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American Beauty

By Chemi Shalev
Maariv
Posted on Monday October 13, 2003

The Americans have been providing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon practically unlimited political credit, even though it is costing them a lot in the international arena. If not for the current administration, the world would have beaten us up and with a lot of force.

The support by Bush and his administration last week for the bombing in Syria was a new climax in American willingness to go through fire and water for Israel. The Americans knew the Arabs and Europeans would be enraged, and that it would harm Washington’s efforts to get approval from the UN Security Council for the administration’s policy in Iraq, but friends in need are also friends in deed, and the Americans passed the test.

They have their reservations about the fence, sometimes criticize Israel’s ‘heavy hand’ in the territories and even honestly and truly despise the settlements. Nonetheless, the Americans have put up a defensive umbrella over Sharon’s policy toward the Palestinians. They stammer their condemnations, only when there’s no alternative, but give Sharon, within some reasonable limits, a free hand.

The ideological infrastructure for the unusual intimacy between Sharon and the Bush administration, is based, of course, on the events of September 11 when Israel was on the ‘right side; against the ‘axis of evil’ and the relationship deepened after Israel was almost totally alone in its enthusiastic support of the American invasion of Iraq. Washington and Jerusalem began looking at the world through nearly identical spectacles of black and white, good and bad, and now that’s been compounded by the political domestic American urge that makes Bush feel sick every time he thinks about a possible clash with potential Jewish voters. When it’s all mixed together, it’s true romance.

There are still pockets of resistance in the corridors of the administration, but there’s practically nobody in Israel who questions Sharon’s wisdom in fostering the close ties with the Bush administration. The 30th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War reminded everyone of the emergency air lift and the total dependency on America since then: America trusts in God, it says on the dollar, and Israel, at least most of the time, trusts in America, and Sharon more than most. Only because of his excellent relations with the administration can Sharon allow himself the right to silence when asked about the achievements of his administration.

Nobody bothers to examine whether all this is good for the Jews. It shouldn’t be forgotten, for example, that not only America suffers for its relations with Israel, but as a result of its role as the exclusive protégé of the ‘enemy of Islam,’ Israel has been turned into an object of hatred for hundreds of millions of Muslim around the world who previously were never interested. It’s very possible that a less friendly administration, which was more active—even one that applied some pressure—might better serve the interests of the Israeli public, even if Sharon himself would be a little less satisfied with the relationship.