How Mideast ‘Deal of the Century’ Plays in Two Elections

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- With Israeli elections only weeks away, it is anyone’s guess how U.S. President Donald Trump’s just revealed Middle East peace plan might affect the outcome. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is betting that his close association with Trump will remind Israelis that it is he who is the experienced statesman whose efforts helped lead to this “deal of the century.”

But that relationship could also boomerang against Netanyahu. Some Israelis see the timing of the plan’s release Tuesday as blatant interference in Israel’s democratic process; they note that just as Trump seems entirely unfazed by Russia’s role in his 2016 election, he sees nothing wrong with injecting himself into Israel’s vote.

Israelis will go to the polls March 2 for the third time in the past year, after Netanyahu has twice deadlocked with former general Benny Gantz of the newly formed Blue and White Party. Hanging over the votes were accusations of corruption against Netanyahu, who was indicted Tuesday on three counts, the first time that has happened to a sitting prime minister. From that low point came the high of standing beside Trump in the White House amid thunderous applause for the U.S.’s proposal.

Undercutting Netanyahu’s claim, though, that he alone is the statesman who can deliver peace is that the U.S. president also met Monday with Gantz, who committed himself to embracing Trump’s initiative. The Americans’ hedging and the images of Gantz in the Oval Office could send the signal to more Israelis that it’s fine for Netanyahu’s political career to end.

Where the plan could further hurt Netanyahu is with far-right voters. Because it calls for a Palestinian state, imposes a four-year freeze on settlement construction outside the area that will be Israel’s and will allow the Palestinians to place their capital in an eastern portion of Jerusalem, the plan crosses several of the settlers’ “red lines.” The settlers will probably vote as they did before, but once the elections are over and coalition negotiations begin, they may be unwilling to join Netanyahu unless he backs away from the plan. Of course, he will not be able to do so. His entire foreign policy has been framed around doing nothing to arouse Trump’s ire, because he knows the potential consequences.

Arab response to the plan could also cost Netanyahu. Palestinian protests are expected, and the Israel Defense Forces is gearing up for them. But if the IDF finds itself in conflict with Palestinians, or if the Palestinian Authority cuts off all security cooperation with Israel leading to a rise in terrorism, or if Hamas or Hezbollah use what they see as U.S.’s blatant abandonment of the Palestinians as an excuse to go to battle against Israel, Netanyahu could find himself running for re-election while conducting a war of some size, another scenario he has long dreaded.

Unlike Netanyahu, for whom the plan could thus cut either way in elections, the “deal of the century” seems sure to serve Trump well in his own campaign for re-election. His base, which is heavily pro-Israel, will applaud his abandonment of the 1967 lines as a starting point and his embrace of the Jewish narrative about the Land of Israel. Evangelicals are already reacting to the plan by saying that Trump is moved by the spirit of God.

More interesting, though, is that the deal might just win Trump some Jewish votes, especially if he ends up running against Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, Democrats who stand further to the left than the rest of the field. Most Orthodox Jews in the U.S. are solidly pro-Trump, if for no other reason than his being perceived as good for Israel. Most non-Orthodox Jews typically vote Democratic, and given that most of them find Trump particularly odious for reasons too numerous to list, he would have had little chance of winning any of them over — until now.

Centrist Jewish Democrats would be expected to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden or former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg (the candidate who is also founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News) in a heartbeat — and nothing Trump did or didn’t do regarding Israel could budge them. But while those same Democrats despise Trump’s personality and are appalled by many of his policies, they are equally worried about the anti-wealth stances of Sanders and Warren. Milton Himmelfarb, one of the great sociologists of American Jews, wrote memorably that “Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans.”

That idea — that Jews have remained liberal even while growing more affluent, contrary to political trends among other groups — worked for decades. Voting liberally did not threaten the financial progress many American Jews made since their penniless grandparents came to U.S. shores at the start of the 20th century. The election of Sanders or Warren would challenge that. Now, “voting like Puerto Ricans,” to use Himmelfarb’s idiom, would threaten their Episcopalian-like financial achievements.

That is where the “deal of the century” might just be enough to get some of these centrist Democrats to shift their votes. For while the Palestinians and Europeans will point to all the ways in which the plan gives Israel what it wanted, if it actually gets traction (by no means a foregone conclusion), American Jews will see Netanyahu making steps they see as positive: freezing settlement construction, which he should have done long ago but never did; perhaps being abandoned by his right flank, and appearing more moderate; having to embrace the plan’s openness to a Palestinian state, which many American Jews have come to suspect he was doing everything to preclude.

Many Israelis have long suspected that instinctively, Netanyahu is more moderate than his right-leaning coalitions have allowed him to show. If he’s pushed to the middle by settlers who reject him, some left-leaning American Jews might see Trump as the president who domesticated Netanyahu. Telling themselves that Trump has thus protected not a right-wing Israel but a moderate one, combined with their fear of Sanders or Warren, might just be enough to sway their vote.

When it comes to Israeli voters, the “deal of the century” may win Netanyahu votes, or it could cost him. When it comes to American Jews and possibly expanding the net of those who will support him, it seems almost inevitable that Trump has won, again.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Daniel Gordis is senior vice president and Koret distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. His latest book is “We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.