[Marxism] Stratfor about the risks for US imperial interests in Obama's stance towards the Israel-problem

["Lüko Willms" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lueko Willms (lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote on 2009-05-21 at 10:33:39 
about [Marxism] StratFor: Peace Process a chimera; Israel and US need stable 
Arab regimes; Israels freedom of action is defined by the US, not Israel:
> 
> 
> This is a comment on occasion of Netanyahu's visit to Washington by
> the "geopoliticians" of Stratfor (Strategic Forcast), a US-american
> "think tank" devoted to a world view without class struggle, and
> where the USA has the manifest destiny to rule the world. 
> 
> An interesting analysis of the limits and interests of the US
> imperial power and its beachhead in West Asia, the state of Israel. 
> 
> ..................Begin Forwarded Message..................
> 
> From: Stratfor <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 16:01:40 -0500
> Subject: Geopolitical Weekly : An Israeli Prime Minister 
>                                       Comes to Washington Again

   In that article, Strafor author George Friedman declared the "Peace 
Process" to be nothing but a chimera to avoid real change and to maintain 
the relationship between USA, Israel and the reactionary Arab regimes, whose 
stability was declared to be primordial for US and Israeli interests. 

  In a new article, Friedman speaks out against a "two state solution", 
supporting Israel's annexation of the West Bank, and criticizes POTUS 
Obama's new stance demanding a stop to the Jewish settlement expansion 
and speaking out strongly for a "two-state solution". But read yourself. 

  Just one more remark: The affirmation of a "two-state solution" as the 
proclaimed political goal belies itself as a treachery by the attitude to the 
real-existing Palestinian state in the Gaza strip. Democracy in an Arab 
country is seen as the biggest danger for imperialist interests in West Asia. 


..................Begin Forwarded Message..................

From: Stratfor <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 15:02:06 -0500
Subject: Geopolitical Weekly : 
       West Bank Settlements and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations


Stratfor
---------------------------

 

WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS AND THE FUTURE OF U.S.-ISRAELI RELATIONS

By George Friedman

Amid the rhetoric of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech June 4 in Cairo, 
there was one substantial indication of change, not in the U.S. relationship to 
the Islamic world but in the U.S. relationship to Israel. This shift actually 
emerged prior to the speech, and the speech merely touched on it. But it is 
not a minor change and it must not be underestimated. It has every 
opportunity of growing into a major breach between Israel and the United 
States.  

The immediate issue concerns Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The 
United States has long expressed opposition to increasing settlements but has 
not moved much beyond rhetoric. Certainly the continued expansion and 
development of new settlements on the West Bank did not cause prior 
administrations to shift their policies toward Israel. And while the Israelis 
have 
occasionally modified their policies, they have continued to build settlements. 

The basic understanding between the two sides has been that the United 
States would oppose settlements formally but that this would not evolve into 
a fundamental disagreement.
 
The United States has clearly decided to change the game. Obama has said 
that, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli 
settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines 
efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Israeli 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to stop building new 
settlements, but not to halt what he called the "natural growth" of existing 
settlements. 

Obama has positioned the settlement issue in such a way that it would be 
difficult for him to back down. He has repeated it several times, including in 
his speech to the Islamic world. It is an issue on which he is simply following 
the formal positions of prior administrations. It is an issue on which prior 
Israeli governments made commitments. What Obama has done is restated 
formal U.S. policy, on which there are prior Israeli agreements, and demanded 
Israeli compliance. Given his initiative in the Islamic world, Obama, having 
elevated the issue to this level, is going to have problems backing off.

Obama is also aware that Netanyahu is not in a political position to comply 
with the demand, even if he were inclined to. Netanyahu is leading a 
patchwork coalition in which support from the right is critical. For the 
Israeli 
right, settling in what it calls Samaria and Judea is a fundamental principle 
on 
which it cannot bend. Unlike Ariel Sharon, a man of the right who was 
politically powerful, Netanyahu is a man of the right who is politically weak. 

Netanyahu gave all he could give on this issue when he said there would be 
no new settlements created. Netanyahu doesn't have the political ability to 
give Obama what he is demanding. Netanyahu is locked into place, unless he 
wants to try to restructure his Cabinet or persuade people like Avigdor 
Lieberman, his right-wing foreign minister, to change their fundamental view 
of the world. 

Therefore, Obama has decided to create a crisis with Israel. He has chosen a 
subject on which Republican and Democratic administrations have had the 
same formal position. He has also picked a subject that does not affect 
Israeli national security in any immediate sense (he has not made demands 
for changes of policy toward Gaza, for example). Obama struck at an issue 
where he had precedent on his side, and where Israel's immediate safety is 
not at stake. He also picked an issue on which he would have substantial 
support in the United States, and he has done this to have a symbolic 
showdown with Israel. The more Netanyahu resists, the more Obama gets 
what he wants. 

Obama's read of the Arab-Israeli situation is that it is not insoluble. He 
believes in the two-state solution, for better or worse. In order to institute 
the 
two-state solution, Obama must establish the principle that the West Bank is 
Palestinian territory by right and not Israeli territory on which the Israelis 
might make concessions. The settlements issue is fundamental to 
establishing this principle. Israel has previously agreed both to the two-state 
solution and to not expanding settlements. If Obama can force Netanyahu to 
concede on the settlements issue, then he will break the back of the Israeli 
right and open the door to a rightist-negotiated settlement of the two-state 
solution. 

