Breathtakingly tone deaf

  Mark Perry

It's now official: it's impossible to talk about American foreign policy without first talking about Israel. It's astonishing when you think about it. The US can send its Saudi allies weapons, but only if they don't threaten Israel. State Department employees can visit with Palestinians, but first they have to check with Israel. US diplomats can work for Middle East peace, so long as they insist that they're doing it for Israel. And what of Iran? Never fear: we are engaging in talks with the Iranians not because they might bomb New York--but because they might bomb Israel.

This is not just an American problem. During her recent address to the US Congress, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned Iran--not because Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, but because it's led by an anti-Semite. "A nuclear weapon in the hands of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and negates its right to exist is simply unacceptable," she said. All true: but you would have thought that Merkel would be concerned more about German than Israeli lives. Maybe the comment's unfair, but you won't find Binyamin Netanyahu condemning Iran because it's missiles might land on Berlin.

The effect of the West's Israel-centric foreign policy must have the Iranian leadership bent double in laughter: would Iran be allowed a nuclear weapon if Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad visited Auschwitz? Does the West really believe it's in its interest to shun an intellectual midget like Iran's president, while extending a hand to Kim Jong-Il? Are we so hypnotized by our friendship with Israel that we don't remember that they once covertly shipped the mullahs their missiles? Then too (if we're going to be uncomfortably honest), the attack that Washington really fears doesn't involve Iran attacking Israel, but the other way around.

The Obama administration is desperate to reshape the world's view of the Israel-American relationship--insisting that while Israel might always be our ally, it might not always be our friend. This is a good project: recasting the way the world views Israeli-American cooperation undermines the simple-minded sloganeering that stipulates a "Zionist-American project for the region" (which assumes the American government is actually capable of such a thing) and separates Washington from Israel's more reprehensible policies: like kicking a Palestinian family into a Jerusalem street.

But perceptions are hard to shake. For example: Hillary Clinton's statement praising Netanyahu's settlement policy is now widely viewed as America's way of thanking Israel for "allowing" Washington to talk to Tehran instead of being seen for what it really is: evidence that the secretary of state is out of her depth, that the Obama administration is incapable of maintaining foreign policy discipline--that eight years after 9/11, the United States remains breathtakingly tone deaf to those who view Israel's weapons as as great a threat to peace as Iran's.

When seen in this light, Clinton's gaffe is much worse than a simple slip of the tongue--or a "misstatement" that needs "clarification". It has poisonous, and potentially disastrous, ramifications for the Obama administration's dealings with Tehran. Thus, in light of America's inability to stand up to Israel on so obvious an injustice as confiscating another people's land, don't be surprised if Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei comes to the same conclusion about the Obama administration's courage as Netanyahu: That when America says it really means it, it doesn't really mean it.- Published 5/11/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Mark Perry is the author of "Partners in Command, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace". His most recent book is "Talking To Terrorists" (Basic Books, 2010).