Mar 2nd 2015

Netanyahu's Takeover Bid

The speech that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, will deliver to Congress on March 3rd aims to scuttle an agreement on nuclear inspections and technology between Iran and the United States. Netanyahu would like to sow a suspicion between these countries so fraught and durable that it will also prevent any possible future agreement. For that purpose he will restate his drastic and persistent belief on the subject. To permit Iran to go beyond the most primitive use of its nuclear facilities would pose an "existential threat" to Israel.

Netanyahu has given America several final chances to dispose of this existential threat. Each time, he announced that Iran would attack within months if the US did not bomb Iran first; more than once, he said that Israel would attack Iran unassisted if Americans were blind to the emergency. But the Iranian attack on Israel has never come. The Israeli solo attack on Iran has never been tried. Meanwhile, it has become clear that no regimen of inspection, no matter how penetrating and rigorous, could satisfy Netanyahu of an adequate Iranian compliance. What he asks is really the surrender of Iran's advanced technology: a surrender that would seal its consent to be a second-rate regional power, subordinate to the will of Israel.

In his attempt to choke off the latest negotiations, Netanyahu has followed the pattern that led him to urge the United States to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq. This, he said, would bring peace to the entire region. Similar pressure, some of it again traceable to Netanyahu, backed the proposal that the U.S. lead a multinational mission against Syria in order to depose the Assad government. This, it was said, would save that country and stabilize the region. War with Iraq, war with Iran, war with Syria -- there is a conspicuous common thread in all of Netanyahu's proposed measures for a lasting peace.

His method of persuasion is always the same. A sham emergency is used to justify breaking off an impending agreement or launching a new war. But the case for emergency with Iran depends on his private theory that Iran is a "suicide nation" -- that as soon as it develops a nuclear weapon, it will use the weapon to destroy Israel and precipitate its own destruction. Netanyahu has continued to hold this theory against the opposing testimony of many leaders of Israeli intelligence and state security. That they have publicly disputed his judgment on Iran shows how reckless they consider his adventurism to be.

Until recently, this pattern met with little resistance from American defense experts and politicians. They were reluctant to criticize the leader of an allied country, and doubtless too they feared the retaliation of AIPAC: the strongest arm of the Israel lobby in the United States. AIPAC has shown itself capable of destroying political careers; but in the past, the lobby was content simply to follow the bidding of the Israeli government. Something more complicated is happening today.

For the past twenty years the Republican Party has looked to move Jewish donors from the Democratic to the Republican column. Eventually, they hope to bring Jewish voters with them, but the donors matter more. Aspirants for the party nomination in 2016 have already trekked to Las Vegas, summoned for auditions there by the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who, it will be remembered, in 2012 bankrolled the campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. At the same time, Adelson is a strong supporter of Netanyahu's campaign in Israel, through the flattering coverage he can offer as the owner of the tabloid Israel Hayom ("Israel Today"). Adelson's tabloid is in fact the most widely read newspaper in Israel.

The Israeli election falls exactly two weeks after Netanyahu's visit to Washington. How then can we avoid interpreting his speech to Congress as an attempt to merge the interests of the Republican Party and Benjamin Netanyahu? The Republican Party carries a banner that reads "United States" and Netanyahu carries a banner that reads "Israel." His acceptance of the invitation is thus several things at once. It is an attempt to disrupt a process of international negotiations in which the US and Europe have been deeply involved. It is an exercise of brazen electioneering to promote his continued leadership of Israel itself. And it is a calculated insult to the sovereignty of the United States.

It is, in truth, an unprecedented effort to identify the interest of a party with the interests of the country and, once that is accomplished, to merge the interests of two countries as if they were in no way different. And yet there are some respects in which the United States and Israel do visibly differ. Persons of Arab descent in the United States enjoy the rights of first-class citizens. In Israel, they do not.

