Israel's relations with the Obama Administration have gone from poisonous to venomous. Obama was furious that PM Netanyahu was reelected, despite strenuous and probably illegal activities on the part of Administration proxies to aid his opponents. Unfortunately, the PM's injudicious remarks on election day about Arab voters and aboutthere beingno Palestinian state on his watch provided fodder for the president's venom. The Administration is threatening to withdraw its support of Israel in the UN.
Were that to happen, and if Israel were not successful in finding a substitute among the other permanent members of the council (France? China?) the results could be seious, with anti-Israel resolutions, theoretically binding on all members, sanctioning Israel if it does not sign an agreement with the Palestinian Authority and withdraw to the 1967 borders. This would make it necessary for Israel to engage in all kinds of maneuvers to avoid or evadeany sanctions and generally add to the already dauntingcomplexity of its international situation.
Luckily there has been no threat (so far) to cut off cooperation between the defense and intelligence organizations of the two countries. Also, support for Israel in Congress is very strong, with 87% of the members signing letters warning the Administration that they will not approve a bad deal with Iran, including a veto-proof majority in both houses. Nevertheless, it appears that relations between the two governments will continue to deteriorate over the next 21 months until Obama is out of office.
The natural gas situation continues to get stranger and stranger, this time having nothing to do with Professor Gilo. The Tamar consortium signed a supply agreement with Egypt, involving the use of the idled EMG pipeline, previously used to supply Israel with Egyptian gas. Except that EMG has announced that it was not consulted prior to the signing of the supply agreement and after all, it owns the pipeline. In addition, EMG says that refitting the pipeline for a reverse flow of natural gas would take a long time and be very expensive. Is it remotely possible that the Tamar partners overlooked all this? And if not, what is the explanation?
President al-Sisi of Egypt continues to establish himself as the great hope of the rapidly disintegrating Arab peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. After a hugely successful investment conference in Sharm el-Sheik, al-Sisi moved to control the curricula and the textbooks used in Muslim schools (madrasas) in Egypt, to excise extremist content, under penalty of closure. This comes after Friday sermons in mosques were required to have officialapproval before they could be delivered.
And so it goes in the never-dull region in which any Israeli government must maneuver. Let's hope the next government will prove up to the challenge.
Norman A. Bailey, Ph.D., is Adjunct Professor of Economic Statecraft at The Institute of World Politics, Washington, DC, and teaches at the Center for National Security Studies and Geostrategy, University of Haifa.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 30, 2015
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