A new direction for Israel’s public diplomacy

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with a respected expert at a Washington-area Middle East think tank about regional events. (He did not know that his comments might end up on the Internet, so I will not mention his name.) I asked him about the Netanyahu government’s lack of strategic direction in the recent months, an issue which has the unfortunate effect of both making President Obama’s job harder and endangering his country.

This expert, though understanding Israeli passivity in the wake of rapidly changing events, agreed that Netanyahu has been too cautious. I had primarily meant that Bibi wasn’t giving any progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, but my interlocutor made a different case: that Israel needed to take a strategic offensive with regard to the Arab Spring.

Too often, Israeli leaders have been quoted in the press as denigrating the Arab Spring revolutions. They worry that peace agreements will crumble, or that terrorist groups could acquire assets to use against Israel. These are valid concerns, but they are not the way to address the Arab publics.

Egyptians don’t want to hear how much the Israeli defense establishment misses Hosni Mubarak. Israel’s leaders would be much better served by empathizing with the Arab publics’ desires to form better futures. That doesn’t mean meddling in internal politics, but it includes respecting the right for Arabs to elect their own leaders — even if they are non-violent but conservative Muslims.