This is Neil Erwits. I'm here today with Alon Goldenberg, who directs the CNAS Middle East Security Program, and we're here to talk about US-Israel relations. Thanks, Alon. Great to be here.
So the Trump administration appears quite serious about moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Why would he want to do that, and why shouldn't he? Well, I think first of all, the good news seems to be that in the last few days, they've started to walk things back throughout the campaign. Trump had made this a commitment, and it appeared that he was going to follow through on it as opposed to President Obama, President Clinton, and President Bush.
Also made inferences to moving the embassy to Jerusalem, but then didn't follow through either. There's some real downsides to moving the embassy, but also some opportunities. On the downside, the biggest risk is the anger that it causes, both amongst the Palestinian public and across the Arab world. Because the issue is, Jerusalem is a holy city for three religions, for Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
And a contested city between Israelis and Palestinians, and if the US moves the embassy there, then it's taking a side, it's putting its finger on the scale and saying that Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel, which could really infuriate Palestinians. Our traditional position has been that, ultimately, the parties have to decide, and we'll go with whatever these really is a Palestinian degree to. And until they do, we're not putting our embassy there. So the real danger I see is potential riots that target American diplomatic facilities across the Arab world, and that is a real problem.
That's why people haven't done it. On the other hand, in any two state agreement, Jerusalem will be the capital of both Israel and Palestine. And therefore, there will be an American embassy in Jerusalem. It's something that will reassure the Israelis if we do it.
And the embassy will also be in West Jerusalem. This is very important, because West Jerusalem will no matter what the Israeli, Palestinians don't even contest that. East Jerusalem is what's really contested. So there's a number of arguments to make, let's just do it.
And something that I've written about, and others have too, is potentially you can try to offset this anger by saying, OK, we're going to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. But at the same time, we're also going to do something for the Palestinians by, for example, creating a Palestinian embassy, a Palestinian embassy, a Palestinian embassy for Palestine also in Jerusalem. So that will you sort of stay even while at the same time, like making it. To try to stay that honest broker that the president referred to during the campaign.
Yeah, exactly. So let's zoom the lens out a little bit. Prime Minister Netanyahu is coming to see Trump in the next two, three weeks. We don't know the exact time, but it'll be soon.
What's on the agenda for them? What are they going to be talking about? So I think there's three issues to be talking about in a big way in terms of Israel's security. And it's not clear how the prime minister is going to prioritize those.
And that'll be interesting to see. The first is Iran. That seems to be very high in the prime minister's agenda. And he keeps making the case that Israel should renegotiate the Trump comprehensive plan of action and try to come up with a better deal.
It's not a lot of support in the United States for that. I think a lot of Israeli security officials are telling him that's a bad idea. I think a lot of people are telling him privately. That seems like a waste of time.
The challenge is negotiating the JCPO. We negotiating the JCPOA involves negotiating with the Russians. The Chinese, the British, the French, the Germans, the Iranians. It's very difficult to do.
Nobody's going to reopen it. So this really went apart all of his political capital there. The second is what you do about the two-state solution. And Trump seems to be quite OK to the Israelis building a lot of settlements.
You're getting a lot more aggressive and essentially pursuing a one-state solution, which really is something that's the far right wing in Israel. We'd like to see it. Netanyahu's right flank would like to see. So it's interesting in Israel right now, you have this debate between Naftali Bennett, who's to the right of Netanyahu saying, this should be our number one issue.
Let's annex the West Bank. Let's end the two-state solution. Stop wasting time on Iran, whereas Netanyahu seems to be more focused on Iran. And do we have a good sense of where Netanyahu is?
Because during their last campaign, you seem to walk away from the two-state solution and then walk back on the walk back. Where do we have a sense of where he's at? No. This has always been a challenge.
He's always verbally committed to the two-state solution. And I think at the end of the day, as part of the party knows, it's really the only option. But at the same time, he's never willing to take the types of political steps or risks that will be necessary to get there. And now he has, he's always actually made the excuse to his far right.
We can't do anything because the Americans are going to punish us if we go too far on settlements. That excuse is now gone. With Trump, he actually could get boxed in by his far right. And so that creates a relationship for him.
And what's the third thing on the agenda? I think probably Syria. And just ensuring Israel's interests and American interests are protected in Syria, Trump has talked about negotiating a deal of lead on your Putin in Syria to end the conflict, give into some of the Russian demands and Assad's demands. I don't think Israelis are fundamentally opposed to that.
But I do think Israelis are very concerned about what kind of Iranian presence that ends up meeting in Syria. What that means for the threat of Israel's northern border, possibility of weapons going into Lebanon. And any kind of agreement with the Russians, the Israelis would want to know that their interests are protected, and they still have the ability to try to stop those kinds of weapons. But at least it looks like the Golan Heights isn't going back any time soon.
No, it's just, yeah. So where do you see the US Israel alliance becoming deeper or growing apart in the next few years? And will the new relationship between the new administration and the current Israeli government be good for both countries, bad for both countries? Well, we'll have to wait and see.
I think the security relationship is super strong, has been, keeps getting stronger. I don't see that changing. There's a lot of open questions about where the broader alliance goes. And it's driven both by what's happening domestically in the United States and also this new administration.
For one, Prime Minister Netanyahu is dealing with some real domestic problems at home, including a couple of scandals that some might threaten this presidency. So ironically, you could, down the line, end up with a much more liberalized really government. After eight years of Obama and Netanyahu, you end up with Trump and a liberalized really government would be complicated. Ironic.
Yes, very ironic. And then there's also this question where the bipartisan consensus on support for Israel seems to be framed, especially in the Democratic Party. And that really, I think the Prime Minister Netanyahu did a lot of damage with how he went at President Obama, particularly with the speech in 2015, which was seen as Netanyahu inserting himself into the support of the Republican Party over the Iran debate. And so increasingly now, you have votes in Congress.
For example, there was a vote in Congress early this year, objecting to the UN Security Council resolution in the past in January. That vote got 80 votes against. Now 80 out of 435 might not seem like that many, but these used to be 420 to 15. And so you see these fishers developing, and I think I'm concerned about it, and I don't think it's good for Israel, and I don't think it's good for the United States.
Thank you a lot. I'm sure we're going to be talking about this a lot. There's never any shortage of attention on this issue. No, certainly.