Professor Brent Sasley is an Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He studies and teaches the politics of the Middle East and of Israel; the nature of identity formation; and decision-making processes. He is the author of The Cold War in the Middle East, 1950-1991. FMEP asked for his views on some of the current issues concerning Israeli and American policy.

Israel finally has its new governing coalition. The idea that the Zionist Union might join in a national unity government appears to be simmering, and while Benjamin Netanyahu might try to coax them in, for now Israel is going to have a right wing/religious coalition, with the center-right Kulanu representing the only moderate party. Given Netanyahu’s statements in the election regarding the two-state solution and the apparent absence of the Palestinian issue in both the election and the coalition talks, do you see any alternative for Mahmoud Abbas other than continuing to try to internationalize the issue, at the UN, the ICC and perhaps in Europe?

The narrow coalition does indeed appear to be comprised almost entirely of rightist and religious parties, with Kulanu representing the soft right. Moshe Kahlon’s interests in economic issues means his party is unlikely to pay much attention to settlement building or policy toward the West Bank and peace process. He might serve as a brake on some of Bayit Yehudi’s and Likud’s excesses, but otherwise his silence will serve to facilitate the continuation of the last two governments’ policies.

While Abbas’s own intransigence and fear of finally ending the conflict certainly plays a role in the failure of previous talks, the notion that the PA or Abbas have to do more to show interest in progress, and that if only they had, then Israel would have moved forward with the necessary concessions and agreements, is nonsense. An international legal effort (what some have called “lawfare”) to achieve statehood is not without precedent, including by the Zionist movement.

So if I’m Mahmoud Abbas, I don’t see much hope not only for serious talks, but for serious confidence-building measures such as curbing settlement activity outside the main blocs, ending the harsh rhetoric coming from Israel’s leaders, and distinguishing between Fatah/the PA and Hamas. It makes sense, then, for Abbas to continue working on the effort to change the international legal-diplomatic balance.

Let’s assume for the moment that the P5+1 and Iran do indeed conclude a deal similar to the one the White House described in the framework agreement. While lifting sanctions will give Iran the opportunity to expand its regional influence, a deal and an end of sanctions will also give the Americans, the Saudis and the other Arab states near the Gulf the opportunity to engage Iran and possibly open dialogue to help the whole Middle East start to climb back from the turmoil that has engulfed it in recent years. How do you view a post-nuclear-standoff future in the region and how do you think Israel might respond if there is increased dialogue with Iran?

It is difficult to say what the regional effects and what Israel’s reaction will be, because the success and aftermath of the agreement are both contingent on several other factors. I do not share the optimism that an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program will generate greater cooperation between Iran and the United States or will reduce Iranian ambitions in the Middle East. The Iranian regime’s survival is partly dependent on maintaining its commitment to the revolution. Yet legitimacy based on revolutionary impulses requires that one always strive to enhance or expand that revolution. Normalization of Iran in the region would undermine those impulses, and thus serves as a threat to the regime.

For its part, Israel very much fears Iranian normalization, but I think the fear is overstated, as I mentioned. It’s likely there will be efforts to maintain and expand dialogue between Washington and Tehran, and perhaps other regional states as well. This would be a direct threat to Israel’s position in the region, which in recent years has benefitted from the Sunni Arab states’ competition with and hostility toward Iran. Jerusalem would benefit greatly from getting ahead of the possibility of growing Iranian integration, however unlikely. It can do so by making serious efforts to reduce its presence in the West Bank, and respond constructively to the Arab Peace Initiative, which remains on the table.

Finally, given your responses to the first two questions, and given not only the current tense atmosphere between Obama and Netanyahu but also the new partisan divide over Israel (which AIPAC is desperately trying to reverse while groups like the RJC are working hard to expand it), how do you see the future of US-Israel relations going? We know security cooperation will be unaffected, but what about the “special relationship,” the cover the US gives Israel in the international arena, and other such aspects? In particular, I’d like to know how you see this going in the event of a new Clinton White House.

I’ve long argued that the relationship is far stronger than it seems on the basis of personal tensions between Obama and Netanyahu. These personal problems make the big policy discussions harder, but the relationship is rooted in a variety of other factors—strategic cooperation, shared cultural identity, similar political systems, public sympathy—that have and will overcome the individual-level problems because they are so routinized.

That said, it’s clear that the U.S. and Israel have increasingly divergent perceptions about international politics and put emphasis on different priorities. The settlement enterprise has expanded over time, across all Israeli governments. Netanyahu might have increased building in more isolated areas, but he’s still only the latest representation of a decades-long process. Yet settlements are increasingly problematic for Western publics and countries, including the United States. Similarly, Israel continues to hold a regional perspective on the Iranian nuclear program, the Arab uprisings, conventional threats to the Jewish state, and so on, while the United States has been trying to shift its attention to other issues by adopting a more global perspective.

In both cases, while the Obama Administration has certainly pushed harder for such changes, it seems that American foreign policy has been slowly moving in this direction anyway, partly pushed by external systemic forces. This is not to say that Washington will turn away from the Middle East—even Barack Obama couldn’t, as much as he tried. But if the White House’s attention is further diffused across the globe, Israel’s regional concerns will matter less.

It’s hard to know what a Hillary Clinton White House would do. I suspect the problem of settlements would remain a thorn in the personal relationship with Netanyahu. More broadly, it’s very possible the days of a Democratic president maintaining a Bill Clinton-style closeness with an Israeli leader could well be over. Much also depends on who becomes the next prime minister of Israel, if the current government has only a brief time in office. It’s also possible that this Netanyahu government limps along for a few years, kept in power but also constrained by its domestic political struggles, and therefore doesn’t engage in major policy changes but rather continues along the current path. This will make it harder for Clinton to challenge Netanyahu on the big policy questions.