Domestic political pressures are exacerbating the problems,
as is the perceived weakness of Israel’s main ally, the United States, which is
itself struggling to adapt to the consequences of the turbulence that has swept
the Arab world this year.
The storm is not expected to blow over quickly, with the
Palestinian push for recognition of statehood at the United Nations later this
month and the moribund peace process only adding to Israel’s sense of
loneliness.
“I am very concerned by the daily deterioration of Israel’s
strategic balance,” said Oded Eran, head of Israel’s Institute for National
Security Studies and a former ambassador.
“We have seen a deterioration of our relations with Turkey
and Egypt, and we have witnessed problems in our relations with America. The
absence of any viable peace process and the specter of a UN resolution (on
Palestinian statehood) is only making things worse.” Diplomatic crises in the
Middle East have a history of degenerating into war, and although conflict
appears unlikely at present, some senior Israelis are sounding the alarm.
“After the Arab Spring, we predict that a winter of radical
Islam will arrive,” Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg, the chief of the Israeli army’s
Home Front Command, said this week.
“As a result, the possibility for a multi-front war has
increased, including the potential use of weapons of mass destruction,” he told
a conference.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East assumed to
have a nuclear arsenal. Along with Western powers, it believes Iran is seeking
an atomic capability, something Tehran denies.
Although government ministers swiftly dismissed the risks
Eisenberg mooted, his comments revealed a skittishness at the top just days
after Turkey downgraded its ties with Israel and vowed to expand its naval
presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey was the first Muslim state to recognize Israel, in
1949, but relations nosedived last year when Israeli commandos boarded an aid
flotilla challenging a naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave Gaza, killing
nine Turks in ensuing clashes.
A report into the incident released last week by the United
Nations called Israel’s use of force “unreasonable.” It also said the blockade
was legal, a reading that Israel felt vindicated its decision not to apologize
to Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan rejected this, cut
back diplomatic representation and froze defense trade, as well as promising a
more active role for his country’s powerful navy.
The dispute flared just three weeks after Egypt threatened
to pull its own ambassador from Tel Aviv following the deaths of five Egyptian
security personnel, who were shot dead as Israeli forces tracked down suspected
Palestinian militants who had earlier infiltrated its border and killed eight
Israelis.
The row with Cairo influenced Israel’s decision to hold back
on a major military offensive in Gaza, local media said.
Israeli ministers remain much more concerned by long-running
concerns over Iran and Syria and have been eager to play down tensions with
their other neighbors, blaming the uncertainty of Arab unrest for much of the
friction.
Egypt’s new rulers are more susceptible to widespread
anti-Israeli sentiment in their country than was the ousted president, Hosni
Mubarak. Turkey is also looking to carve out a significant part for itself in a
reshaped Arab world.
“In this new role for Turkey, Israel doesn’t have much of a
part to play,” said Joshua Teitelbaum, a senior fellow at the Moshe Dayan
Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Tel Aviv.
“It needs to curry favor with the Arab world, and it’s very
easy to curry favor ... if you’re anti-Israel,” he added.
Washington has said little in public about the rows and officials
say it is working behind the scenes to calm nerves among a trio of allies that
are vital to its interests.
But Yossi Shain, a professor at both Tel Aviv University and
Georgetown University in Washington, believes President Barack Obama’s administration
is part of the problem.
“Everyone is suffering from the lack of coherence and
leadership from America,” he said. “Obama is not exuding any authority or
influence on anyone. This vacuum creates a sense of impunity for attacking
Israel with rhetoric.” Complicating matters is the fact that Obama and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have notoriously bad relations.
Only this week, a Bloomberg columnist reported that former
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates had accused Netanyahu of being an “ungrateful
ally” shortly before he left office, adding that the Israeli leader was
“endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing
isolation.”
Diplomats in Jerusalem have said the Obama administration
was deeply frustrated by Israel’s refusal to freeze settlement building in the
West Bank as a way to kick start peace talks.
Netanyahu, head of a coalition government that includes
pro-settler parties, says there should be no pre-conditions to resuming
negotiations, and no doubt feels comforted by the wholehearted support he
enjoys in the US Congress.
But Shain said Israel’s failure to articulate a coherent
Palestinian policy was harming its standing.
“Israel’s main difficulty and challenge, one that the
government has not addressed, is the issue of the Palestinians. At the end of
the day, it is what Israel does in the West Bank that will be paramount,” he
said.
That issue will take center stage when the Palestinians ask
the United Nations this month for an upgrade in their status. Although the
United States and Israel oppose the unilateral move, at least 120 other
countries are likely to say ‘yes’.
“Israel is in a quagmire over this and we need to handle the
situation differently,” Shain added.
