Opinion

O’s electioneering

In the final days before Tuesday’s Israeli elections, Topic A over there is President Obama’s dim assessment of the Jewish state’s ability to handle its own affairs.

Israeli polls consistently show that a right-wing bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party is likely to maintain its Knesset majority. If anything, the next government is likely to contain even more security hawks.

Israeli voters seem worried most about the turmoil in their increasingly unstable region (where the only constant is hatred of the Jewish state) as well as bellicose Iran’s march toward nuclear-weapon capabilities.

If the polls are right, such national-security concerns trump the center-left’s emphasis on the ever-elusive quest of peace with the Palestinians and its worries about the damage Israel suffers in world opinion from its settlement policies.

Or, as Obama sees it, as reported by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News, “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

Goldberg’s column on Tuesday also quoted Obama as saying that he no longer bothers to get upset by Natanyahu’s “behavior,” and that Bibi’spolicies are “moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.”

Well, ho-hum. Obama’s dislike of Bibi (and vice versa) isn’t the most earth-shaking news. And smug What do Israelis know about Israel’s interests? attitudes are widespread in Obama-era Washington.

But the words of the leader of the Free World and the president of the globe’s most Israel-friendly country still became instant campaign fodder.

Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister who now heads her own party (The Movement) was the first to jump on Obama’s gift. “You can love the American president or not, but the relationship with the United States is important to us and part of our deterrence-related capabilities,” she said, adding that Obama’s words must serve as “a wake-up call.”

Others such as former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who isn’t running this time but still has much influence) riffed yesterday on similar themes. Indeed, Goldberg’s dramatic Obama quotes have dominated Israeli media chatter all week.

On a Wednesday visit to the Gaza border (which is calmer than ever after the November assault on Hamas), Netanyahu weighed in: “Everyone understands that only Israeli citizens will determine who faithfully represents the vital interests of Israel.”

Well, that’s as diplomatic a retort as you could expect Bibi to muster. Spokesmen for his Likud party are asserting (with little evidence) that foes like Livni cooked up the quotes with Goldberg and the White House in a bid to damage Netanyahu in Tuesday’s voting.

This much is certain: The last week of campaigning is when many Israelis finalize their decision. According to one poll yesterday, 27 percent are undecided.

Then, too, Obama aides accused Bibi of siding with Mitt Romney last summer, at the height of the US presidential campaign. Time to return the favor?

Yet some say the affair may strengthen Netanyahu, even as others assume it will strengthen the center-left opposition.

Israel Radio’s political analyst Hanan Crystal doubts the Goldberg column will trigger much movement between the major left-right blocs. Rather, he tells me, it will likely move voters toward candidates boasting foreign-policy credentials: doves to Livni (despite her clumsiness when it comes to Israel’s domestic politics) and hawks to Bibi (over younger rightist politicians who are untested internationally).

So Bibi will likely remain prime minister, and he’s still widely expected to invite at least one center-left party to join his government. Will he name Livni to a high post just to please Washington?

More widely, Israelis on all sides see the Obama quotes as a marker for after the election: It’ll be my way, or a highway fraught with a widening diplomatic rift between Jerusalem and Washington, and possibly reduced security ties as well.

It’s a remarkable departure for a president who works hard at avoiding the appearance of interfering in the internal politics of any other nation, from Iran to Egypt to Venezuela. Perhaps Obama sees America’s special relationship with Israel as a special license to meddle.