In Reply To Ambassador Indyk

by Daniel E. Levenson

Earlier this week former United States Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, published an editorial in the New York Times in which he considered the currently strained relationship between Israel and the United States. While I have great respect for Ambassador Indyk, there are several points on which I feel I must disagree with him.

In the piece, entitled “When Your Best Friends Get Angry,” Ambassador Indyk writes that both Israel and its Arab neighbors are equally concerned about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, but that because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel and the Arab nations cannot unite in common cause against Iran. He further adds that the continued conflict between Israel and the Palestinians “…gives Iran the opportunity to use Hamas and Hezbollah proxies to provoke conflict with Israel, with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad seen as the hero.”

To this first point, I would say that while both Israel and the surrounding Arab nations do share a fear of a nuclear Iran, there are some subtle but important differences in the forms of such fear. Neighboring Arab states (especially those that have a majority Sunni population) may worry about the ascendency of a regional Shiite superpower in the region, which would feel free to act with relative impunity under the cover of the threat of nuclear weapons. However, my own sense is that there is a fear within Israel that Iran might use nuclear weapons not only as a kind of meta-threat to provide cover for the use of proxies or even for the use of conventional arms in a direct attack on Israel, but that they may actually use nuclear weapons as a first strike in an attempt to annihilate the Jewish State altogether. For Israelis, it is an existential fear.

To Ambassador Indyk’s second point, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict provides an opportunity for Iran to use Hamas and Hezbollah to do their dirty work, I cannot argue that Iran has probably played a role in supplying these two terrorist groups, but I have no doubt that even if Iran were to withdraw all support from these two organizations that they would still continue their attacks on Israel. I also do not believe that even if peace were made between Israel and the Palestinians that Iran would cease trying to find other ways to attack Israel indirectly.

I do find myself in agreement with Ambassador Indyk in his assessment that the overall role of the United States in the Middle East has changed dramatically since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began and that this has had a ripple effect on US-Israeli relations. Add to this is the presence of a right-wing government in power in Israel at the moment, which feels it cannot make dramatic concessions for peace and you have the perfect recipe for a chilling of what has traditionally been a very warm and somewhat unique relationship between America and Israel.

Where I find myself disagreeing most vehemently with Ambassador Indyk, however, is in his suggestion that Prime Minister Netanyahu ought to offer to concede the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, the idea being that if peace were to be made between Israel and Syria, it would limit Iran’s ability to make trouble for Israel and help President Obama to further isolate Tehran. The issue I have with such a proposal is that it is predicated on the idea that a real, lasting and stable peace can be established between Syria and Israel.

There are several problems with this idea, chief among them that despite the strength of the Israeli Defense Forces and their general superiority in the region when it comes to military technology, the 2006 war with Lebanon demonstrated quite clearly that in the Middle East, the physical proximity of one’s enemies deserves consideration when evaluating their potential to do damage. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you have highly sophisticated fighter-bomber aircraft or the ability to electronically cripple an enemy’s air defense network, if they can sit on their side of the border and hit some of your major population centers with rockets. Because of this, strategically, it would be utter folly for Israel to give up the Golan.

Even if such a thing were possible, even if Syria were willing to make peace in exchange for the Golan, what kind of a peace would it be? I have been to Jordan; I have crossed the border on foot between Israel and Jordan, passing through a paved no-man’s land with barbed wire and mine fields to my right and left, guards with automatic weapons in front and behind. The peace between Israel and Jordan is not a warm peace. Tourists go back and forth, the two nations may cooperate on some environmental and security matters, but it does not appear to me to be the friendliest of relationships.

Furthermore, the idea that Israel should keep conceding land in exchange for peace with every neighbor, until it is nothing but an even smaller sliver of democracy in the Near East, does not sit well with me. Even if the intentions of the present governments of the nations with which Israel makes peace are genuine, many of them are internally unstable themselves and a coup or other unexpected form or regime change in Syria or even Egypt or Jordan could quickly change the attitudes of those countries, once again posing a dire threat to the existence of the State of Israel.

Ambassador Indyk is correct, in my opinion, that the relationship has soured somewhat between Israel and the United States, and I think that it is ultimately to the benefit of neither state for the present state of affairs to continue, but as much as the role of the United States in the Middle East has changed in the last 9 years, in many ways, the larger security situation for Israel has not. Israel does not have the advantage or the security of friendly neighbors and two oceans to protect it, and if President Obama truly wants to make a lasting peace in the Middle East which will benefit both Israel and the United States, he should take this into account.