Obama snubs, Netanyahu scores
Despite the damage to his relations with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coming congressional address is expected to strengthen his status within his Israeli right-wing electoral base.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his advisers saw the giant headlines of the weekend papers on the morning of Jan. 23, which once again heralded an unprecedented crisis between the premier and President Barack Obama, they might well have embarked on a description of the many advantages this “crisis” presented for Netanyahu's election campaign.
Headlines such as “Boycotting Netanyahu” (in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth) and “Obama’s Revenge” (Maariv) and commentaries describing the Obama administration’s reaction to the election stunt that Netanyahu cooked up with his GOP friends behind Obama’s back, not only do not hurt the prime minister on the eve of elections. They actually add him points among his right-wing constituents. From now until March 3 — the day Netanyahu presents himself on Capitol Hill — he will devote a substantial part of his time to writing the speech. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, any speech on an American lectern is the project of a lifetime, all the more so when it’s an election eve speech in the language he loves, English, largely devoted to his fight against the Iranian nuclear threat.
Netanyahu is in the throes of a crucial battle with uncertain results for a fourth term, and as in war, the end justifies the means. What a reasonably minded observer might view as a reckless blow to Israel-US relations for the sake of political survival, is explained on the right — Netanyahu’s core constituency — in a totally different light.
But not only that. Obama was never able to forge a warm relationship with the Israeli public, even though he proved — and not only in words — his commitment to Israel’s security. Such was the case, for example, with the funding of the Iron Dome air defense system, which he was unable to leverage into popularity in Israel. The Israeli public, both on the right and the left, does not feel any sense of special kinship with Obama, certainly compared to former President Bill Clinton, who could easily have been elected prime minister in Israel and who broke popularity records in Israel with the tears he shed and the “Shalom Chaver” (Goodbye Friend) at Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral.