In the course of all of this, Obama is opening doors in the Islamic world a 
little wider by demonstrating that the United States is prepared to force 
Israel 
to make concessions. By subtext, he wants to drive home the idea that Israel 
does not control U.S. policy but that, in fact, Israel and the United States 
are 
two separate countries with different and sometimes conflicting views. Obama 
wouldn't mind an open battle on the settlements one bit. 

For Netanyahu, this is the worst terrain on which to fight. If he could have 
gotten Obama to attack by demanding that Israel not respond to missiles 
launched from Gaza or Lebanon, Netanyahu would have had the upper hand 
in the United States. Israel has support in the United States and in Congress, 
and any action that would appear to leave Israel's security at risk would 
trigger an instant strengthening of that support. 

But there is not much support in the United States for settlements on the 
West Bank. This is not a subject around which Israel's supporters are going 
to rally very intensely, in large part because there is substantial support for 
a two-state solution and very little understanding or sympathy for the historic 
claim of Jews to Judea and Samaria. Obama has picked a topic on which he 
has political room for maneuver and on which Netanyahu is politically locked 
in.

Given that, the question is where Obama is going with this. From Obama's 
point of view, he wins no matter what Netanyahu decides to do. If Netanyahu 
gives in, then he has established the principle that the United States can 
demand concessions from a Likud-controlled government in Israel and get 
them. There will be more demands. If Netanyahu doesn't give in, Obama can 
create a split with Israel over the one issue he can get public support for in 
the United States (a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank), and use 
that split as a lever with Islamic states. 

Thus, the question is what Netanyahu is going to do. His best move is to say 
that this is just a disagreement between friends and assume that the rest of 
the U.S.-Israeli relationship is intact, from aid to technology transfer to 
intelligence sharing. That's where Obama is going to have to make his 
decision. He has elevated the issue to the forefront of U.S.-Israeli relations. 

The Israelis have refused to comply. If Obama proceeds with the relationship 
as if nothing has happened, then he is back where he began.  
Obama did not start this confrontation to wind up there. He calculated 
carefully when he raised this issue and knew perfectly well that Netanyahu 
couldn't make concessions on it, so he had to have known that he was going 
to come to this point. Obviously, he could have made this confrontation as a 
part of his initiative to the Islamic world. But it is unlikely that he saw 
that 
initiative as ending with the speech, and he understands that, for the Islamic 
world, his relation to Israel is important. Even Islamic countries not warmly 
inclined toward Palestinians, like Jordan or Egypt, don't want the United 
States 
to back off on this issue. 

Netanyahu has argued in the past that Israel's relationship to the United 
States was not as important to Israel as it once was. U.S. aid as a percentage 
of Israel's gross domestic product has plunged. Israel is not facing powerful 
states, and it is not facing a situation like 1973, when Israeli survival 
depended on aid being rushed in from the United States. The technology 
transfer now runs both ways, and the United States relies on Israeli 
intelligence quite a bit. In other words, over the past generation, Israel has 
moved from a dependent relationship with the United States to one of mutual 
dependence. 

This is very much Netanyahu's point of view, and from this point of view 
follows the idea that he might simply say no to the United States on the 
settlements issue and live easily with the consequences. The weakness in 
this argument is that, while Israel does not now face strategic issues it can't 
handle, it could in the future. Indeed, while Netanyahu is urging action on 
Iran, he knows that action is impossible without U.S. involvement. 

This leads to a political problem. As much as the right would like to blow off 
the United States, the center and the left would be appalled. For Israel, the 
United States has been the centerpiece of the national psyche since 1967. A 
breach with the United States would create a massive crisis on the left and 
could well bring the government down if Ehud Barak and his Labor Party, for 
example, bolted from the ruling coalition. Netanyahu's problem is the problem 
Israel has continually had. It is a politically fragmented country, and there 
is 
never an Israeli government that does not consist of fragments. A 
government that contains Lieberman and Barak is not one likely to be able to 
make bold moves.

It is therefore difficult to see how Netanyahu can both deal with Obama and 
hold his government together. It is even harder to see how Obama can 
reduce the pressure. Indeed, we would expect to see him increase the 
pressure by suspending minor exchanges and programs. Obama is playing to 
the Israeli center and left, who would oppose any breach with the United 
States. 

Obama has the strong hand and the options. Netanyahu has the weak hand 
and fewer options. It is hard to see how he will solve the problem. And that's 
what Obama wants. He wants Netanyahu struggling with the problem. In the 
end, he wants Netanyahu to fold on the settlements issue and keep on folding 
until he presides over a political settlement with the Palestinians. Obama 
wants Netanyahu and the right to be responsible for the agreement, as 
Menachem Begin was responsible for the treaty with Egypt and withdrawal 
from the Sinai.

We find it difficult to imagine how a two-state solution would work, but that 
concept is at the heart of U.S. policy and Obama wants the victory. He has 
put into motion processes to create that solution, first of all, by backing 
Netanyahu into a corner. Left out of Obama's equation is the Palestinian 
interest, willingness and ability to reach a treaty with Israel, but from 
Obama's point of view, if the Palestinians reject or undermine an agreement, 
he will still have leverage in the Islamic world. Right now, given Iraq and 
Afghanistan, that is where he wants leverage, and backing Netanyahu into a 
corner is more important than where it all leads in the end. 


This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution 
to www.stratfor.com.

Copyright 2009 Stratfor.


...................End Forwarded Message..................


Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
--------------------------------

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