[The blunt, unsparing language — among the
toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel — lays bare a frustrating
reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end
the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines
about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.]
By Mark Landler
WASHINGTON — When the State Department condemned
Israel’s strike on a United Nations school in Gaza on Sunday, saying it was
“appalled” by this “disgraceful” act, it gave full vent to what has been weeks
of mounting American anger toward the Israeli government.
The blunt, unsparing language — among the
toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel — lays bare a frustrating
reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end
the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines
about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.
Even as Israel
agreed to a new cease-fire with Hamas, raising hopes for an end to four weeks
of bloodshed, its relationship with the United
States has been bruised by repeated clashes,
from the withering Israeli criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry’s
peacemaking efforts to Mr. Netanyahu’s dressing down of the American ambassador
to Israel .
“This is the most sustained period of antagonism
in the relationship,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel
who now teaches at Princeton . “I don’t know how the
relationship recovers as long as you have this president and this prime minister.”
With public opinion in both Israel
and the United States
solidly behind the Israeli military’s campaign against Hamas, no outcry from Israel ’s
Arab neighbors, and unstinting support for Israel
on Capitol Hill, President Obama has had few obvious levers to force Mr. Netanyahu
to stop pounding targets in Gaza
until he was ready to do it.
On Monday, the Israeli prime minister signaled
that moment had come. Amid signs it was prepared to wind down the conflict
unilaterally, Israel
announced it would accept a 72-hour cease-fire, effective Tuesday, and send a
delegation to Cairo to negotiate
for a lasting end to the violence.
Even as the White House harshly criticized the
Israeli strike on the school, the Pentagon confirmed that last Friday it had
resupplied the Israeli military with ammunition under a longstanding military
aid agreement. Mr. Obama swiftly signed a bill Monday giving Israel
$225 million in emergency aid for its Iron Dome antimissile system.
For all its outrage over civilian casualties, the
United States
steadfastly backs Israel ’s
right to defend itself and shares Israel ’s
view that Hamas is a terrorist organization. In a world of bitter enmities, the
Israeli-American dispute is more akin to a family quarrel.
The White House seems determined to tamp down the
latest eruption in tensions. “The nature of our relationship is strong and
unchanged,” the press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters on Monday, pointing
to comments by Mr. Netanyahu over the weekend, in which he said, “I think the United
States has been terrific.”
The two statements are part of a recurring
pattern for this administration: an angry outburst, followed by calmer words
and the grudging recognition that little is going to change in the fundamental
relationship between the United States
and its closest ally in the Middle East .
Disputes between the United
States and Israel
are hardly new. President Ronald Reagan sold Awacs surveillance planes to Saudi
Arabia over Israel ’s
fierce objections. George H.W. Bush held up loan guarantees because of Israeli
settlement construction. Bill Clinton fumed after his first Oval Office
encounter with a newly elected Israeli prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu.
But the chronic nature of this tension is unusual
— and, according to current and former officials, rooted in ill will at the
very top. “You have a backdrop of a very acrimonious relationship between the
president and the prime minister of Israel ,”
said Robert M. Danin, a Middle East expert at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
While tensions between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu
only occasionally spill into the open, Mr. Kerry became the subject of very
public and vitriolic — albeit anonymous — criticism from Israeli officials for
his efforts two weeks ago to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel
and Hamas. His proposal, the officials said, was tilted in favor of Hamas and
did not do enough to protect Israel ’s
security.
Mr. Kerry, American officials responded, based
his efforts on an Egyptian cease-fire proposal that had already been accepted
by the Israelis. He submitted his ideas to the Israelis, anticipating that they
would have concerns. Whatever the precise circumstances, Mr. Kerry found
himself excoriated across the political spectrum in Israel .
At the White House, officials were incensed by
what they saw as shabby treatment of Mr. Kerry, a loyal friend of Israel .
In addition to the cease-fire and the peace talks, they noted, Mr. Kerry went
to bat for Israel
with the Federal Aviation Administration after it imposed a ban on commercial
flights to Tel Aviv following a rocket attack near Ben-Gurion
International Airport
Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, voiced
her anger to her Israeli counterpart, while Mr. Obama held a tense telephone
call with Mr. Netanyahu last week, during which he demanded that Israel
agree to a cease-fire.
“I cannot for the life of me understand why the
Israelis would do this to Kerry,” said a senior administration official, who
was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of
anonymity. “If it was designed to pressure us, I don’t know to what end.”
Adding to the tensions was a report in the German
magazine Der Spiegel that Israel
wiretapped Mr. Kerry’s telephone during his peace negotiations. A State
Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, declined to comment but said Mr. Kerry took
pains to protect his communications.
Although Mr. Netanyahu has insisted he will not
end the operation in Gaza until Israel
has shut down the tunnels that Hamas uses to launch attacks on Israel ,
a senior American official predicted that the tough State Department statement
would “box them in internationally.”
Mr. Netanyahu, however, has shown little evidence
of wavering. American officials said that after the previous cease-fire fell
apart on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu scolded the American ambassador to Israel, Dan
Shapiro, saying the United States should not “ever second-guess him again” on
how to deal with Hamas.
Responding to the White House’s outrage, Mr. Netanyahu
dispatched his ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, to defend Mr. Kerry, saying
the attacks on him were “unwarranted.” But Mr. Dermer insisted that the harsh
words did not reveal a deeper dysfunction in Israel ’s
relationship with the United States .
“It’s a lack of appreciation of how Israeli
discourse works,” he said. “It’s your average Jewish Friday night family meal, taken
to the hundredth power.”
Still, after a hectic week of television
interviews to defend Israel ’s
operation in Gaza , Mr. Dermer
acknowledged that the United States
and Israel
would never perceive the threat from Hamas exactly the same way.
“When you’re thinking about your survival every
day,” he said, “you tend to think about these issues differently.”
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