His speech is sure to contain the following elements. Netanyahu will salute the members of both parties. He will remind us that he lived in America for a time, and his unaccented English will confirm this. He will acknowledge that his speech has become a subject of controversy, but he cannot avoid the challenge of this crisis, when his message is especially important. The fate of the United States as well as Israel hangs in the balance. The threat from Iran is the most dire that has faced the world since the rise of Hitler. Just as Fascism arose in more than one country, so has Warrior Islam also arisen in more than one country. This analogy is inevitable given Netanyahu's ambition to inherit the mantle of Churchill -- a piece of drapery several sizes too large for him.

Netanyahu now will concoct an amalgam between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims. Al-Qaeda was a Sunni organization and ISIS is also Sunni. The Iranian Mullahs and Hezbollah are Shiite, and neither has declared an intention to wage war on the United States. Netanyahu will level and conflate the nature and characters of these groups and will imply that the Shiite Muslims of Iran (whom Israel fears) are the same as the Sunni Muslims of ISIS (who foment violence against Europe and the United States). He will combine a vague imputation against the largest possible body of Muslims with a broad assertion that Israel has no interest in religious war. He himself is tolerant of persons of every faith. The Christians of North Africa and Syria are in mortal peril, and Israel has been generous in helping them. Netanyahu will also, feelingly, praise the sacrifices of American soldiers. He will remind us again of the events of September 11, 2001. He will say that Israelis are uniquely equipped to sympathize with what Americans suffered then. We are still fighting the battles that began on that day; and though he is a man of peace and would wish the battles to end, he is an honest and honorable man above all; so he cannot shirk the duties imposed by this critical state of affairs. He will barely mention the name of President Obama, but will indicate that he has come to the conclusion that our president is naïve about the dangers that have set the Middle East ablaze. America, like Israel, is a great country because it is bigger than the weaknesses of any single person.

Very possibly, since he has a low idea of the intelligence of Americans -- he has said that "America is a thing you can move very easily" -- the Israeli prime minister will top off the history lesson by proposing certain resemblances between the year 2015 and 1938. For Netanyahu, the place is always Munich and the year is always 1938. It was 1938 and Saddam Hussein was Hitler when Netanyahu told the US to launch the war on Iraq. It was 1938 once more when he asked Congress, on his last visit, to admire his resistance to the president's negotiation with Palestinians, because the Palestinians were an existential threat. In conclusion, Netanyahu will invoke those ties of warm affection, mutual respect, and concern for human rights and freedom that join Israel and the United States in an alliance the president himself has called sacrosanct.

And yet, piety is a very inadequate measure of right and wrong. Brute loyalty often plays reckless games with morality, and an unsuspecting confidence between separate nations is ill-advised for exactly the reasons George Washington gave in his Farewell Address of 1796. We ought, said Washington, to avoid "permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others," because "the nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

As if he anticipated the strange moment in which we find ourselves -- when a foreign leader who asked us to fight one disastrous war now commands us to fight another on his behalf -- Washington said that:

"... a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

When Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress on May 24, 2011, to embarrass President Obama and cut down American criticism of the most recent illegal Israeli settlements, Congress gave him 29 standing ovations. That was a gesture of thoughtless servility, and a mistake that should not be repeated. The difference between Washington and Netanyahu marks a real choice. In the matter of the proper judgment of American interests, Washington and Netanyahu stand at opposite poles. They cannot both be right. On March 3, before awarding Netanyahu another 29 standing ovations, or 19 or even one, let the members of Congress ask themselves whose advice they will heed on the danger of "passionate attachments" and "inveterate antipathies." Netanyahu and his backers in Congress are an existential threat to the independence of American foreign policy.




Having graduated from Yale with a B.A. in 1973 and a Ph.D four years later, David Bromwich became an instructor at Princeton University, where he was promoted to Mellon Professor of English before returning to Yale in 1988. In 1995 he was appointed as Housum Professor of English at Yale. In 2006 he became a Sterling Professor.

Bromwich is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published widely on Romantic criticism and poetry, and on eighteenth-century politics and moral philosophy. His book Politics by Other Means concerns the role of critical thinking and tradition in higher education, and defends the practice of liberal education against political encroachments from both Left and Right. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, TLS, and many other U.S. and British journals. He is a frequent contributor of political blog posts on the Huffington Post.




