Not meddling - involved

WASHINGTON - Israel's Washington embassy unveiled a Facebook fan page a few days ago. It features a recommendation, among other things, for a March 4 performance by the singer Shalom Hanoch. And no, this is not a political statement. True, on the very same day there will be a decisive round of primaries between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but there is no concern that the singer's performance in Washington will affect voter turnout in the states holding the contests, Texas and Ohio. The embassy, if the message didn't get through, is monitoring, not meddling.

The past few weeks have brought several small scandals that mention Israel in connection with Obama's sweeping campaign. Israelis "are worried" - some openly and some anonymously - by his candidacy. On the one hand, such concern seems excessive at this stage. On the other hand, there is shock, excessive as well, at the blatant interference in another country's affairs.

Only someone with an especially short memory will assume that this is unprecedented. Just four years have passed since an Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, refused to meet the Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry. Ostensibly, that was not "interfering," but refraining from doing so. In practice, it was a clear endorsement of the rival candidate - the one to whom no "political" restraints applied. After all, Sharon could not forgo meeting the president, George W. Bush.


The most blatant example of Israeli interference in an American election campaign is already ancient history. Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's ambassador to the United States, supported Richard Nixon in the run-up to the 1972 elections and made no effort to hide this. Times have indeed changed, as his cautious successor Sallai Meridor would doubtless say, but Meridor's boss, Ehud Olmert, has also muddied his hands in similar fashion. On the eve of the midterm elections to Congress in 2006, he stood beside President Bush and hailed his policy in Iraq. Some of the comments made by angered senior Democrats in Congress to Israeli acquaintences are not fit to appear in print.

Both Olmert and his envoys to Washington such as Meridor, when asked to explain the meaning of Israel's siding with positions convenient to Bush regarding Iraq, insisted: Not every expression of a stance on current affairs is political interference. When America plays "in our backyard," as one of them put it, we are entitled to voice an opinion on strategic matters.

It's a claim that's tough to argue with, but one that also leaves wide room for interpretation and a gray area with broad margins. That is the field on which former ambassador Danny Ayalon, for example, was playing when he termed Obama's intention of initiating a dialogue with Iran "worrisome." Obama was angry, and rightly so. But isn't "worrying" an outside spectator's basic right?

During the 1980 primaries, Jerusalem was not happy that Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, Donald McHenry, voted in favor of a Security Council resolution harshly condemning Israeli settlement activity in the territories. A few weeks later, Carter lost the New York primary to his rival, Senator Ted Kennedy (now Obama's great supporter). Carter claimed in retrospect that the UN vote, which incited New York's Jewish voters against him, was responsible for the stinging blow. If he was right, then it may be argued that expressing Israeli indignation at the way the U.S. voted also constituted interference that influenced an internal political process.

Expressing an opinion in tense political times is a dangerous act, and official Israel is right to behave in the 2008 elections as though treading a path paved with eggshells. Nevertheless, every elected official has an opinion: for Clinton, for John McCain, surely also for Obama. Self-restraint is difficult.

Israel has always promised to keep from intervening in America's internal political affairs - and then intervened. And when not intervening, it has demonstrated involvement. This customary behavior, it should be noted, is not a jot different from the Americans themselves, who do not refrain from interfering in Israel's political affairs even when there is no election threat hovering in the background.