Israel will have a supportive ally in Trump, but he’s likely to complicate its ties with its Arab neighbors.
Netanyahu promises to exact ‘diplomatic and economic price’ over U.N. security council vote
JERUSALEM — On the wall of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is a giant floor-toceiling map with Israel at its center. Netanyahu likes to regale visitors with stories about how Israel has made friends with so many of the countries shown.
His point is that Israel has moved beyond the days when its conflict with the Palestinians defined its relations with the world. But even as he celebrates the ascension of President-elect Donald Trump as a steadfast ally, Netanyahu may find that it complicates management of his own conservative coalition and undercuts the very diplomatic outreach that has been his central priority.
The 14-0 vote by the United Nations Security Council condemning Israeli settlements, permitted Friday by President Barack Obama, who ordered a U.S. abstention, served as a reminder that the Palestinian issue remains a powder keg. Instead of counting new friends, Netanyahu was left to tally up old enemies, and in a speech Saturday night he vowed to exact a “diplomatic and economic price” from countries that in his view try to hurt Israel.
He announced that he was cutting off $8 million in contributions to the United Nations and reviewing whether to continue allowing its personnel to enter Israel, in addition to recalling ambassadors and canceling visits from some countries that supported the measure. He accused the departing Obama administration of carrying out a “disgraceful anti-Israel maneuver.”
In Trump, Netanyahu will have a far more supportive ally in the White House than Obama, who views Israeli settlement policy as counterproductive. Yet Trump’s clarion call supporting Israel on settlements and his promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could easily stir new antipathy among the Sunni Arab states Netanyahu has been courting most, analysts said.
“It doesn’t take a lot to imagine an American move that could provoke violence on the ground or just demonstrations on the ground with potential to become violent,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former State Department official who is now at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. “And that would not only create an Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but it would create a broader Israeli-Arab crisis.”
Netanyahu’s most important goal has been improving Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors. While those states still maintain a public reserve about Israel, they have quietly collaborated out of a shared belief that the greater threat is the theocratic Shiite leadership in Iran.
But that could quickly change if the Palestinian issue returns to prominence. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said this past week that an embassy move would prompt the Palestine Liberation Organization to withdraw recognition of Israel.