Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to form a new government after his election victory this week, but already he faces what could be a substantial shift in relations with the United States.
For the third straight day, the Obama administration signaled Friday that it remains furious at Netanyahu’s pre-election statement ruling out a Palestinian state while he is prime minister and that it will recalibrate its diplomatic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Interviews that Netanyahu has given in recent days to try to walk back the no-Palestinian-state statement have not eased President Barack Obama’s anger, and a phone call between the two men on Thursday didn’t clarify Netanyahu’s position, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington.
“That was not the result of the call,” Earnest said.
Netanyahu’s office did not announce that the call had taken place, a departure from custom.
Earnest said Obama had used the same sort of language that Earnest himself has used in recent days to express his dismay at Netanyahu’s pre-election actions. Earnest’s comments left no reason to doubt a wire service report quoting an unnamed official that Obama had told Netanyahu “we will need to reassess our options following the prime minister’s new positions and comments regarding the two-state solution.”
“When Prime Minister Netanyahu indicated a weakness in his commitment, and I think that’s putting it charitably, he was indicating a difference of opinion not just with President Obama, but with the policy that was pursued by President Bush, and the policy that is strongly supported by Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress,” Earnest said. “If that policy foundation has been the driver of policy decisions that are made at the United Nations, it’s important for us to reconsider those kinds of decisions, now that our strongest ally in the Middle East has withdrawn from its commitment to that policy goal.”
Asked why the White House wouldn’t take Netanyahu at his word, Earnest said, “I guess the question is which one?”
A spokesman in Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the conversation with Obama.
In a pre-election interview with an Israeli news site, Netanyahu answered “indeed” when asked directly whether there would be no Palestinian state if he were to win another term as prime minister. In a flurry of damage-control interviews with U.S. media outlets since the election, Netanyahu has argued that he never repudiated his acceptance of a two-state solution, but only said it was not feasible given Palestinian positions and the threat of an Islamist takeover of territory ceded by Israel.
Earnest said he would not speculate on what policy changes were in store, but in remarks Thursday he hinted at a withdrawal of support for Israel at the United Nations. He noted that the U.S. had intervened there to block resolutions endorsing a Palestinian state on the grounds that such a state should emerge from negotiations.
The deepening rift with Washington comes as Netanyahu faces a series of developments in the coming weeks that will quickly test the fraying relationship on both sides.
A resolution drafted by European powers endorsing negotiations leading to a Palestinian state is expected to be submitted at the U.N. Security Council. A deadline is looming for an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program. And the Palestinians are planning to file war-crimes cases at the International Criminal Court over Israeli settlement building and last summer’s Gaza war.
Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, said he did not believe the administration would take steps to curb military aid to Israel – something Earnest also implied Friday – but that he did “see them allowing bad things to happen” in the diplomatic sphere. The United States, for example, might not veto the Palestinian statehood resolution at the United Nations.
Netanyhau has strongly opposed such resolutions, saying they amounted to imposing terms on Israel that endangered its security.
Asked in a Fox News interview about the possibility that Israel would lose its cover from Washington at the U.N., Netanyahu said he hoped that would not happen and that “you can’t impose” terms of a peace deal on Israel.
“You can’t force the people of Israel, who just elected me by a wide margin to bring them peace and security . . . to accept terms that would endanger the very survival of the state of Israel,” he said.
During a previous U.S. “reassessment” of relations with Israel during President Gerald Ford’s administration in 1975, arms transfers to Israel were frozen for several months. The move was ordered in response to Israeli resistance to an American plan for a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, captured from Egypt in the 1967 Middle East War.
In his flip-flop on Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu had “damaged his credibility” and “the ozone layer of the special relationship” between Israel and the U.S., Rynhold said.
He added that if Netanyahu went ahead with plans to form a governing coalition dominated by rightist and religious parties, his relations with Obama were headed for a “nose dive.”
Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said that “Netanyhau is the first to understand that if he ends up with a narrow right-wing government he is on a collision course with the United States.”
He said Netanyhau could offer his rival in the elections, Isaac Herzog, the leader of the center-left Zionist Union, to join the coalition in the role of foreign minister, or bring in another centrist party, Yesh Atid, to join a center-right party, Kulanu, which already appears to be headed into the government.
But that scenario seemed unlikely in the immediate aftermath of the election. Netanyhau pledged to form a government of the “nationalist camp,” referring to his rightist allies, and he has ruled out a unity government with Herzog, who has said he was headed to the opposition.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is readying another step likely to further raise tensions with the White House. House Speaker John Boehner, who invited Netanyahu to address Congress this month in a direct challenge to Obama’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran, is scheduled to visit Israel at the end of the month.
The planned visit is timed to coincide with the deadline for a framework agreement with Iran.
Lesley Clark in Washington contributed to this report.