Complicated Politics: Israel

(1)               President Obama has been, at best, disappointing.

(2)               Prime Minister Netanyahu has no real willingness to make any bold decisions.

(3)               There are no identifiable new Israeli political leaders on the horizon.

(4)               Israelis better understand the lower arc of US influence than perhaps we do.

 

Israelis love to talk politics so it was interesting that so few really wanted to discuss President Obama. We did, in our meetings with lawyers and real estate investors, meet one person who thought our president was “ok”, however, that was the zenith of positive opinion. Opinions spiraled downward quickly with person after person feeling that President Obama does not understand the complexity of the issues or, if he does, does not really care about the Israeli dilemma. For sure, the rigidness of the Bush presidency is missed and former President Bush is exceedingly well regarded in Israel.

 

Close behind the Israeli general disdain for President Obama is a discomfort with their Prime Minister. They are likely not quite as negative but they are gravely concerned that he offers few useful ideas or any true statesman quality. He is routinely analyzed as being mostly interested in staying in power, concerning himself more with his coalition than with any desire to achieve or be bold. He likely stays in power in no small part due to the lack of good alternatives.

 

Any analysis of Israeli politics includes a summary of who is next, what are the alternatives. Here, those who opined were plainly gloomy. Barak has, in the opinions of most, seen his time come and gone. Livni has already crested, seen as an honest, weak and naïve politician, one who will forever be incapable of achieving leadership. The future leaders are, for the most part, unidentifiable. They certainly seem unable to, in the short term, excite the Israeli voters and there is a fundamental dismay that politics attracts individuals who are quirky or somehow morally unacceptable.

 

Overlaying all of this is the arc of US influence. With President Obama just finishing his India – Indonesia - G20 trip, one which was perhaps as bad as any presidential trip in recent memory, it is not lost on the Israeli citizenry that our global influence is reduced, that our ability to influence is less than ever (at least since 9-11), and that Russia and China will surely complicate the global scene. That inescapable conclusion lessens the ability of the U S to influence and, while it might offer some new creative solutions particularly given Israeli’s economic ties to these other powerhouses, the issues surely become more complex.

 

Politics is, of course, always complicated in Israel yet sometimes the future is modestly predictable. This is, sadly, not one of those times.