     

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Nov 24th 2024
Extracts: "We all think, speak, and write within certain intellectual frameworks that we largely take for granted. But, eventually, the passage of time renders familiar categories and ideas obsolete. For example, who still talks about the “Soviet Union” today, apart from historians?" ------- "Trump won decisively despite his contempt for democratic institutions, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his subsequent 34-count felony conviction. Though voters know about his chaotic approach to governance, his habitual mendacity, and his sinister immigration policies, he won every swing state. Even with full knowledge of who Trump is, more Americans voted for him than for Kamala Harris. We must not mince words: liberal democracy in the US has suffered a lethal blow. It will be under increasing pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, and there is no guarantee that it will survive. After all, can there be any future for the liberal West without the US as its leader? I believe the answer is no." ----- "If Europe fails to come together at this moment of tumultuous change, it will not get a second chance. Its only option is to become a military power capable of protecting its interests and securing peace and order on the world stage. The alternative is fragmentation, impotence, and irrelevance."
Nov 24th 2024
EXTRACTS: "When the US presidential election was called for Donald Trump, the yield on ten-year US government bonds increased from 4.3% to 4.4%, and the 30-year-bond yield rose from 4.5% to 4.6%, with both remaining at those levels ten days later." ----- " Clearly, investors expect the next Trump administration to produce higher government budget deficits and more debt. It is not difficult to see why. During Trump’s first term in office, he added $8 trillion to the national debt – all previous presidents combined had accumulated $20 trillion – despite having promised to run budget surpluses so large that they would eliminate the national debt within two terms." ----- "Supporters often say that a businessman like Trump or Musk will know how to put America’s fiscal house in order. But the smart money says they have no idea what they are doing."
Nov 13th 2024
EXTRACT: "For 2,300 years, at least since Plato’s Republic, philosophers have known how demagogues and aspiring tyrants win democratic elections. The process is straightforward, and we have now just watched it play out." ........ "As Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued, democracy is at its most vulnerable when inequality in a society has become entrenched and grown too glaring." ..... "From everything Trump has said and done during this campaign and in his first term, we can expect Plato to be vindicated once again. The Republican Party’s domination of all branches of government would render the US a one-party state. The future may offer occasional opportunities for others to vie for power, but whatever political contests lie ahead most likely will not qualify as free and fair elections."
Nov 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "The likelihood of escalation in the coming weeks and months means that there will be economic and financial risks to manage. A large-enough Israeli strike on Iran could severely disrupt energy production and exports from the Gulf. If Iran gets desperate, it could try to mine the Gulf and block the Strait of Hormuz, while also striking Saudi oil facilities. In this scenario, the world would experience stagflationary shocks similar to those that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1979 Iranian revolution."
Oct 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "The continuing cycles of violence can easily spiral out of control, precipitating a wider war involving nuclear powers. Moreover, Netanyahu’s goal of 'total victory' against an ideological movement cannot be achieved by military means alone." ..... "So long as both sides seek to inflict maximum damage on the other to right past wrongs, the violence will not end. Netanyahu may think that total victory is in sight, now that Hezbollah is badly damaged and Gaza reduced to rubble, but that is an illusion. All he has done is create more enemies who will want to restore their honor by killing in a war without end."
Oct 9th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Nasrallah was on a mission to destroy Israel. It was a mantle he had taken up from countless other Arab leaders, from Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who met with Adolf Hitler in 1941 to discuss the destruction of the Jews, to Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League who described the Arab invasion of the then-nascent Israel in 1948 as a 'war of annihilation'. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – an icon of pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 1960s – pledged more than once to 'destroy Israel'. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah, nurtured their own dreams of liquidating the Jewish state." ...... "Alas, Israelis have built their own dangerous dream palace of 'total victory', erected on a foundation of nationalist fervor, religious messianism, and political intransigence. There is a scenario in which Israel’s military exploits change the region for the better. Unfortunately, far from being the standard-bearer for some enlightened political vision, Israel’s current government is committed to fighting a war on all fronts, with no view toward any political future that Israel’s neighbors could possibly accept."
