Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
If location is the most important factor in shaping U.S. worldview, then the past decade’s events have strengthened—and muddled—that interplay.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to weaken Israel’s democracy—and the public’s stunning resistance—has unsettled the country.
Unlike the United States, which has three branches of government with shared and separated power, Israel only has two. The only way to contrast parliamentary power is through the judiciary.
Make no mistake, the real threat to the special character of the US-Israeli relations is already here. And the forces of illiberalism and annexation are busy eroding the confluence of shared interests and values that have sustained the uniqueness and resilience of the relationship.
China’s brokering of the Iran-Saudi deal is emblematic of a regional realignment that no longer sees the United States as the only party in its calculations. It may be tough for the great power to accept and harder for it to readjust. But it may have no choice.
But as Israel approaches its 75th independence day in May, the identity of the country and the borders that define it remain very much unsettled. This year may well hold both promise and peril for a country that has experienced more than its share of both.
ut more likely, if the worst of the right-wing extremists’ agenda comes to pass, the Biden administration and Netanyahu will enter a bad patch far worse than the Obama years. And Biden—with no choice but to push back—may well find himself in the middle of a nasty fight that he doesn’t want or need.
Politics are a necessary and often inconvenient part of democracy.
Netanyahu isn’t looking for a fight with Biden. Right now he’s more beholden to his extremist coalition than he is to Washington.
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