Netanyahu's Catastrophic Leadership*

*This piece appears in the Washington Monthly today.

Harold Pollack, a Professor at the University Of Chicago, weighs in with observations that as a non-Jew I can relate to. Pollack is not religiously observant but feels a strong sense of kinship, identification and affection for Israelis but is alarmed about the country's future. In this piece, he recalls the steady decline in Israel's moral and political standing within the United States and its deteriorating situation in the world as a whole.

Pollack maintains that Netanyahu might gain some short-term tactical advantages to resist American pressures but in the long-run , "he is pursuing a catastrophic course, both for Israel and the United States."

He recalls Israel's stature since the Oslo Accords. When that process began, Israel enjoyed de facto alliances with Turkey, Jordan and Egypt. Lebanon posed manageable security concerns. Iran was a distant threat. Israel was militarily ascendent. And it had relatively good relations with the European Community.

Having failed to achieve a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, Israel's position has steadily eroded. Its whole relationship with Europe is under serious question. Egypt still observers the peace treaty but the alliance is no more. Turkey has dramatically repositioned itself partly because of Israeli actions. Hamas is entrenched in Gaza and Palestinians seem to be turning away from a peace process that has become discredited. Our power as a country has visibly eroded after two wars. And the Arab Spring with broad and populist anger against Israel poses new dangers.

Pollack raises the generational issue of Israel losing its moral and political standing within the United States itself. He remembers the founding of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust as a living memory among older Americans and how his parents were riveted to the radio to hear battle reports from the Yom Kippur War. But he notes that he has met few Jews under 40 who are the unapologetic supporters of Israel in the way he and his peer group were. Having ground up myself on Leon Uris and Herman Wouk novels about Israel and listened to Abba Eban, I can relate.

Israelis were Jewish cool with Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rubin and even Bibi's brother, the hero of Entebbe. Even the bellicose Ariel Sharon had his own charming swagger. But, alas, Bibi makes Meyer Lansky look great. I even remember when a"Jewish settlement" was a kibbutz and not a Levittown or Leisure Village built over the graves of Saladin's family.

Pollack notes how liberal and moderate Jewish opinion leaders like Jeffrey Goldberg, Thomas Friedman, Leon Wieseltier and Peter Beinert have become alienated from Israeli policy and urges people to read what they used to write ten or fifteen years ago.

While politicians still make the annual pilgrimage to AIPAC, the atmosphere is different and the speeches are not heartfelt. He notes that Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans are emerging as important politicla constituencies with their own legitimate points of view.

Pollack believes Bibi gambling dangerously by allying himself with American conservatives against a sitting President. I do too. The Christian Right and neoconservatives will support Bibi unthinkingly as will partisan Republicans. But as Pollack notes, President Obama's policy views are widely shared within the Republican policy elite. He rightfully points at that Bibi's on-the-ground policies and his efforts to play American domestic politics are generating serious ill-will among American diplomats. And the American military have frequently complained here in Washington that Israel's policies have made it a strategic liability when this country is fighting three wars within the Arab and Muslim world.

Pollack believes Bibi will be to blame if the United States loses control of the peace process as it would under a general Assembly vote on a Palestinian state. And as several people, including myself, have wirtten there is a growing global momentum for precisely that outcome.

Pollack notes that President Obama is more popular among American Jews that Bibi is. He believes the American Jewish community will split if Bibi confronts the Palestinians or the United States over the continued expansion of the settlements. He sees israel being in a terrible state if it decides to defy the United States and then the Palestinians wage a politically sophisticated nonviolent intifada.

An ill-wind is blowing.