We've lost our spark

Completely by chance, I flew to the United States the same night that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu went there for his meeting with President Barack Obama. But if I had to rely on the New York media to learn that the visit was occurring, I might have missed it - because most media outlets barely mentioned it.

The planned appointment of a Hispanic woman judge to the Supreme Court captured the lead headlines. The fact that 800 unemployed people stood in line to apply for a job as a school janitor also made headlines. And as a rule, Obama gets most of the headlines, due to his dizzying whirl of activity. By comparison, Bibi might as well not exist.

As someone who has accompanied most Israeli premiers on their trips abroad, I was always amazed by the electricity they generated during these visits, whether positive or negative, as well as by the maneuverability that Israeli leaders enjoyed in America. If the president was unsympathetic, they went to Congress; if Congress was unsupportive, they went back to the president. If the State Department imposed a veto, Jewish organizations would pressure the president, who wanted to be reelected, to impose his will on the secretary of state. Menachem Begin arrived as Fagin and left as the man who brought peace.

Who today even remembers that the State Department demanded that Israel delay its declaration of independence on May 14, 1948? But David Ben-Gurion decided to go ahead, and Harry Truman agreed. Ben-Gurion himself was never received at the White House, for fear of what the Arabs would say, but on his backdoor visits to the country he always electrified American Jews. Levi Eshkol was the first to be received not only at the White House, but also at president Lyndon Johnson's private ranch. Johnson, a champion backslapper, was also the first to end the American arms embargo against Israel by supplying it with "defensive weapons."

During this period, a feeling of guilt over the Holocaust bolstered the Jewish organizations greatly, and American politicians also benefited from their donations - not to mention that the Jewish voting rate was twice the national average.

There were presidents who did not like Jews. Richard Nixon, for instance, used derogatory terms in the privacy of his office. But during the Yom Kippur War, he understood Israel's importance as a strategic asset against the Arabs and sent an airlift that delivered arms and ammunition. Anyone who heard them will never forget the roar of the huge Galaxy jets that landed in Israel from morning to night.

Israel, which was fighting for its existence, earned admiration not only in America but also in France. I was present at the moving ceremony in which Charles De Gaulle told Ben-Gurion, "Israel is our friend and ally." But at the most critical moment, on the eve of the Six-Day War, De Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on us because we did not accept his advice not to fire the first shot. Later, France's deputy foreign minister explained this decision to me: "What you didn't understand is that France has always been pro-Arab."

U.S. governments were also pro-Arab because of the country's dependence on oil. But over time they came to see Israel as a strategic asset - which then gradually turned into a strategic burden because of its settlements, its policy of annexation and its opposition to the principle of two states for two peoples. We went through difficult periods under presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, but during the good periods we managed to create the impression that it was our adversaries who were the rejectionists. Now the wheel has turned, and Bibi's rightist government is the one viewed as rejectionist.

It is no accident that Bibi's visit took place as if it never happened. The silence in New York was testimony to the fact that the administration has decided to tone down the close ties between the two countries. The White House had geared up for a meeting with a rightist prime minister who is considered a "Tricky Dick" (as Nixon was once known). The dialogue with Obama bore no resemblance to the conversations with president George W. Bush.

Obama holds a worldview that prefers dialogue to invasions and bombings. He wants to talk with the Islamic world. I am not Bush, he implied. With Bush you committed yourselves to the two-state solution; how can you suddenly change course? Leave Iran to us. You deal with dismantling the outposts and halting settlement expansion.

This is an administration that the whole world is watching closely to see not only how it copes with the economic crisis but also how it deals with us. If it comes out against us, the entire world will be against us.

In cartoons, a lightbulb symbolizes a bright idea. But we have reason to fear that we have lost our electric spark.