Israel’s initial, Pavlovian response to President Barack Obama’s surprising decision to attack Syria only after receiving congressional approval was disappointment, scorn and derision. This was not the official response, of course, but was whispered in the corridors of power.
“Ultimately, there’s nothing to be done,” I was told on Aug. 31 by a senior assistant to a high-level, right-wing minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. “Barack Obama is a flower child. He grew up as a flower child, he was elected as a flower child and he acts like a flower child. The problem is,” added the fellow, “that he can allow himself to behave like a flower child, but meanwhile we are stuck here in the midst of the jungle.”
It should be emphasized that Israel’s official response was restrained and measured. Prime Minister Netanyahu forbade the government’s ministers from expressing themselves on this subject. Only two ministers violated this embargo: the ultra-right-wing Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, who is viewed in Netanyahu’s milieu as a “wild card” over which they have no control, and Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel, one of the most right-wing elements in the government (and member of Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi Party).
Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz admitted, in briefing sessions held on Sept. 1, that Obama’s announcement had taken Israel by surprise, but he did not express a word of disappointment or criticism. “America works slowly. That is its nature,” a high-level military source said this week. “We must respect and understand this. It could be that Obama’s decision will emerge, in a historical perspective, as the right thing to do. It may very well be that congressional approval will provide the legitimacy for a real operation and not just a type of declaratory act. It could be that this insistence on working methodically and obtaining the proper backup is exactly what will strengthen Obama and sharpen the message aimed at Syria, and even more important, vis-à-vis Iran.”
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