US-Israel relationship headed for bumpy road after speech, say analysts

The extent of damage to the US-Israeli relationship following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress on Tuesday is yet unclear.

But if reactions to the 39-minute speech - which Netanyahu came off a plane in Tel Aviv on Wednesday defending - are any sign, the special relationship long shared between the two countries may have a bumpy road ahead.

All in all, more than 70 Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives boycotted Netanyahu’s speech which US President Barack Obama said contained “nothing new” and the Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed as “boring".

Democrat representative John Yarmuth described Netanyahu’s tone as “condescending” while another Democrat Jim McDermott described the rhetoric as “fear-mongering".

"If you can make the people afraid, you can make them do anything," Mc Dermott said. "That's what Prime Minister Netanyahu was doing. He was trying to make people afraid."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was reportedly “near tears” (of anger) at the speech.

Conversely, among the Republican congressmen – who gave more than 25 standing ovations during the speech – and the wider right-wing community, Netanyahu's address was celebrated as the act of a strong commander-in-chief.

“It’s pretty clear this guy is a leader with a capital 'L' — somebody people in many positions of responsibility could learn a lot from,” said Nevada Congressman Mark Amodei.

One Tea Party blogger even went so far as to call for Democratic boycotters to be hanged, while popular conservative blog Right Wing News described them as “anti-Semitic” for not attending.

The clear split between the Republicans and Democrats over the speech, as well as over Israeli-backed sanctions on Iran, has led some analysts to suggest that the decades-long, bipartisan support for Israel may have been broken forever - and with it, the US-Israel relationship.

“Some of the Democratic support in Congress for the Iran negotiations is probably out of loyalty to the president,” wrote political analyst John B Judis in Foreign Affairs.

“But allegiance can’t explain the refusal of 70 percent of Democratic senators to back a sanctions bill in January 2014 that AIPAC lobbied strenuously for and that reflected a position the Israeli government had loudly and consistently advocated.”

But others suggest it would be premature to say that this incident represents any fundamental breakdown in Democratic support for Israel.

“You’re running way ahead of the game,” said Daniel Levy, head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Were Congress to be voting tomorrow on aid appropriations to Israel, on maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, on whether resolutions should be passed at the UN that Israel doesn’t like on the Palestinian issue, or on almost any other issue, I think you’ll see that bipartisan issue hold," Levy told Middle East Eye.

'Existential' issues

Prior to giving the speech, a poll organised by opposition parties in Israel showed that 60 percent of Israelis thought the speech would have no effect on attempts to prevent the rise of a nuclear Iran, while 57 percent believed it could be harmful to links between Israel and the US.

Opposition leader of the Zionist Union, Isaac Herzog, speaking in southern Israel on Tuesday, was frank: “The speech sabotaged Israel’s relations with the US.”

Alon Pinkas, former chief of staff to Israeli foreign affairs ministers Shlomo Ben-Ami and David Levy and foreign policy advisor to Ehud Barack, told the Financial Times that the speech "should have been delivered several times in the White House, not Congress.”

“It exposes Mr Netanyahu’s complete lack of meaningful, discreet and credible channels of communication with the White House," Pinkas said.

In Israel, Haaretz reporter Anshell Pfeffer sardonically summarised Netanyahu’s speech on Twitter:

“Shorter #NetanyahuSpeech - Obama's heart is in the right place but he's stuck in a genocidal Persian bazaar about to sign a very bad deal.”

While the so-called “existential” issues of Palestine and Iran have continued to circle around the Israeli psyche, there are many other bread and butter issues currently weighing more heavily on the minds of Israelis.

Israel’s repeated military incursions have led to threats of swinging budget cuts while many have complained and demonstrated against a looming housing crisis in the country.

Netanyahu has already seen hundreds of thousands demonstrating in social protests against falling living standards, housing costs and other socio-economic issues – far outnumbering any demonstrations over the Iranian nuclear deal or wars in Gaza.

Yossi Mekelberg, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, said that Netanyahu was playing to his strengths by focusing on Iran.

“This is one of the oldest tricks in the book – ‘I can’t deal with housing, I can’t deal with poverty, I can’t deal with employment, let’s talk about external threats,’” Mekelburg told MEE.

“I think he took a risk and it will be interesting to see how it pays off in the ballot box - it might have an immediate impact, but I doubt if, in the two weeks until the elections, there is enough time that the Likud party could gain some potential votes.”

While Obama has been deeply unpopular in Israel since his election in 2008, Israelis recognise the strategic and financial importance of their relationship with the US, which still provides more than $3.1bn a year in aid.

But American frustration at Israel has been growing, perhaps most visibly when Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to publicly blame Israel’s stubbornness and continued settlement construction for the breakdown in peace talks with the Palestinians last year.

“In the long term, I think Israel and the American relationship and interests are close. But I think the dynamic between leaders can have an impact,” Mekelberg said.

“And I think, in this sense, the next 18 or 20 months can be quite, quite difficult in US-Israeli relations.”