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President Biden Can Show His Support for Israel by Staying Silent

(The Hill) Robert Satloff - As an American, I keep scratching my head as to President Biden's seemingly intense interest in Israel's judicial reform legislation. Why has he commented - either directly, through American and Israeli journalists, or via his press secretary - multiple times on this domestic Israeli political issue? I don't recall President Clinton warning Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 30 years ago not to press forward with the Oslo Accord, Israel's highly controversial peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was only approved with 61 votes in the 120-member Knesset - a much narrower margin than the judicial reform vote. Here at home, passing important legislation without opposition consensus is not much of an issue. The White House seems quite at ease with Vice President Kamala Harris tying the historical record by so far casting 31 tie-breaking votes in the Senate. Democracies sometimes get things done by narrow margins. That's how our system - and Israel's - works. It's not a good idea for either side to wade into the domestic politics of the other. It's important that Israel's adversaries not misread dissent for division and miscalculate into conflict. But, in this case, the right approach is to affirm the strength and constancy of American support for Israel, regardless of how it sorts out its constitutional housekeeping. Biden's stance risks setting in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy about the erosion of U.S.-Israel ties that may be more consequential in convincing Israel's enemies that the Jewish state is weak and vulnerable. There are times when it is wisest to keep one's advice private and criticism discreet, maintaining a public silence. This time, silence would have been the wiser course. The writer is executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2023-07-31 00:00:00
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