Israël : on en vient peut-être à l’essentiel

Les retombées du conflit entre Israël et le Hezbollah commencent à s’éclaircir. Le choc causé par cet affrontement et par l’échec israélien commence à faire sentir ses effets. Peut-être en vient-on à l’essentiel qui est, pour Israël, l’entame d’une mise en cause de son alliance inconditionnelle avec Washington.

Jim Lobe, ce matin sur Antiwar.com, fait le compte des interventions, commentaires et prises de position qui vont dans ce sens. La politique unilatéraliste de GW au Moyen-Orient est mise en cause à Washington, certes, ce qui n’est pas vraiment nouveau. Ce qui l’est, c’est l’évolution en cours à Tel Aviv.

Lobe remarque justement que cette mise en cause s’exerce directement sur la politique (la non-politique) de Bush vis-à-vis de la Syrie (isolement ou attaque de la Syrie), tandis que nombre de personnalités israéliennes expriment leur intérêt pour des négociations avec la Syrie. La logique conduit à une mise en cause plus générale.

« Meanwhile, other prominent Israelis are asking even more basic questions about the regional strategy pursued by Bush and its consequences for Israel.

» In a column published by the Ha'aretz newspaper last week, former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued that, in the aftermath of the Lebanon war, which, in his view, had “proven the limits of [Israeli] power,” a peace accord with Syria and the Palestinians had become “essential” for Israel, particularly in light of “the worrisome decline of the status of Israel's ally in this part of the world and beyond.”

»  “U.S. deterrence, and respect for the superpower have been eroded unrecognizably,” he wrote. “An exclusive Pax Americana in the Middle East is no longer possible because not only is the U.S. not an inspiration today, it does not instill fear.”

» Indeed, the widespread perception that Washington's influence in the region has fallen sharply as a result of both the war in Iraq and the administration's stubborn refusal to engage its foes diplomatically has raised new questions about whether Bush and his neoconservative advisers have actually made Israel less rather than more secure.

» “[The] Bush administration at first avoided and then was unable to deliver the diplomatic agility that was called for, and that is bad news for Israel,” wrote former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy in this week's Forward. “The United States had no direct channels to or leverage with key actors, and could not commit troops to any cease-fire implementation force.”

» “The idea that current American policy advances Israeli security and national interests is thoroughly discredited – something that is now openly aired in the Israeli media, and raised, albeit in more discreet circles, by Israeli Cabinet ministers,” according to Levy, who currently directs the NAF's and Century Foundation's Middle East Initiative. »

Mis en ligne le 31 août 2006 à 10H31