The Growing Rift between Israel and "Moderate" Muslim CountriesOn Tuesday, President Obama met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was intended to contrast with their March meeting, when the two heads of state met behind closed doors, prohibited photos, and seemed aloof. This visit was full of lights, cameras, and rhetoric meant to show unity between the two countries. President Obama called the bond between the United States and Israel "unbreakable", and further stated that the relationship "encompasses our national security interests, our strategic interests, but most importantly, the bond of two democracies who share a common set of values." The support of President Obama comes at a time when Israel's always-precarious situation in the Middle East is becoming even more insecure.
Turkey has been Israel's second most important ally and a rare friend in the hostile region. It was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israeli independence in 1949 and for over 50 years has had a formal relationship with Israel. Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes that since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) took power in 2002, the alliance has been on a downhill trajectory. He ascribes this to the inability of the AKP to balance Turkey's unique characteristic: its capacity to be both Muslim and Western at the same time.
The breaking point between this alliance may have come on May 31 during the flotilla incident. Turkey has threatened to sever ties with Israel unless it apologizes for the deadly raid on the Turkish ship.
Also inside the region, political groups in countries at peace with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have become more radical in their views against Israel. In Egypt for instance, Mubarak's repression of opposition political groups has pushed the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood towards adopting more militant party lines. The political branch of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Action Front (IAF) ended a power struggle between party moderates and hardliners with the hardliners emerging on top. Among the differences between the two groups is the hardliners association with Hamas.
Outside the region, moderate political leaders suppressed by their restrictive regimes have also taken anti-Israeli stances. Anwar Ibrahim is the leader of Malaysia's opposition movement and one of the foremost advocates of liberal democracy in Muslim countries. In the 90's he was imprisoned for six years on trumped-up charges of sodomy-a crime punishable by whipping and up to 20 years in prison-and he has recently been charged again with the same crime. Last month, outside the U.S. embassy in Malaysia, Ibrahim spoke at an Israeli flag-burning rally in protest of the flotilla, and denounced the "Zionist influence" in Malaysia and the United States.
Although Ibrahim later said he regretted his actions, he illustrates a growing trend among moderate reformers and individuals oppressed by illiberal democratic governments. As Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post wrote, "Therein lies a story of the Obama era -- about a beleaguered democrat fighting for political and personal survival with little help from Washington; about the growing global climate of hostility toward Israel; and about the increasing willingness of U.S. friends in places such as Turkey and Malaysia to exploit it."
The fact that these "moderate" Muslim democracies feel that it is now appropriate to criticize Israel in this fashion shows the depth of the challenges that Israel faces and is perhaps, in part, a consequence of the current U.S. foreign policy ambivalence toward Israel in spite of our historic bond.
