Smith
quotes several Israel-protective Democrats warning that Obama is either
close to broaching  — or has already broached — what one of them,
Rep. Anthony Weiner, calls the “line between articulating U.S. policy
and seeming to be pressuring a democracy on what are their domestic
policies.”   Other than a handful of Democrats on civil liberties
issues, there has been almost no public criticism of Obama from
Congressional Democrats; all it took was some light pressure exerted on
Israel for that to happen.

There are several points highlighted by these growing complaints
about Obama’s actions:

(1)
This first point applies equally to those complaining that the Obama
administration is unduly “interfering” in private companies seeking
government bailouts as it does to those complaining of Obama’s
“interference” with Israeli settlement policies.  A country, a company
or an individual has every right to remain free of “interference” from
others as long as they remain independent of the party seeking to
“interfere.”  But if one chooses instead to become dependent on someone
else or seeks help and aid from them, then complying with the demands
of those providing the aid is an inevitable price that must be paid –
and justifiably so.

This is a basic lesson which most people
learn in adolescence or young adulthood.  Teenagers who tell their
parents that they are not compelled to comply with parental dictates
are typically met with the response that this is so only if they want
nothing from their parents, but as long as they seek financial support,
then the parents have the right to demand certain actions in return. 

Similarly,
businesses are free to make whatever decisions they want about how they
are to be run — as long as they remain independent.  But if they go to
a bank – or the federal government — and plead for a loan, then the
lender is perfectly justified in imposing all sorts of conditions
(“we’ll lend to you only if you spend more responsibly, refrain from
paying your executives more than X, not use the funds for Y,” etc.). 
If banks and other companies want to be free of what conservatives and
libertarians complain is undue influence from the federal government,
then they shouldn’t seek loans and bailouts from the federal government.

Identically,
if Israel wants to be free of what it and some of its U.S. supporters
call “interference” from the Obama administration, that’s very easy to
achieve:  Israel can stop asking for tens ofbillions of dollars of American taxpayer money, huge amounts of military
and weapons supplies for its various wars, and unyieldingAmerican diplomatic protection
at the U.N.  But as long as Israel remains dependent on the U.S. in
countless ways, then Obama not only has the right — but he has the
obligation — to demand that Israel cease activities which harm U.S.
interests.

Continuing settlement expansions that the entire world recognizes as
illegal – what Time’s Joe Klein accurately
calls
“taking territory that the rest of the world, without exception,
considers Palestinian” — clearly harms U.S. interests in all sorts of
ways, as Obama himself has concluded.  He would be abdicating one of
his primary responsibilities in foreign policy — maximizing U.S.
national security rather than those of other countries — if he failed
to demand that Israel cease this activity and if he failed to use U.S.
leverage to compel compliance with those demands.

(2)
While hypocrisy and double standards are far too common in our
political discourse to highlight every time they appear, the notion
being pushed by Likudniks in Israel and the U.S. — that it is wrong
for one country to “interfere” in the politics of another democracy —
is far too ironic to ignore.  Does anyone remember what the U.S. did —
and continues to do — in order to punishthe Palestinians for electing the wrong party (in elections that we
demanded) and to bring down their democratically elected government:

Under
new guidelines issued April 12 by the Treasury Department’s Office of
Foreign Asset Control, U.S. citizens and organizations must cease all
transactions with the Palestinian government, its ministries and
institutions operating under their control.

The
Treasury directive noted that Hamas is classified as a terrorist
entity, and it ordered U.S. citizens to conclude all contacts with the
Palestinian Authority by Friday, unless specifically permitted to
continue.

  “U.S. persons are
prohibited from engaging in transactions with the Palestinian Authority
unless authorized, and may not transfer, pay, withdraw, export or
otherwise deal in any assets in which the Palestinian Authority has an
interest unless authorized,” the document said.

 The order
does not apply to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the Fatah
party, or non-Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Today’s
article from The Jerusalem Post
notes that Kadima officials are worried that a perception by Israelis
of undue interference from Obama — whether the perception is justified
or not — will strengthen Netanyahu’s government due to resentment by
Israeli voters.  We might want to remember that lesson when it comes to
Palestinians specifically and other countries generally: citizens in
other countries tend not to like it when we try to dictate to them who
should govern them and who shouldn’t, and the attempt often emboldens
support for the very people we oppose.

That said, American aid to
all countries — including Israel — is accompanied by an obligation on
the part of American officials to ensure that the aid recipients aren’t
acting contrary to U.S. interests.  Independent, for those who purport
to care about Israeli interests:  just as few things helped Israeli
security more than Jimmy Carter’s Camp David peace treaty with Egypt,
does anyone actually doubt that few things would advance Israeli
interests more than a cessation of settlement activity and a peace
agreement with the Palestinians?

(3) How serious
Obama is about applying real pressure to Israel remains to be seen, but
it’s hard to deny that these initial steps are encouraging.  When is
the last time there were public rifts of this sort between the American
and Israeli governments?  Obviously, Israelis are taking Obama’s
pressure quite seriously, as are many of his Israel-centric
supporters in the U.S. 
Those who want Obama to continue to depart from the Bush
administration’s blind support for Israeli actions should continue to
make themselves heard, since those who desire a continuation of that
blind Israeli support certainly intend to.  As Politico’s
Smith reported:

The
pro-Israel lobby AIPAC last week got the signatures of 329 members of
Congress, including key figures in both parties, on a letter calling on
the administration to work “closely and privately” with Israel — in
contrast to the current public pressure.

As Andrew Sullivan said
about this:
“What Obama faces in the Middle East, if he is to move the peace
process forward, is a very powerful force against him. It’s called
AIPAC.”

Even the mildest pressure on Israel by Obama will be met
with extreme political attacks – as Bush 41 and Jim Baker learned many
years ago when they were bowled
over by bipartisan outrage at their attempt merely to condition
American loan guarantees to Israel on a cessation of settlement
growth.  Read this
1991 New York Times article by then-reporter Tom Friedman
to see how the same dance has been going on for decades regardless of
which party is in control:

A
bitter political fight took shape today in Washington as Israel and
some of its Congressional supporters ignored President Bush’s appeal to
delay a request for $10 billion in loan guarantees to help settle
Soviet Jews and made clear that they would push for quick Congressional
approval. . . . In addition, the Israel lobby, the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, and a broad coalition of Jewish
organizations in the United States, made clear that they too would
fight the President on the issue.

AIPAC is now even issuing
veiled threats of a primary challenge to the superb freshman Rep.
Donna Edwards for alleged insufficient devotion to Israel. 

Whatever Obama’s ultimate intentions are, the early
change in tenor, the recent actions of the last several weeks, and
his reliance on George Mitchell (praised
by Jimmy Carter,
J Street and even Noam Chomsky) as his envoy all signal that he is
serious at least about making the public case that Israeli settlement
expansions are wrong and counter-productive.  If he is to do more of
that, he will need political support at least as vigorous and vocal as
the opposition already emerging from the bipartisan AIPAC faction that
has dictated U.S. actions in this area for decades.