Latest U.S.-Israel rift: This time, it’s serious

Netanyahu and Biden — before the smiles disappeared. WASHINGTON (JTA) — Last summer, when the relationship between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations appeared off to a rocky start, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren twice denied that he had been “summoned” to the State Department for a dressing down.

One “meeting” was actually a friendly phone call, he said, and the other was a routine gettingto know-you meeting. The distinction was key, he told journalists: When the State Department actually “summons” an envoy, “That’s serious.”

Welcome to the serious zone: Oren’s spokesman, Jonathan Peled, confirmed to JTA that the ambassador indeed had been “summoned” for a meeting March 12 with James Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state.

The summons came as the controversy engendered by Israel’s announcement of new housing construction in eastern Jerusalem during by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit showed no sign of abating.

“It wasn’t a meeting,” Oren told the Washington Jewish Week. “It was a summoning. I was told it was the first time that any ambassador had been summoned at that level.”

Oren said he is “working hard to avert an escalation. We’re working very hard to get back to what we need to do to make peace and stop Iran from making the bomb. We have apologized publicly and privately profusely.”

He also vehemently denied reports that he told Israeli officials that U.S.-Iraeli relations relations were at a nadir. “Recent events do not — I repeat —do not represent the lowest point in the relations between Israel and the United States. Though we differ on certain issues, our discussions are being conducted in an atmosphere of cooperation as befitting longstanding relations between allies. I am confident that we will overcome these differences shortly,” Oren said.

In fact, he is reported to have said he was “flagrantly misquoted about remarks I made in a confidential briefing.”

As the undercurrents became stronger, President Obama entered the fray, making his first public remarks on the strain in U.S.-Israel ties.

In an interview with Fox News that aired March 17, the U.S. leader said Israel’s announcement of new construction during Biden’s visit has not led to a crisis in ties between Israel and the United States.

“We and the Israeli people have a special bond that’s not going to go away,” Obama said. “But friends are going to disagree sometimes.”

He added, “There is a disagreement in terms of how we can move this peace process forward.”

The controversy erupted with what both sides agreed was a humiliation for the U.S. vice president, considered to be Netanyahu’s best friend in the Obama administration. Biden had come to Israel to allay concerns that Obama’s outreach to Muslims would come at Israel’s expense. Just as he was getting ready to meet with Palestinian officials as part of the administration’s push to restart peace talks, Israel announced plans to build 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, part of disputed eastern Jerusalem.

Biden, furious, condemned the announcement — several times — but went ahead with a speech that affirmed the unshakable U.S.- Israel bond.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the timing and said he would probe how the announcement was made without his knowledge.

“There was a regrettable incident, that was done in all innocence and was hurtful, and which certainly should not have occurred,” Netanyahu said in his statement. “We appointed a team of directors general to examine the chain of events and to ensure procedures that will prevent such occurrences in the future.”

Israeli officials and leaders of pro-Israel organizations are asking the Obama administration to dial down the tension, in tones ranging from the pleading to the berating.

For instance, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas & Pasco Counties sent out an email urging community members write the president. The JCRC said it believes the administration’s pressure on Israel “gives great comfort to Israel’s enemies — who are also our enemies.”

Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an organization that usually operates behind the scenes, delivered a direct broadside to the administration.

“AIPAC calls on the administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish state,” the pro-Israel lobby said in a statement.

Still, like an array of other Jewish groups, AIPAC wants the matter kept quiet: “We strongly urge the administration to work closely and privately with our partner Israel, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address any issues between the two governments.”

That echoed a plea from Netanyahu, to his Cabinet as much as to the Obama administration.

“I suggest that we not get carried away— and that we calm down,” he said. “We know how to deal with these situations — with equanimity, responsibly and seriously.” But Obama administration officials, who accepted Netanyahu’s explanation that he had been blindsided by the announcement of the new construction, nonetheless were not ready to let the matter go.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described a conversation between Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in exceptionally blunt terms.

Clinton objected to the announcement “not just in terms of timing, but also in its substance,” Crowley said.

In order to defuse the U.S.-Israel tensions, Clinton reportedly wants Israel to reverse the decision to add housing in eastern Jerusalem, make a substantive gesture to the Palestinians, such as a prisoner release, and agree to peace talks that encompass not only borders but final-status issues such as refugees and Jerusalem.

Netanyahu told a Likud Party meeting that construction in Jerusalem would not stop. However, his defense minister and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak said more needed to be done to assuage the Americans.

So far, Obama is not threatening any cut in assistance to Israel. In fact, it is Obama’s stated commitment to “tachles” — increased assistance to Israel in the realm of military cooperation, such as missile defense, and ramped up pressure on Iran to make its nuclear intentions transparent — that has made the latest flap particularly upsetting to members of the president’s circle who are close to Israel and have been pushing Obama on these issues.

In a posting on the Daily Beast website, Martin Indyk, a Clinton confidante and former ambassador to Jerusalem who maintains an informal advisory role to the administration, recalled the last time Netanyahu led Israel in the late 1990s, his boss, Madeleine Albright, then the secretary of state, was similarly embarrassed during a visit. She called Indyk, then the ambassador to Israel, and shouted: “You tell Bibi that he needs to stop worrying about his right wing and start worrying about the United States.”

Indyk said it’s time to heed that advice.

“There is one way to repair the damage to U.S.-Israel relations and to his own standing with the Israeli public,” he wrote of Netanyahu. “He could immediately declare that in order to boost the chances for negotiations, he is calling a halt to all provocative acts in Jerusalem —including announcements of new building activity in east Jerusalem, housing demolitions, and evictions. He should also establish a mechanism in the Prime Minister’s Office to ensure that his decision is implemented,” Indyk said.

The Jewish Press contributed to this report