What price will Netanyahu pay?

The days may be numbered for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is about to lead his “ethnocracy” into a major conflict with the United States and other international governments that are attempting to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Israel and the US are considered close allies, but the relationship between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama has soured lately over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it is not interested in acquiring nuclear weapons; the so-called 5 +1 group (the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France plus Germany) is determined to compel Iran to sign a comprehensive nuclear agreement to this effect.

What has seriously complicated matters recently regarding this issue has been the presence of an ill-timed bill in the US Senate, now controlled by the Republican Party, just as the House of Representatives following the recent national elections.

This bill threatens to impose new sanctions on Iran if a deal is not reached by the end of June.

The Obama administration is against the passage of this bill before talks are resumed in March, for fear that Iran will pull out of the hopefully fruitful talks.

This goal may be thwarted by the inelegant invitation sent by House Speaker John Boehner to Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on this crucial issue, to the surprise and shock of Obama and his senior aides, including Vice President John Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi commented on Boehner’s action, reportedly promoted by American-born Israeli Ambassador Ron Derrmer, saying: “It’s out of the ordinary that the Speaker would decide that he would be inviting people to [address] a joint session of Congress without any bipartisan consultation.”

Boehner explained that he had invited Netanyahu to speak about “the grave threats radical Islam impose on our security and way of life”.

In other words, explained M.J. Rosenberg of The Nation, “Boehner would use Netanyahu to make the case for new sanctions, making it much harder for Democrats to withstand pressure from the (pro-Israel) lobby. If that couldn’t achieve the two-thirds necessary to override [Obama’s] veto, nothing could.”

Netanyahu is said to believe that his opposition to Obama will help his chance to win another term as prime minister when the Israeli elections are held, two weeks after he address the American Congress.

But the Israeli prime minister’s chance of retaining his position has received another blow this week, as a poll showed that the joint Labour-Hatnuah and Zionist Camp ticket has risen to 26 seats, widening its lead over Likud by an additional three seats.

The Likud, the poll showed, would gain only 23 seats.

Netanyahu’s stance has, unexpectedly, prompted Hillary Clinton, a likely Democratic nominee in the upcoming presidential election, to declare her support for Obama in his tiff with Boehner and Netanyahu.

New sanctions against Iran, she continued, would be “a very serious strategic error.... Why would we want to be the catalyst for the collapse of negotiations  before we really know whether there is something we can get out of them?”

Clinton’s statement, Rosenberg wrote, “is also significant because she has rarely broken with the (pro-Israel) lobby on anything”.

Her decision to do so, he added, “indicates that she has seen the polls showing that the Democratic base is far less enamoured of Israeli policies than it used to be, and certainly less than the Republicans”.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on March 3, and will also attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference that week.

Meanwhile, his upcoming visit to Washington has splintered many American Jewish organisations.

The Anti-Defamation League national director, Abraham Foxman, called on Boehner to rescind his invitation to Netanyahu.

Dylan Williams, director of government affairs at J-Street, a Washington lobby group that describes itself as a pro-Israel group but supports the two-state solution with the Palestinians, believes that this move by Netanyahu has definitely backfired with the Democrats.

“There are things you simply don’t do,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.