At the White House, Netanyahu makes his case

By Jackson Diehl
The Washington Post
July 7, 2010; 1:02 PM ET

Binyamin Netanyahu doesn’t have any illusions about Barack Obama’s regard for him, despite their friendly meeting at the White House on Tuesday. But Netanyahu does apparently believe that if he presents this most cerebral of U.S. presidents with a well-reasoned position, he’ll be listened to. Hence his behavior -- and the relative warming of U.S.-Israeli relations -- in recent weeks.

Take Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. For some time, according to people close to him, Netanyahu regarded the policy as counterproductive. Following the confrontation with a Turkish-led flotilla that left nine dead, the blockade became indefensible. Netanyahu couldn’t make a rational argument to the White House that Israel needed to deprive the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza of cilantro, ketchup and other basic goods. He could easily explain why it must continue to prevent the smuggling of Iranian missiles and other arms to Hamas.

So Netanyahu dropped the ban on food and consumer goods, while insisting that Israel must intercept ships that might be carrying weapons. The result was accord on what could have been another point of contention between Washington and Jerusalem. Obama “welcomed the prime minister’s efforts to implement Israel’s new policy in Gaza,” said a White House statement on Tuesday’s meeting.

The Middle East peace process is a tougher problem for Netanyahu and Obama. The White House believes Mahmoud Abbas is willing and able to agree to terms with Israel on Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu, like most Israelis, thinks otherwise. Obama believes an Israeli settlement freeze is crucial to advancing negotiations; Netanyahu, like every Israeli prime minister before him, rejects the link.

But here, too, Netanyahu has formulated a pragmatic and non-ideological position -- one that he discussed with Obama at length on Tuesday.

The argument, which Netanyahu has laid out publicly in several speeches in the last year, goes like this: Times have changed in the Middle East since 1993, when Israel and the Palestinians concluded the Oslo accords calling for a gradual handover of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Palestinian government. Then, the main threat to Israelis in the territories was Palestinian rock-throwers. Now, thanks to the growing power of Iran, Israel is surrounded by tens of thousands of short- and medium-range missiles. There are thousands in southern Lebanon, from which Israel withdrew in 2000 and which was subsequently occupied by Hezbollah. And there are hundreds, maybe thousands more in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005, and which was later taken over by Hamas.

Israel, Netanyahu told Obama, has to be able to ensure that the West Bank won’t also become an Iranian missile base following a peace settlement. The logic of his argument is hard to refute, from any reasonable standpoint. Who would contend that there is no danger that missiles would be smuggled to the new Palestinian state from the east, from Syria, Lebanon or Jordan? Is it reasonable to suppose that a UN peacekeeping force would suffice to protect the border, given the failure of such a force to stop smuggling to Lebanon?

That’s not to say that Netanyahu has come up with a trump card to block the peace process. He has said himself that there are ways to solve the security problem, including a phase-in of Palestinian control over the eastern border of the state. But the Israeli leader is demonstrating that he has figured out a way to talk to a president who hasn’t displayed much sentimentality when it comes to Israel. Forget about sentiment; make a good argument.