reprinted from The Yeshiva World
The recent visit between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has been characterized by the world press as remarkably positive, chiefly due to the lack of any public display of disagreement between the two in the course of the visit. This is like the couple who say, “We have been together all afternoon without a single fight. We are a perfect couple.” As I read the body language of President Obama, he seemed to say, “For better or worse, Bibi is here to stay for the rest of my term. It has been my fate to have Netanyahu as PM of Israel during my time in office, no matter who else I might have preferred. Bibi is (sadly) my destiny, and I might as well adjust to that fact.”
This “destiny” is an interesting feature of US-Israel relations. Each U.S. President had “his” Israeli Prime Minister and vice versa. A look at historical dates reveals a remarkable historical “coincidence” of chronological-twinning of U.S. Presidents and Israeli Prime Ministers. This fascinating correlation draws our attention to the importance of the personal side of the US-Israel relationship, a relationship that is the sole (earthly) friendship Israel enjoys in a hypocritical international environment which still lives up to Chazal’s biting image of “seventy wolves.” As we shall see, since the respective terms of office of Presidents and Prime Ministers have often roughly coincided, the coincidence has affected the nature of their relations:
Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy- The terms of office of the first three Presidents (May 1948- November 1963) after the creation of the State of Israel coincided with the term of David Ben-Gurion (May 1948-June 1963). For these Presidents, Ben-Gurion’s strong, aggressive leadership style often clashed with their wishes. However, they respected him as a strong leader who got big things done. Ben-Gurion resigned just before the assassination of President Kennedy and a new period of pro-Israel policies by the U.S. government would begin.
President Lyndon Johnson- The term of office of Ben-Gurion’s successor Levi Eshkol (June 1963- February 1969) almost exactly coincided with the Presidency of perhaps the most pro-Israel president ever, Lyndon Johnson (November 1963-January 1969). The positive relationship between these two leaders is an important factor in explaining why the US did not force Israel to withdraw from the territories it conquered in the Six Day War.
President Richard Nixon- The term of Golda Meir’s premiership (February 1969-April 1974) coincided with Nixon’s presidency (January 1969- August 1974), who wrote concerning Golda Meir, “To me, Golda Meir could not be just another leader. We both took office in 1969. We both resigned in 1974… If effect, she was “my” Israeli Prime Minister; I was ‘her’ American President.” Nixon goes on to describe the relationship with “his” PM in words that sound contemporary:
For both countries those were difficult, and at times, searing, years. The strains on our relationship were sometimes intense. She often wanted more than I was prepared to give. I sometimes took actions or pressed for conditions that she found it difficult or impossible to accept. We both knew that together we were playing for the highest stakes… Each watched the other warily, knowing that a misstep by either can prove fatal for both. And because there were no entirely clear solutions, there were bound to be widely-differing views about how the conflicts should be dealt with.
Sound familiar?
President Gerald Ford- The corresponding terms of Yitzhak Rabin (June 1974-April 1977) and Gerald Ford (August 1974- January 1977) took place after the Yom Kippur War. This is significant because Rabin had been the Israeli Ambassador to Washington prior to becoming PM, and as Ambassador, he developed personal relationships with Nixon and Ford. These relationships proved vital to smoothing the rough-edges of the US-Israel relationship during the intense and difficult negotiations with Egypt in the years following the Yom Kippur War.
President Jimmy Carter-A new, complex and hostile dynamic was introduced into the relationship between the next pair. Jimmy Carter bitterly rued the fact that his term (1977-1981) coincided with that of Menachem Begin (May 1977- August 1983), as the two men had diametrically opposed views towards the Palestinians and the Arabs. Each hated the other, even though providence made them partners in the first peace treaty ever between Israel and an Arab state in 1979. Carter intensely wished for a different PM, but his wish was not granted and Begin remained “his” Prime Minister.
President Ronald Reagan- Ronald Reagan was destined to have no less than three PMs during his long administration (1981-1989). Despite his sunny public persona, Reagan was not capable of close friendships, and did not develop any with Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, or Shimon Peres, Reagan’s three PMs. Fortunately it did not matter, as Reagan personally was very pro-Israel in a refreshingly uncomplicated way, and his two Secretaries of State were the two most pro-Israel ones in American history. As Israeli President Chaim Herzog put it, “far from expert in complicated Israel-Arab relations, Reagan saw things in black-and-white. Because the Israelis were the good guys, he rode with us all the way.”
