from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

Posted: 28 Jul 2009 07:19 PM PDT

Hints have begun trickling out of Washington D.C. that
the Obama administration has realized that it went too far in attacking
Israel, and may now be looking to take a step back. With general
opposition from Israelis, street protests, and a forceful rejection from
the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the
failure of Obama's approach is fairly obvious. But that doesn't mean that
Israel's Obama problem is over. Not by a long shot.

The Obama
administration's hard line on Israel was a show of arrogance by people who
assumed that they owned the American Jewish community and that Netanyahu
would quickly knuckle under. They proved to be wrong on both counts. But
that initial setback only means that a new administration plan will rely
less on an overt frontal attack.

In their first engagement,
Netanyahu succeeded in tangling Obama in ambiguities, while letting the
administration's own aggressiveness blunder into making Jerusalem an issue
up front. That disastrous approach helped unify Israelis and even the
American Jewish leadership into taking a stand against Obama. Obama's own
overt thuggishness hurt him badly, with all but the Israeli far left
backing away from him.

Obama hoped to leverage Israel's political
rivalries to undermine Netanyahu. Instead Netanyahu leveraged Obama's
thuggishness to overturn Livni who had become Obama's main Two State
Solution proponent in Israel. Now with her Kadima party headed for a
split, Obama's pressure on Netanyahu will have actually helped to
strengthen the ruling Likud-Labor coalition.

Obama had brought a
club, while Netanyahu had brought Judo lessons. And the outcome left Obama
shaking his head and wondering what happened.

Meanwhile the
American Jewish leadership has not proven nearly as tractable as expected.
Obama's attempt to include the Soros funded Anti-Israel group, J-Street,
on a par with real Jewish American organization was a bust, because all
the weight Obama throws behind J Street cannot transform it into a valid
representative of the Jewish community. Meanwhile his marginalization of
non-left wing groups in his Roosevelt room meeting only fed the backlash
against him within the American Jewish leadership, leading to the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issuing a
strong statement in support of Israel's right to Jerusalem.

Obama's
promoters had worked very hard to create the illusory consensus of mass
Jewish support for Obama, particularly by bandying about the
phony 78 percent figure. In the real world though Obama's "base"
within the Jewish community skews young, unaffiliated and unconcerned with
Israel. Meanwhile the actual American Jewish communal and organizational
leadership tends to skew older, more affiliated and very concerned about
Israel.

The liberal Jewish media has tried to highlight that split to
argue that the traditional American Jewish leadership is out of touch, but
in fact they are in touch with the future of the Jewish community in
America. By contrast Obama's base represents a demographic that is exiting
from the Jewish community, and that prioritizes liberalism over Judaism.
With Israel, Obama encountered the Jewish version of "folks clinging to
their bibles and their guns". By creating a liberal echo chamber in the
Roosevelt Room of J Street, with the likes of the Israel Policy Form,
Peace Now and the National Jewish Democratic Council pretending to
represent a Jewish consensus, he instead wound up out of touch with the
real feelings in the American Jewish community.

But while Obama may
have lost the opening round at home and in Israel, that only sets the
stage for the next phase of the engagement. Obama is almost certain to
lead with another high profile speech, this time perhaps in Israel. While
Hillary Clinton and Gates build up some credibility on Iran, a subject
that last time around Obama and his minions bluntly ignored, Obama will
have a carrot to offer along with the stick, the promise that Israeli
concessions will lead to American action on Iran. While Netanyahu is smart
enough to know that Obama will do nothing about Iran, it's a lifeline that
may prove too big to ignore.

A big part of the Jewish and Israeli
backlash to Obama originated from the administration blatantly ignoring
Israeli concerns about Iran's nuclear program and Hamas terrorism, as well
as the refusal to hold Fatah to any actual terms. This time around it's
fairly certain that the Obama administration will pay some lip service on
at least 2 out of 3 of these, with Fatah likeliest to get a pass. Backed
by a high profile speech to the Knesset that will be big on moving
rhetoric of the "Some of my best friends are Jews" and "A good life for
all the children of Abraham" variety, and short on substance, the next Two
State Solution bid will pay more attention to PR and be less blatantly
hostile than Obama's first shot across Israel's bow.

But
essentially Israel's Obama problem comes down to this. While Israel has
strong support in Congress because of the Jewish vote and general American
sentiments in favor of Israel, Saudi Arabia has far more support among the
foreign policy and defense establishment that actually make policy. It is
why Congress passes pro-Israel resolutions, while the administration and
the state department tends to ignore them. The Obama Administration is the
most strongly Saudi influenced administration in American history, and
considering that the other contenders are FDR, Carter and Bush Sr, that is
saying a great deal indeed.

While the much ballyhooed AIPAC spent
time meeting and greeting congressmen, the Saudis much more profitably
spent that time working with diplomats and policy wonks where the real
power in foreign policy lies. The likes of Chas Freeman, who but for an
ugly statement in Tienanmen Square missed playing a key role in the Obama
Administration, are their creatures. So is James L Jones, who unofficially
is the second most powerful man in the Obama Administration, cracking the
whip in all directions. As in part is Obama himself.

Obama's key
foreign policy agenda is to win the love of the Muslim world. He has few
counters left, having already sacrificed his own dignity and America's
self-respect. Trying to pay off the Muslim world using Israeli territory
is hardly a new idea in American or Israeli politics, but it's one that
Obama intends to push to the limit. And backed by a Saudi allied foreign
policy establishment that has no moral commitment to democracy or human
rights, and sees Israeli as the primary destabilizing obstacle in the
region-- there is no limit to how far Obama will push Israel, if Israel
allows itself to be pushed.

The initial ruthless push was a manifestation of contempt by
the Obama Administration for both Israel and American Jews. That contempt
has not gone away, it has only been leavened by caution. The Obama
official who stated bluntly that the administration had plenty of its own
Jews working for them and did not need to liason with any representatives
of the Jewish community, was giving voice to the administration view of
where Jews belonged.

And the conflict is far from over. The Obama
Administration has yet to really go after Netanyahu and American Jewish
leaders, particularly through the media. That is likely being reserved for
phase three. It has casually undermined Israel's defense contracts, but so
far has not brought out the open economic blackmail. It has struck out at
AIPAC only by way of going after conservative Democrats. It has not made a
serious push to force a no confidence vote on Netanyahu and then rig a new
election, the way Clinton did to get rid of Netanyahu the first time
around. Netanyahu knows all this, which is why he's playing for time.

The Obama Administration would prefer to use those as the
clinchers, not as their opening cards. But they already overplayed their
hand by targeting Jerusalem. Obama could bring out his inner Chavez,
deliver a speech lambasting Jews and AIPAC. He is however more likely to
leave clownish theatrics like that to Biden, who along with Hillary
Clinton has been the administration's fall guy for communicating the hard
line on Israel.

The Obama Administration will have to choose
between open antagonism or a soft shoe approach, and for now the next
phase is likely to be led off by a soft shoe opening, with a dagger safely
tucked away where it can be quickly put to use.