The White Houseis engaged in an aggressive effort to reassure Jewish leaders that the tense relationship between the Obama administration and the Israeli government that has played out in public in the past few months does not signify any fundamental change in U.S. policy.
Concern within the administration over the domestic repercussions of the recent clashes with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’sgovernment reached a critical point about 10 days ago, as Israel was about to mark its 62nd year of independence.
Since then, administration officials have mounted what amounts to a public relations blitz trying to rectify what they have come to believe is largely a perception problem that Obama is being unreasonably tough or even hostile to Israel – not a substantive disagreement over its Middle East policies.
There is some evidence the reassurances are working: AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, issued a statement Friday saying that the president and “top members of his administration and senior military leaders have highlighted the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and reaffirmed that a strong and secure Israel advances U.S. national security interests.”
But the dimensions of Obama’s public relations problems were made plain Thursday by the criticism New York Sen. Chuck Schumer , one of the administration’s closest allies, leveled at the president. Obama’s tough tone on Israel is “counterproductive,” Schumer said . “This has to stop.”
Schumer, appearing on the politically conservative Jewish Nachum Segal Show, said he had called White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel threatening to “blast” the administration unless the State Department backed down from suggesting that Netanyahu needed to demonstrate his commitment to achieving peace.
Asked about Schumer’s comments Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we don’t agree with what Sen. Schumer said.”
Another spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said there has been no special effort recently to reach out to American Jews. “We’ve always talked about our unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” he said. “There’s nothing new there. We’ve been consistent in our rhetoric.
But one former Democratic official said there has been disagreement within the administration about how to deal with the fallout from Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Netanyahu’s recent visit here. Those arguing for aggressive outreach “have finally broken through to the White House, which now understands and accepts that there will be no movement on the policy without [better] public relations.”
“What happened here, is they came to a moment of truth about 10 days, two weeks ago, ‘we have failed,’” the former Democratic official continued. “’Our Middle East policy and posture is in chaos, is in failure, and there is no way to ignore it. And therefore, what do we do about it?’ And they decided, we need to change the posture. They realized they were going down a bad path. So they launched a PR campaign – a blitz – entirely to support the policy.”
Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week sent out notably warm congratulatory messages on the occasion of Israel’s Independence Day celebration, conveying personal best wishes to Netanyahu. White House political adviser David Axelrod spoke at an Independence Day event hosted by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in Washington and then this week at the National Jewish Democratic Council.
Clinton gave a friendly speech last week to a revived pro-Israel Middle East peace think tank headed by former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Slimfast heir Danny Abraham, and National Security Adviser Jim Jones spoke this week at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the pro-Israel think tank, receiving a standing ovation both before and after his remarks.
On Thursday, the White House sent National Security Council Iran strategist Dennis Ross and Susan Sher, first lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, to meet with more than 20 Jewish House Democrats to give them reassurances about Obama’s support for Israel and his commitment to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
And in Jerusalem on Friday, Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell went out of his way at a public appearance with Netanyahu to reiterate Obama’s Independence Day message to Israel, adding: “That has been American policy. That is American policy. That will be American policy. The president has stated it clearly and convincingly , and I am here today as a tangible demonstration of the workings of that policy on a day-to-day basis on issues of critical interest to both our governments and our people.”
“What everyone was concerned about is that the White House is losing the Jewish community,” said a congressional staffer, describing the meeting with Ross and Sher. “And they are not explaining what they doing. They are late to beat back [the chatter] that Obama doesn’t like Bibi [Netanyahu], that Obama is an anti-Semite. The same way they were late to beat back the ‘death panel’” charges from right-wing groups last fall during the health care reform debate.
“They finally figured out there is a campaign being run against them,” he continued. “It’s not just a coincidence that there are full-page newspaper ads” telling Obama to ease up on Netanyahu. “The problem is, if they let these things go, it spreads. …There is a difference in how you package things.”
The reference was to separate appeals from two influential Jewish leaders, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder who each took out ads urging Obama to ease up pressure on Netanyahu.
“Israel has made unprecedented concessions,” Lauder wrote in his open letter to Obama, which he later told The New York Times had been approved by Netanyahu.
Still, officials and Washington Middle East watchers emphasize, that what has changed is the public relations strategy for the policy, not U.S. policy. And that does not change the fact that substantive disagreements remain between the U.S. and Israeli governments on issues such as East Jerusalem.
But the National Jewish Democratic Council’s David A. Harris believes most pro-Israel groups can tolerate such disagreements if the administration’s goodwill toward Israel is understood.
“The bottom line is that Israel needs to be a bipartisan issue,” Harris said, noting that American Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic, and pro-Israel supporters can’t afford to turn it into a U.S. domestic partisan debate.