Oct 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "But in the real world, slain leaders are replaced. Those who bury their dead do not forget or forgive, and those who have felt the punishment of arms do not forego weapons but embrace them. So it seems unlikely that’s how the story will end. Sadly, it’s far more likely it will never end."
Oct 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: ".....,Russia will probably spend about $190 billion, or 10% of GDP, on the war this year, and that figure presumably represents the peak, given the constraints imposed by Western financial sanctions. Whenever Russia can no longer finance a budget deficit, it will have to cut public expenditures, and its non-military outlays have already been pared to the bone."
Sep 12th 2024
EXTRACT: "Throughout recorded history, crises and tragedies have inevitably spurred apocalyptic interpretations that seek to imbue temporal catastrophes with some divine or redemptive meaning. One can see this in the doctrines of the major monotheistic religions, and even in modern totalitarian ideologies, such as communism and Nazism. One way or another, humans appear inclined to believe that, without Satan, there is no redeemer. To understand just how dangerous this logic can be, look no further than Gaza, where a tragedy of Biblical proportions is fueling the messianic hallucinations of Israel, Hamas, and American Christian evangelicals alike."
Aug 7th 2024
EXTRACT: "China knows that the war has had catastrophic consequences for both Russia and Ukraine. Estimates indicate that Putin’s conflict in Ukraine could cost Russia US$1.3 trillion (£1.0 trillion) and at least 315,000 in troop casualties. So, win or lose, the post-war damage to Russia would be immense. This is bad news for China. Not only will it have a weakened ally, but the west could then have a free hand to consolidate its resources in dealing with the 'Chinese threat'."
Jul 27th 2024
EXTRACT: "......, regardless of the folly of political violence, the attempt on Trump’s life was futile inasmuch as ridding America, and the world, of Trump, would by no means rid us of Trumpism, which was and remains a symptom, and not the root cause, of this country’s moral and epistemic decline. How else could so many millions of Americans support this man? No one can claim that they do not know what he stands for (insofar as he stands for anything other than himself) or what his intentions are: he has made it very clear that his second administration will be not only authoritarian, but fascist in rhetoric and deed.
Jul 17th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Iran unveiled a digital clock counting down the days to the destruction of Israel in 2040. The display, located in Tehran’s Palestine Square, embodies the Islamic Republic’s long-held commitment to annihilating the Jewish state. Some view this promise as a mere rhetorical exercise...." ----- "From Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin and even Osama bin Laden, history has taught us to take threats of ideologically inspired attacks at face value. " ---- "......., the key enabler of Iran’s war of attrition is, in fact, Israel’s own government. Netanyahu’s unrealistic goal of achieving 'a complete victory' in Gaza serves Iran’s strategy of miring Israel in an inconclusive conflict while orchestrating a long-term plan to destroy the Jewish state." ----- "It turns out that the only truly irrational, trigger-happy fanatics in this lethal equation are Netanyahu and his theo-fascist allies, who are determined to engage in an apocalyptic war in Gaza and Lebanon." ---- "These messianic hallucinators have a willing collaborator in Netanyahu. Together, they are doing more to annihilate the Jewish national project than Iran could ever hope to achieve on its own."
Jul 16th 2024
EXTRACTS: "In her dissenting opinion in Trump v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that with the majority’s ruling, 'the President is now a king above the law'. In this, she is wrong: the majority opinion has given the US president far more power than English kings had at the time of the American Revolution." ---- "In June 1686, 11 of the 12 hand-picked justices ruled in favor of the king. Echoing the king’s own solicitor, Sir Thomas Powys, the Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys contended that if the king did not have leeway above the law, 'the preservation of the government' might be in jeopardy." ---- "In 1689, the English people roundly rejected such reasoning and asserted that their kings would thereafter be subject to the law. They set a precedent by removing James II from office. The Supreme Court’s decision goes beyond threatening more than two centuries of American jurisprudence; it overturns four centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence. The Roberts majority did not give the president the power of an English king; it gave the president power that an English king could only covet."
Jul 4th 2024
