Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s hawkish defence minister, needs a lesson or two in diplomacy, if not common sense.
In the past few weeks, Yaalon, one of the most senior officials in the Israeli government, has made disparaging comments about Israel’s chief ally and benefactor, the United States.
Yaalon fired off his first fusillade recently when he described U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s tireless efforts to bring about a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as “inexplicably obsessive” and “messianic.”
He compounded the problem by lambasting the interim accord the United States and the major powers signed with Iran last November to rein in and contain Iran’s budding nuclear program.
Within the context of these scathing outbursts, he accused the Obama administration of being soft on Iran, suggested that Israel cannot rely on the United States to thwart Iranian designs and questioned Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security.
To no one’s surprise, the United States objected to Yaalon’s ill-advised remarks.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters, “It is certainly confusing to us why Defence Minister Yaalon would continue his pattern of making comments that don’t accurately represent the scope of our close partnership on a range of security issues and on the enduring partnership between the United States and Israel.”
Psaki added that the United States is “disappointed” by Yaalon’s failure to issue a formal apology.
Cognizant that his scalding critiques have served no positive purpose and are patently not in Israel’s interests, Yaalon has backtracked.
Calling his U.S. counterpart, Chuck Hegel, Yaalon said he had no intention of damaging Israel`s strategic ties with the United States. As he put it, “I have a very deep appreciation for the relationship between Israel and the United States … I greatly admire these relations … and I am aware of their full depth and significance. I have a total commitment to these relations and to advancing the cooperation between Israel and the United States in every way.”
Several days ago, in a meeting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yaalon made further amends.
“We appreciate the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry and the commitment and contribution of President Barack Obama,” he declared.
“The U.S. is “truly our best friend,” he added.
Yaalon’s display of contrition should be welcomed, but his statements fall lamentably short of the formal apology he should have issued by now. Israel cannot afford to antagonize the United States, its unwavering ally, but whether Yaalon truly understands that is really questionable at this point.
Yaalon, the former chief of staff, is a knowledgeable and erudite man. But his observations about the current peace process and the talks on Iran reveal a disturbing mindset.
He does not appear to understand that Kerry’s diplomacy serves Israel’s best interests. Israel will not survive as a democratic Jewish state unless it ends its occupation of the West Bank within the framework of an equitable peace agreement with the Palestinians, an objective for which Kerry has been working very hard since last summer.
Nor does he seem to understand that negotiations with Iran are a step in the right direction, a chance to defang Iran’s nuclear program and avert a regional Middle Eastern war, which would be disastrous for Israel.
For all his savvy, Yaalon exhibits short-sighted and shallow patterns of thinking that reasonable and realistic Israelis should completely reject. If it is to survive as a Jewish democratic state, Israel needs to move away from outmoded and self-destructive ideas and concepts that are hurtling it toward a nightmarish future.