooming Obama’s first-term peace effort. And dashed hopes can ultimately be as
destructive to the peace process as violence, so Israeli officials believe that
not raising false ones is an important part of managing the conflict until a
solution is reached.
Obama also miscalculated early on in his term when
he thought that he could win the backing of the Israeli people for his peace
program by going over the head of Netanyahu and appealing to them directly –
from Washington.
Aside from the fact that Israelis had just elected
Netanyahu, indicating that they supported his diplomatic program, the public
didn’t take it well when Obama spoke to them from the Oval Office but stopped by
Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in person.
This time, the first foreign
travel announcement for Obama’s new term is to Israel, suggesting the lesson has
been learned.
“Given that the president’s approval ratings in Israel are
not so high, it gives the Israeli people an opportunity to see the president up
close and personal, and that’s a good thing,” said Robert Danin, who previously
headed the Jerusalem mission of Quartet representative Tony Blair. “It allows
Obama to establish new ties with not only the Israeli government but also the
Israeli people.”
He added, “It’s less important on the policy level than
on the psychological level.”
Aaron David Miller, a former State
Department adviser on the peace process, agreed that the trip was much more
about repairing a frayed relationship than working out the details of dealing
with Iran or the Palestinians. Obama, Miller assessed, had realized that if he
wanted to be able to make progress on those issues, he needed to establish a better rapport with Netanyahu.
“Whether that works or not is anyone’s
guess, but it’s heading in the right direction,” said Miller, who has called the
relationship between the two men the most dysfunctional he has seen between an
Israeli and American leader.
Whatever the long-term payout, Obama’s visit
to Israel does at least firmly demonstrate that the president is committed to
trying a new approach.
“It requires a bold step,” Danin said. “And
this is a bold step.”
Obama would not be the first president to try a
different, less confrontational tack with Israel in a second term, according to
Steven Spiegel, a UCLA political science professor who studies American foreign
policy in the Middle East.
“Generally presidents go easier on Israel in
their second term,” he said. “They discover that working with Israel works
better.”
Referring to historical precedents, Spiegel said that presidents
often think that if they pressure Israel they will get results from the Arab
states, but that frustration with Arab leaders who don’t deliver often leads
them to reassess how they engage with Israel.
“Disappointment with the
Arab side tends to move in,” he said, “and presidents learn that tension doesn’t
get them what they want.”
Now, he said, “It’s likely that Obama, having
learned the lesson of trying to get Israel to do something it didn’t want to do,
would go softer.”
Accordingly, if Obama does decide to greet Netanyahu
with a reference to “shalom,” he might want to master the phrase that Bill
Clinton used to charm the Israeli public when he came to Jerusalem to attend
Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral, “Shalom, haver.”
Translation: “Shalom, friend.”