Daniel Lubetzky

When Obama came into office, he demanded that Israel curtail its settlement-building on the West Bank. It was a demand that was made, at least initially, clumsily and bluntly, and without sufficient thought, but it was not an outrageous demand (it was in line, in fact, with the anti-settlement inclinations of previous U.S. presidents). And it was—and here is the part that Netanyahu could not abide—presented to Israel by Obama as a move that would be in its own best interests.

Every bad marriage has its recurring irritants, and the bad marriage between Netanyahu and Obama is no different. One chronic irritant for Netanyahu is Obama’s oft-stated suggestion that his understanding of Israel’s long-term best interests is deeply considered and comprehensive. One chronic irritant for Obama is his belief that Netanyahu has neither the courage nor the prescience to move Israel toward a two-state solution, the only solution that will preserve Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy.

I understand why Netanyahu might find Obama’s assertion that the Iran nuclear agreement is in Israel’s best interests somewhat galling. I’m 60-40 on the issue myself, and though I’m pleased that the deal, if properly implemented, will keep Iran from the nuclear threshold for at least 10 years, if not more, the Obama administration inadvertently reminds me from time to time that it might have an overly sanguine view of Iran’s ultimate intentions.

On the other set of issues—those related to Israel’s hemorrhaging legitimacy, which is in many ways derivative of Netanyahu’s obstinate desire to defend the settlement project at almost any cost—my sympathy for the prime minister dissipates. In this case, I don’t doubt at all that Obama is asking questions about Israel’s direction that must be asked by its friends.

In an earlier interview with me, Obama put it this way: “[I]f there’s something you know you have to do, even if it’s difficult or unpleasant, you might as well just go ahead and do it, because waiting isn’t going to help. When I have a conversation with Bibi, that’s the essence of my conversation: ‘If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who? How does this get resolved?’” He went on to say, “I believe that Bibi is strong enough that if he decided this was the right thing to do for Israel, that he could do it. If he does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach. And as I said before, it’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

To say that Israel faces an existential challenge on the West Bank is not to say that it doesn’t face other existential challenges as well. There is no intellectually coherent reason for the left to reject the idea that the Iranian regime’s ideology poses an acute threat to Israel’s physical health, and there is no intellectually coherent reason for the right to reject the idea that settler ideology and the continued occupation of the West Bank pose an acute threat to Israel’s international standing and moral legitimacy.

My wish for the New Year is that Netanyahu sees more clearly what is actually happening in the world; that he comes to understand that not all existential threats have a nuclear component; and that he commits himself, in word and deed, to repairing the damage his policies and political machinations have done to Israel’s relationship with centrists and liberals both inside and outside the Jewish community. My broader wish is that he helps to create an Israel whose behavior matches the highest ideals articulated both by the founders of Zionism and by the founders, and current-day leaders, of the American civil-rights movement.