Netanhahu, Boehner - the bad boys of diplomacy
From the days, centuries ago, when Tatar and then French were the languages of diplomacy, there was another language even more important than the spoken word. This was the unheard, but seen, “speech” of body language, small courtesies and dignities we call diplomacy.
Never underestimate it! Many wars that had foundered on the reefs of warfare finally ended in drawing-room diplomatic exchanges.
To name only one example: the Central American wars of the 1980s, in which both the United States and the Soviets dabbled disastrously, finally ended when Costa Rican President Oscar Arias connived to get all the warring players to successfully agree to elections. Thus, he won himself the Nobel Peace Prize in addition to ending the wars.
Now we have another example, right on our doorstep, of a situation in which wise diplomacy might be better employed than the smart-aleck manners favored by the two major players. I refer to Speaker of the House John Boehner's invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a meeting of Congress on the “Iranian question.”
The invite was extended the day after President Obama's State of the Union address and was intended as an in-your-face slap at the president. The invite was also accepted, for March, as a jab at President Obama over any diplomacy with Iran and as support for Netanyahu's far-right coalition in the Israeli elections scheduled for March 17.
If there are any “little boys” in international politics who have never grown up and should be sent by their parents to the woodshed, they are Boehner and Netanyahu. In an era when we desperately need diplomatic manners — as we are dealing with the heinous zealots of the Islamic State, or the clothes-challenged Russian leadership of Vladimir Putin, or some of the man-eating leaders of Africa — we can barely afford for two democracies to be acting like such wiseacre boys.
President Obama speaks often, and sincerely, about America and its allies working to ensure a world in which Western values and institutions are the working norms; Israel depends for its very life on the predominance of those norms. And yet, in this foolish and wasteful case, both Boehner and Netanyahu are managing to do all they can to come out as untutored boors.
It is not, for instance, proper in diplomacy to go around the leader of a country (Obama) to issue an invitation to speak to the congress of a country (Boehner). This should be done through the presidency.
Nor is it proper for a foreign leader (Netanyahu) to accept such an invitation, leaving the leader of that country in an embarrassed position — unless, of course, that is the intention of your actions.
“Bibi” Netanyahu's manners, like those of most Israelis on the right, have never been much to brag about. In May 2011, in order to sabotage peace talks with the Palestinians that were so important to President Obama, Netanyahu viciously lectured the American leader in the Oval Office. In 2012, he attempted to influence the American election by praising Mitt Romney. Another time, he announced increased settlement housing just before Joe Biden arrived in Israel for peace talks.
In fact, one has to look long and hard for a time in recent history when any Israeli leader said or did anything favorable to America. The term “our best ally” becomes more and more absurd, with so many insults to America's very being.
Luckily, the middle and left in Israel see this and are increasingly critical of Bibi's voluble right. “Columnists and commentators said the Israeli premier and the Republican congressional leader were both engaged in meddling,” The New York Times wrote recently. “'They are helping Netanyahu defeat his rivals here, and he is helping them humiliate their rivals there,' observed Nahum Barnea in Yediot Aharonot (a Tel Aviv newspaper). 'That is dangerous. That is toxic.'”
Meanwhile, President Obama made a highly effective response to the Boehner/Netanyahu playbill in his Sunday interview on CNN with Fareed Zakaria. No president could be expected to meet with any foreign leader two weeks before that leader's elections, he stated.
As to the question of Iran, where Israeli policy is in total disagreement with America's attempts to use diplomacy to control Iran's nuclear development, the president said we crafted very specific sanctions against Iran. They have abided by them, even according to Israeli intelligence, and they have gained nothing by them.
Obama stressed that his argument is that for the U.S. Congress to impose new sanctions (as the Republicans want) and thus to undermine diplomacy at this crucial time would be a great mistake. Then, even if we did not get a deal, it would be the Iranians' fault. Why would we reject that deal and take a military option that is not even that effective?
And why don't John Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu read a book on diplomacy? I'll even buy.
Email Georgie Anne Geyer at gigi_geyer@juno.com
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