Israel’s leaders can make friends abroad; Why can’t they work from home?

Of Israel’s many contrasts, perhaps the most shocking is the inconsistency between its diplomatic acumen and its domestic silliness.

This discrepancy will be on full display when US President Joe Biden arrives in Israel this month for talks with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who has only held office for a few days and could be back on the road in a few months.

While in power, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli voters that he could single-handedly navigate Israel through stormy international waters, and he actually made a push that moved Israel from Egypt to Hungary to like-minded people. Populist saw him expanding his diplomatic footprint while forging links with radical leaders. ,

Yet since leaving office, it has become clear that Israel’s foreign policy can indeed be driven successfully by others, even weak, young and inexperienced novices such as former prime minister Naftali Bennett.

When it comes to steering the country through coalition unrest or other internal issues, Israel, on the other hand, has never shown any potential leader capable of holding all parts together for anything like stability.

At least not since late 2018, when Bennett toppled the Netanyahu government that had held power for nearly four years. Since then, the country has gone through four divisive electoral cycles and is now moving to fifth place after the fall of the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government, which still somehow managed to beat the 2020 Netanyahu-Gantz coalition.

In the same period, Israel normalized relations with several Arab states, rekindled relations with Turkey without abandoning Greece and Cyprus, and even prevented the happy state of Bhutan from recognizing Israel. terminated for refusal.

During Netanyahu’s time a close relationship was established with the Egyptian leadership and today the energy partnership of the two countries is growing.

Energy Minister Karine Elharer was in Cairo earlier this year to sign a historic memorandum of understanding with Egypt and the European Union that will see Israel exporting its natural gas to the European Union for the first time. Egypt will provide facilities to liquefy Israel’s natural gas for export via sea.

To this should be added the triangle of interests between Israel, Greece and Cyprus. This regional partnership, a Netanyahu initiative, was adopted and nurtured by the government under Bennett.

And the US-brokered Abrahamic Agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, which were signed during Netanyahu’s period, have flourished over the past year under the new government.

On May 31, Israel and the UAE signed a comprehensive, significant free trade agreement to strengthen their $2.5 billion economic ties.

There are also development undercurrents with Saudi Arabia, the founding countries of the Abraham Accords, with dozens of Israeli business and tech personalities visiting Saudi Arabia just a few weeks ago.

And there are other important developments that were initiated during the Bennett and Lapid government: the immediate improvement of relations with the European Union, the restoration of ties with the Kingdom of Jordan, and President Isaac Herzog’s call to restore bilateral relations with Turkey. Hard work.

Israel’s ability to put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on a US terrorist list, among Bennett and Lapid’s list of diplomatic successes, their success in including London in their campaign against Iran (as diplomats from both countries told The Times of India). Israel) may be involved. ), and the notable Negev summit in which four Arab foreign ministers strongly condemned terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.

Everything was not great. Relations with Jordan diminished and largely did not rebound during Netanyahu’s tenure, with the government arguably failing to deal with the Ukraine war, managing to anger both Moscow and Kyiv, and reviving the 2015 JCPOA. For the failure of the negotiations did not put up. The US, Iran and other Israeli allies are making repeated efforts to get the nuclear deal back on track, despite protests from Jerusalem.

Netanyahu attributed the diplomatic successes to Israel’s technical and military prowess. If Israel can help intelligence services around the world deal with terrorist threats, and if Israel is a major exporter of science and technology, he argued, the countries of the world will make efforts themselves to meet, consult, engage .

So it seems unfathomable that a country that has seen diplomatic successes in recent years also has a political system that is unstable and increasingly complex.

Of course, the two skill sets are not necessarily linked. A government can pursue foreign relations without having to deal with opposition lawmakers or competing ideologies.

At home, a divided electorate, bitter partisan rivalry and a cumbersome political system make any strategic planning and decision-making complex and nearly impossible.

The fact that Biden has not canceled his upcoming trip to Israel shows that the political situation in Israel does not bother him.

Nor did the UAE end its normalization with Israel over frequent elections and political disturbances; It rejected attempts by Netanyahu to use Abu Dhabi as a backdrop for his election campaign.

“From the UAE’s perspective, the Abrahamic Agreement is intended to provide a strong strategic basis for promoting peace and prosperity in the State of Israel and the wider region. The UAE will not participate in any internal elections in Israel, now or ever,” Anwar Gargash, the senior UAE diplomat at the time, wrote.

From the UAE’s perspective, the Abrahamic Agreement aims to provide a strong strategic foundation to promote peace and prosperity in the State of Israel and the wider region. The UAE will not, now or ever, participate in any internal elections in Israel.

– Doctor. Anwar Gargash (@AnwarGargash) March 17, 2021

But in the Knesset, the same intelligent strategies that pure diplomatic success fail to achieve more buy-in. Leading bodies in the field of foreign policy are the export arm of the Mossad, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in some cases the Ministry of Defence.

Smart people in the Mossad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other bodies that guide Israel’s diplomacy have figured out how to build deeper ties, develop Israel’s position in international institutions, and seek ways to advance the interests of the state. Search. But they are not the same people who influence the internal political sphere.

Israel’s politicians have repeatedly and hopelessly failed to form a stable four-year government.

But in this period of internal turmoil, the field of foreign policy flourished.

There is no reason for this unbearable contrast between Israel’s diplomatic successes and the Knesset’s dysfunction, the unprecedented capabilities of the kingdom’s ambassadors and the colossal failure of its leaders to run the country.

Perhaps the politicians could learn a thing or two from the diplomats. When Biden meets with Lapid, he will speak to both the prime minister and the secretary of state. For the next four months, Lapid will try to grab both jobs.

Nobody expects much from the Knesset and its horrific political landscape. Rather, it is Lapid’s job as the country’s top diplomat that will set the tone.