Israel-US ties fray as Netanyahu proceeds with judicial overhaul

TEL AVIV — Israel’s ties with Washington are increasingly tense over the decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to push forward components of its judicial overhaul plan, forsaking compromise negotiations. Washington keeps criticizing the current Cabinet in Jerusalem, and an invitation for its prime minister to visit the White House is nowhere on the horizon.

Truth be told, just when you think Israel has hit rock bottom, someone comes along and proves you wrong. Late Monday, the Knesset gave initial approval to a bill that strikes down the Supreme Court's prerogative to curtail government actions that are deemed unreasonable. Responding to the proposed bill, which must go through two additional votes to become law, thousands of Israelis took to the country’s roads, bridges and crossroads on Tuesday to protest the government’s first concrete move to neuter Israel’s judiciary and law enforcement authorities.

At the same time, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli took to a microphone to blast the president of the United States. Specifically, he took aim at US President Joe Biden for saying this week that Netanyahu’s Cabinet includes some of the most extreme ministers he has ever seen in Israel.

"I think these comments [by Biden] are prompted and timed by [former Prime Ministers] Yair Lapid and Ehud Barak and their people who are friends with these people [in the Biden administration]. There is a certain amount of coordination between Biden’s people and Lapid and Barak; there is a certain amount of synchronization," Chikli said.

In other words, a member of the Israeli government and of Netanyahu’s Likud party is accusing the leader of the free world of gross interference in the internal affairs of its democratic ally by coordinating with opposition forces to stir up mass protests against an elected government.

This was not the first time Chikli had voiced his opinions of the Democratic administration, nor is he the only one to do so since the current government took office six months ago. Netanyahu’s son Yair used to spread conspiracy theories accusing the US State Department of inflaming the pro-democracy protests in Israel until his father, responding to US anger, sent him to cool off abroad — in the United States — and effectively silenced his Twitter rants.

But after a hiatus lasting some three months, the prime minister’s son is back. From his “exile” in the United States, he has resumed his intense social media activity in recent days, retweeting comments some 50 times a day (compared with an average of 10 daily in the previous months).

The deep crisis in Israel’s relationship with Washington hit a new low this week, when Biden — a longtime staunch friend and ally of Israel — aired his frustration at the conduct of Netanyahu’s hard-line government.

“This is one of the most extreme members of Cabinets that I have seen. And I go all the way back to Golda Meir and all. Not that she was extreme, but I go back to that era,” said the president.

Asked if and when he would invite Netanyahu to the White House, Biden’s response was no less astonishing. "The president of Israel is coming here soon, and we have additional ties," he said, referring to an upcoming Washington visit by President Isaac Herzog, whose official role is largely ceremonial. In other words, as far as Biden is concerned, inviting Netanyahu is a nonstarter at this stage — a public poke in the eye of the elected premier.

"If you had told me that a US president would ever say such things, I would have sent you for a psychiatric examination," a very senior former Israeli political source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "The whole world is watching the collapse of the historic alliance between Israel and the United States. The Americans no longer seem to have expectations of Israel, they do not hesitate to speak their minds out loud. Biden just threw Netanyahu under the bus. Not only did he do it publicly, he also breathed a sigh of relief afterward. On the strategic level, this is nothing short of a disaster," the source said.

Biden’s frustration was mirrored in the comments this week of outgoing US ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides. "I think most Israelis want the United States to be in their business," Nides told The Wall Street Journal in an interview summing up his term. Nides said that his country’s special bond with Israel entitles it to comment “when we think things are going off the rails.” The envoy noted that he had urged Netanyahu to “slow down and try to get consensus” on his government’s proposed judicial overhaul, because he was concerned that the prime minister was “rushing things through that ultimately could have huge implications, at least perception-wise, about what makes Israel great.”

Nides was essentially saying that the alliance between Israel and the United States was not built solely on security, regional or economic interests. Contrary to the perception of some in Washington about Israel’s primary importance to the United States as “its largest aircraft carrier,” the alliance was built, first and foremost, on shared values and a US view of the Jewish state as the only true democracy in the Middle East. These unique relations are now teetering on the brink of collapse under Netanyahu's government — while the entire Middle East watches.

Journalist Dana Weiss reported Tuesday afternoon that Biden's special envoy Amos Hochstein had arrived to Israel discreetly, meeting earlier in the day with Netanyahu and with national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, to discuss with them Washington’s mediation efforts to calm the tensions with Hezbollah, and also an update on normalization talks with Saudi Arabia. It is not clear whether Monday’s comment by Biden were also discussed at the meeting.

As strange as it may sound, the current peak in the crisis is happening even as Netanyahu's Cabinet has approved an unprecedented package of benefits for the Palestinian Authority (PA). The concessions include a license to develop the Marine natural gas field off the coast of the Gaza Strip, to build a new industrial zone near the West Bank city of Hebron, to reduce the handling fees paid by the PA to Israel, to refinance its debts and to sell it fuel at discounted cost. Other steps include longer operating hours of the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, allowing the PA to issue biometric passports and restoring the special access VIP cards to top PA officials.

The previous government, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, could not have approved such concessions without risking outraged reactions from the political right. Netanyahu, and it is no secret, enjoys sufficient credit on the right to get away with such moves that no other Israeli politician can get away with. Netanyahu’s decision stems from his understanding that the warnings of his intelligence agencies are real and the PA is on the verge of collapse, as well as wishful thinking that this would soften Saudi refusal to normalize relations with Israel, as well as appease to some degree the US administration’s anger at his government.

Still, this accommodation is unlikely to suffice. "This crisis makes normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia a real impossible task," a senior Israeli political source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, echoing the comment by Biden himself to CNN that such a development was far off. "If things continue at this pace, instead of peace with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu's legacy will include war with the United States."