EXTRACT: "Most American voters who believe that Trump is the best defender of democracy are not fascists, much less communists. The very thought would horrify them. But they almost surely have a strong opinion on who constitutes the true American people: God-fearing, hard-working, and most probably white. And they worry that these ordinary Americans are being displaced by illegal immigrants, and that their way of life is being threatened by new ideas about gender, race, and sexuality emerging from elite universities. Trump is stoking these fears and exaggerating these threats. His line that the US courts are attacking not only him, but every right-thinking American is horribly effective. Since he is heard as the true voice of the people, he is the purest democrat. As a result, liberal democracy might not withstand another four years of his rule."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "....the debate showed all too clearly that he is suffering cognitive decline and cannot possibly serve as a competent president for another four years. If Biden is true to his word, and stopping Trump from regaining the presidency is his overriding goal, he needs to announce that at the Democratic Convention in August, he will release his delegates from their obligation to vote for him, and instead ask them to vote for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court have just announced grand opinions trying to resolve the fundamental constitutional issues raised by former President Donald Trump’s claim to absolute immunity" ---- "According to Sotomayor, who wrote for the three dissenting justices, Roberts’ sweeping grant of immunity has 'no firm grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent.' ” ----- "For what it’s worth, I think that Sotomayor is right and Roberts is wrong." ----"But for now, it is much more important to consider the objection raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett to both Roberts’ constitutional glorification of the presidency and Sotomayor’s devastating critique of Roberts’ majority opinion." ---- "Barrett is right to ask why Roberts and Sotomayor did not join her in adopting the problem-solving approach that they have repeatedly endorsed in many other contexts." ---- "Roberts took the path that not only betrayed Founding principles, as Sotomayor argued, but also betrayed the very principles to which he has dedicated his entire career. "
Jul 1st 2024
EXTRACTS: "Netanyahu’s disdainful criticism of Biden. Netanyahu knows how indispensable the US is to Israel, as no country has provided Israel with more financial, military, and political support than the US. And no American president has ever been more supportive and committed to Israel's security than President Biden. But then, leave it to the most loathsome Netanyahu, who dares to criticize the president for suspending the shipment specifically of 2,000-pound bombs to continue with his devastating bombardment of Rafah that could indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent civilians." ---- "All Israelis who care about their country’s future must rise and demand the immediate resignation of this corrupt and brazen creature who inflicted untold damage on the only Jewish state, making it a pariah state."
Jun 12th 2024
EXTRACTS: "One of the more amusing exercises on the economic calendar is the International Monetary Fund’s annual review of the United States. Yet while everyone knows that the US government pays absolutely no heed to what the IMF has to say about its affairs, the Fund’s most recent Article IV review of the US economy is striking for one unexpected finding. Readers will be startled to learn that, in the IMF’s estimation, US government debt is on a sustainable path." ---- "What then could go wrong? Well, US institutions could turn out not to be so strong. Donald Trump has a personal history of defaulting on his debts. As William Silber has observed, Trump in a second presidential term could instruct his Treasury secretary to suspend payments on the debt, and neither Congress nor the courts might be willing to do anything about it. The gambit would be appealing to Trump insofar as a third of US government debt is held by foreigners. The damage to the dollar’s safe-asset status would be severe, even if Congress, the courts, or a subsequent president reversed Trump’s suspension of debt payments. Investors in US Treasuries would demand a hefty risk premium, potentially causing the government’s interest payments to explode."
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "An all-too-familiar specter is haunting Europe, one that reliably appears every five years. As citizens head to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, observers are once again asking whether far-right anti-European parties will gain ground and unite to destroy the European Union from within. To be sure, skeptics of this doomsday scenario have always argued that the far right will remain divided, because nationalist internationalism is a contradiction in terms. But it is more likely that specific policy disagreements – mainly over the Ukraine war – and drastically diverging political strategies will prevent Europe’s various far-right parties from forming a 'supergroup.' ”
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "While the dreadful legacy of his Conservative predecessors – the morally vacuous Johnson and the reckless Liz Truss – would make it extremely difficult for Sunak to offer a credible vision of a better future, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. For example, he supported Johnson’s bid for the Conservative leadership, a decision that reflects poorly on his judgment. Sunak has also been a Euroskeptic since he was a schoolboy and was an early supporter of Brexit."