Expensive President Biden:
In October 1973, the armies of Egypt and Syria launched a shock pincer assault on Israel. Because the Israeli Military fell low on ammunition, your predecessor Richard Nixon ordered an enormous airlift of weaponry that helped to avoid wasting the one Jewish democracy from being destroyed from the surface.
Fifty years later, Mr. President, this Jewish democracy urgently wants one other airlift to put it aside from being destroyed from the within. It wants an pressing resupply of exhausting truths — one thing solely you possibly can present.
And what are these truths? That if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues attempting to ram by way of a invoice that may strip Israel’s Supreme Courtroom of its most vital authorized authority — to verify excessive appointments or selections of Israel’s political echelon — and achieve this with out a semblance of nationwide consensus, it’ll fracture Israel’s navy and never solely undermine shared values between the U.S. and Israel BUT ALSO VITAL U.S. INTERESTS.
Mr. President, once we met final Tuesday and also you gave me your very measured assertion urging Netanyahu to not “rush” this laws by way of with out “the broadest attainable consensus” — which he so clearly doesn’t have — it got here as an electrical shock to the Israeli political system, dominating the information for a number of days.
It was such a shock as a result of a overwhelming majority of Israelis imagine — rightly — that you’re a true buddy and that your recommendation got here from the guts.
However I’m afraid this Israeli authorities wants one other dose of your powerful love — not simply out of your coronary heart however from the guts of U.S. strategic pursuits as properly.
As a result of Netanyahu is plowing forward regardless of your urgings. Regardless of a warning from greater than 1,100 Israeli Air Pressure pilots and technicians that they won’t fly for a dictatorship. Regardless of an open letter signed by dozens of former high safety officers, together with former heads of the Israel Protection Forces, Mossad, Shin Guess and police beseeching the prime minister to cease. Regardless of Israel’s high enterprise discussion board warning of “irreversible and harmful penalties on the Israeli economic system.” Regardless of fears that this might ultimately fracture unit cohesion within the base of the Israeli Military. And regardless of a exceptional, largely spontaneous five-day march by on a regular basis Israelis from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the likes of which had by no means occurred earlier than.
If I could recommend, Mr. President, what is required is that your secretary of state, your secretary of protection, your Treasury secretary, your commerce secretary, your secretary of agriculture, your U.S. commerce consultant, your legal professional common, your C.I.A. director and your Joint Chiefs name their Israeli counterparts as we speak and allow them to know that if Netanyahu strikes forward — with out a consensus, fracturing Israeli society and its navy — it won’t solely undermine the shared values between our two international locations but additionally do severe harm to our personal strategic pursuits within the Center East.
And U.S. pursuits are very a lot our enterprise. As a result of because the Knesset strikes to vote on this problem on Monday, one thing crucial might break in Israel and in our relationship with Israel. And as soon as it’s gone, it’ll by no means come again.
I hope that it isn’t already too late.
What American pursuits are at stake? It ought to be apparent to each U.S. policymaker by now that Netanyahu’s cupboard, one that you just described as some of the “excessive” you’ve ever encountered, has its thoughts set on two dismantling tasks.
One is to dismantle the facility of the Supreme Courtroom to rein on this authorities’s excessive agenda, and the opposite is to dismantle the Oslo peace course of and its street map for a two-state answer, so as to pave the way in which for a unilateral Israeli annexation of the West Financial institution. Oslo has been a cornerstone of America’s Center East coverage since 1993.
These twin dismantlings are interconnected: the Jewish supremacists in Netanyahu’s cupboard have to get the Supreme Courtroom out of the way in which so as to perform their plans to annex the West Financial institution. Such a transfer might simply destabilize Jordan, as it could doubtless push increasingly more Palestinians there and alter its fragile demographic stability. Jordan is an important buffer state within the area for the U.S., which operates from Jordanian territory, in collaboration with Jordan, to take care of U.S. safety threats from Syria and western Iraq, the place ISIS forces proceed to function.
On the similar time, Mr. President, you’re wrestling with one of many largest selections ever involving U.S. technique within the Center East: whether or not to fulfill Saudi Arabia’s requests for a proper safety assure from America, for a U.S.-overseen civilian nuclear program and for entry to among the most superior U.S. arms. In return for this, Saudi Arabia would normalize its relations with Israel (supplied that Israel makes some concessions to the Palestinians) and restrict its collaboration with China.
It could be each troublesome and unlucky to get such a deal by way of Congress with out sturdy assist from Democrats within the Senate. As you recognize, Mr. President, Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are two of the least common world leaders amongst progressive Democrats, particularly contemplating the way in which Netanyahu, over the previous decade, moved to make assist for Israel a Republican trigger and spurned the embrace of secular American Jews for that of Christian evangelicals as a substitute.
Briefly, profitable sufficient assist amongst Democrats to forge this complicated take care of Saudi Arabia might be an enormous raise on a great day; it will likely be even more durable if Netanyahu neuters the Israeli Supreme Courtroom — undermining our shared values of an impartial judiciary — and strikes forward with plans to annex the West Financial institution. And with out you as president, such a deal could be nearly not possible, as a result of only a few Democrats within the Senate would assist it if it was pushed by a Republican president. Briefly, the window for this deal is small.
Furthermore, in 2016 you and President Barack Obama signed a 10-year, $38 billion settlement to boost Israel’s navy. Are we supposed to simply sit again and watch silently whereas that navy — which now we have made such an enormous funding in to amplify our energy projection within the Center East — fractures over efforts to limit the facility of the Israeli Supreme Courtroom? That might be a catastrophe for us and for Israel, which has actual enemies like Iran and Hezbollah on its doorstep.
Additionally, we are able to already see that the intense conduct of this Israeli authorities in increasing settlements within the West Financial institution is starting to wreck the historic relations solid by President Donald Trump between Israel and the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco with the Abraham Accords. All three Arab international locations have been pressured to chill their diplomatic ties with Israel.
Mr. President, there isn’t any establishment in any democracy that may’t be improved, and that applies to Israel’s Supreme Courtroom. There have been complaints from the middle proper that the Israeli excessive courtroom manifested an occasional judicial overreach prior to now. However between 2015 and 2019, Likud governments efficiently shepherded the appointments of 4 conservative justices to the Supreme Courtroom — beneath the present system that Netanyahu desires to scrap. It reveals you the way bogus this complete “judicial reform” actually is.
There’s a big distinction between making the Israeli Supreme Courtroom extra politically and ethnically inclusive and making this Israeli authorities immune from its scrutiny — particularly in a system through which the excessive courtroom in Israel is the one actual verify on government overreach.
And the latter is what Netanyahu’s coalition is as much as, and it’s the latter that undermines not simply our shared values with Israel but additionally our personal strategic pursuits, which we’re entitled — certainly we’re required — to defend.