President George H. W. Bush- Reagan’s one-term successor was the first George Bush (1989-1993), who was fated to be paired with Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir (October 1986-June 1992). Once again a prickly relationship between two men who were on different wavelengths, the patrician WASP who was committed to the so-to-speak “WASP goal “of a Palestinian state (and thereby the “end” of the Arab-Israeli Conflict), and the Likud PM for whom peace and trust with the Arabs was a dangerous illusion. Like Carter, Bush almost visibly yearned for a more reasonable PM. Unlike Carter, late in his term (June 1992) he got one in Yitzhak Rabin, who replaced Shamir.
President Bill Clinton- By then, Bush’s term was almost over, but his successor Bill Clinton (January 1993-January 2001) liked Rabin (July 1992-November 1995) very much. He particularly liked him when Rabin gave the Americans what they wanted, i.e. recognition of Arafat and the beginnings of a Palestinian State (though we all know where that went), as well as a peace treaty with Jordan. Clinton placed a great deal of reliance on his relationship with “his” PM, and he was shocked at Rabin’s assassination in 1995. The next three PMs (Shimon Peres, Bibi Netanyahu, and Ehud Barak) did not have that kind of personal relationship with President Clinton. Indeed, the Bibi-Clinton relationship was so toxic that Clinton sent his personal political experts to manage the 1999 Israeli elections which deposed Bibi and brought in Ehud Barak. Unfortunately for Clinton and Barak, their joint-efforts to “give away the whole store” failed to satisfy Arafat’s thirst for the destruction and replacement of the Jewish State which culminated in the Second Intifada.
President George W. Bush- As if by clockwork, Barak was overthrown electorally at the end of Clinton’s term, so the new PM, Ariel Sharon (March 2001-April 2006), would find himself paired with George W. Bush (January 2001- January 2009). The new pair hit it off quite -well, which helped Sharon suppress the Intifada, isolate and finish off Arafat, and give Israel a ringside seat at the conquest and disintegration of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. On the other hand, Sharon had to acquiesce in Bush’s call for a Palestinian State, and Sharon was even led to conceptualize and actualize the evacuation from the Gaza Strip, which has led to disaster. Bush was genuinely upset when Sharon had an incapacitating stroke, but was okay with “his” second PM Ehud Olmert, who after all, was willing to make a second try to” give away the whole store”, only to be similarly rebuffed by a second Palestinian leader.
President Barak Obama- Once again, the clockwork led to an Israeli PM’s resignation near the end of a President’s term- Olmert fell from power in July 2008 (corruption). Tzippy Livini may be disregarded as a pathetic footnote, as she struggled and scrambled unsuccessfully to put together a coalition. What happened instead was an Israeli election with the following result-On January 20, 2009, Barak Obama became President of the United States; on February 20, Bibi Netanyahu became PM of Israel. Though they clearly despise each other, they are joined at the hip by destiny (hashgachah, as we like to call it). Bibi and Barak have been in office, concurrently, for the past seven years. He is “his” PM and he is “his” President. Although Obama has dreamed and wished-for someone else (Shelly Yachomovich a.k.a “who?”; Bougie Herzog), it was not to be. At their recent meeting, Obama seemed philosophically resigned to his fate.
The clock is about to strike midnight again as we are on the cusp of a U.S. Presidential election year, so we are all left wondering who will be President Obama’s replacement? Will Bibi continue as PM into the next Presidential administration? Has Obama truly resigned himself to dealing with Bibi, or will he make an eleventh-hour attempt to imitate Clinton and overthrow Netanyahu? And, of course, will the unique PM-Presidential relationships continue like clockwork, or are we on the verge of a new era in U.S.-Israeli relations?
The role personal chemistry plays in the US-Israel relationship, the extraordinary transformations that are sweeping Europe, the manic increase in the tempo of violence and sadism in the Middle-East, the unprecedented failure of nerve, guts, and common-sense among the current political and intellectual leaders of the West, cannot fail to recall the immortal quip of Rav Hutner ztz”l: “Most of the time, generally speaking, the Ribono shel Olam runs the world.”
