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| FILE - In this Sunday, June 14, 2009 file photo, an Israeli man tears posters hung by an extremist right wing group, depicting U.S. President Barack Obama, wearing a traditional Arab headdress, in Jerusalem. Seeking to sell his nuclear deal with Iran to a skeptical Israeli public, Obama has repeatedly declared his deep affection for the Jewish state. But the feelings do not appear to be mutual. |
JERUSALEM
(AP) -- Seeking to sell his nuclear deal with Iran to a skeptical
Israeli public, President Barack Obama has repeatedly declared his deep
affection for the Jewish state. But the feelings do not appear to be
mutual.
Wide swaths of the Israeli public,
particularly supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have
little trust in the American leader, considering him naive and even
hostile. One recent poll showed less than a tenth considered him
"pro-Israel."
Such misgivings bode poorly for
Obama as he tries to repair ties with Israel in the final year of his
presidency, and they would certainly complicate any renewed effort at
brokering peace between Israel and its neighbors - once a major Obama
ambition.
The tense personal relationship
between Netanyahu and Obama are certainly a factor in the poor state of
affairs, and Netanyahu has made a number of missteps that have
contributed to the tensions.
On a trip to the
White House in 2011, the Israeli leader appeared to lecture Obama on the
pitfalls of Mideast peacemaking. Netanyahu has close ties to the
billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, and during the 2012
presidential race, Netanyahu appeared to favor Obama's challenger, Mitt
Romney.
Netanyahu's U.S.-born ambassador to
Washington, Ron Dermer, is a former Republican activist, and earlier
this year, Netanyahu angered the White House by delivering a speech to
Congress against the emerging Iran deal at the invitation of Republican
leaders. Netanyahu has continued to lobby American lawmakers to oppose
the Iran deal since it was finalized in July.
But Obama also bears responsibility for a number of policy decisions that have jolted Israelis' faith in him.
"The
average Israeli probably thinks that he is a nice guy, but he is
naive," said Alexander Yakobson, a historian at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. In Israeli eyes, "he doesn't get the Middle East, doesn't
understand how the Mideast functions, and he doesn't therefore
understand what dangers Israel has to face," he added.
Yakobson
said the president's missteps went back to his earliest days in office,
when he chose to deliver a landmark speech in Cairo seeking to repair
American relations with the Arab world. "That was never going to make
him popular in Israel," he said.
Yakobson, who
himself agrees with Obama's opposition to Israeli settlement
construction in the West Bank,
said the president had nonetheless
mishandled disagreements with Netanyahu over the issue and peace efforts
with the Palestinians that collapsed last year. Many Israelis, he said,
believe the Palestinians also deserve some of the blame.
But
the biggest issue has been the U.S.-led nuclear agreement with Iran.
Politicians across the spectrum have come out against the deal, agreeing
with Netanyahu's assessment that it does not have sufficient safeguards
to prevent Iran from gaining the ability to make a nuclear bomb and
that it will boost Iran's influence across the region. Iran is a key
backer of Israel's toughest enemies, and Netanyahu has warned that the
ending of sanctions against Iran will result in more money and arms
flowing to groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Recent
opinion polls reflect these sentiments. In one survey published Sunday
in the Maariv daily, 77 percent of respondents said the deal endangers
Israel, compared to 15 percent who said it didn't. The poll interviewed
500 people and had a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.
An
April survey of Jewish Israelis, carried out just after a preliminary
nuclear deal with Iran was reached, had an equally harsh view of Obama.
Just 9 percent of respondents described the White House as
"pro-Israeli," while 60 percent called it "pro-Palestinian." More than
60 percent described Obama as the worst president for Israel in the past
30 years, far outdistancing runner-up Jimmy Carter at 16 percent.
That
survey, conducted by the Panels Politics agency with the Jewish
Journal, questioned 503 Jewish Israelis and had a margin of error of 4.6
percentage points.
In a survey of 40
countries, the Pew Research Center found the sharpest decline in Obama's
image over the past year occurred in Israel, where confidence slipped
from 71 percent to 49 percent.
At times, the
anger toward Obama in Israel is palpable. On the streets and in online
news forums, Israelis often refer to Obama by his middle name "Hussein,"
a reference to his Muslim heritage on his father's side.
Last year,
after an anonymous White House official used a pejorative term to
describe Netanyahu as cowardly, Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett warned
that Obama was "throwing Israel under the bus."
For
his part, Obama has acknowledged feeling hurt. In an address to
American Jewish leaders last month, Obama underscored his deep
commitment to Israel's security and likened the debate over the Iran
deal to a dispute within the family.
"I would
suggest that, in terms of the tone of this debate, everybody keep in
mind that we're all pro-Israel," he said. "And we have to make sure that
we don't impugn people's motives."
Obama has
said that with the Iran deal complete, he would like to begin working
with Israel on ways to increase its security and allay fears about the
deal. The Haaretz daily on Sunday said talks on providing Israel with
additional U.S. weaponry have already quietly begun. Netanyahu's office
declined comment.
But even if the two
countries do manage to reach a new security deal, it seems unlikely that
Obama will be able to repair the relationship with Netanyahu or restart
Mideast peace efforts. The differences just run too deep.
The
White House has said it is trying to set up a meeting between Obama and
Netanyahu for November, which would be their first meeting since the
Iran deal was finalized.
Yoram Ettinger, a
former Israeli consul-general in Houston, said the issues here have
little to do with personalities or alleged hostilities on the part of
Obama. "It's an issue of a gap between two very different world views,"
he said.
He said that in Israeli eyes, Obama
is unrealistic, sending a message of weakness through his handling of
the so-called Arab Spring over the past five years and by trusting an
Iranian government with such a long record of defying the international
community and supporting violent groups across the region.
"Are you rooted in reality or are you rooted in wishful thinking," he said.
