A solution to the second-term problem -- as Begin discovered in 1980 -- would be to toss Israel's political support (whether overtly or covertly) to the Republicans and thus ensure that the Democratic president doesn't get that second term.
The historical evidence regarding Campaign 1980 is that Begin worked behind the scenes with the Reagan campaign to undercut Carter's reelection hopes, particularly regarding Carter's frantic efforts to free 52 Americans then held hostage in Iran.
If Obama doesn't show greater willingness to bow to Israel's demands, he can probably expect a similar treatment, albeit with a different set circumstances than Carter faced.
Neocon Influence
The neoconservatives who remain very influential in Washington are already lining up behind Netanyahu and against Obama. For instance, the Washington Post, which has become the neocons' flagship newspaper, blamed Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the current diplomatic crisis.
While acknowledging that Obama's reference to the 1967 borders didn't deviate much from previous U.S. policy, a Post editorial still faulted the President for stating the position without first gaining Netanyahu's approval.
"Mr. Netanyahu had not yet signed on, and so Mr. Obama's decision to confront him with a formal U.S. embrace of the idea, with only a few hours' warning, ensured a blowup," the Post's editors wrote, adding:
"This president likes to portray himself as a pragmatist in foreign policy. In this case, pragmatism would suggest that restoring trust with Israel, rather than courting a feckless Palestinian leader, would be the precondition to any diplomatic success."
In other words, Obama can expect unrelenting neocon opposition unless he relents on Netanyahu's hardline approach to the peace process.
Israel's Likud government and its American supporters don't seem to care that Israel's decades-old intransigence on resolving the Palestinian issue has placed the United States in an increasingly difficult position vis a vis the Muslim world.
Instead, they seek to demonize even modest deviations from Likud orthodoxy, as happened with J Street and is now facing President Obama.
Military Spending
They also want to continue a huge and expensive U.S. military, which can be put to use against Israel's regional enemies, as occurred in the Iraq War in 2003 and may come into play against Iran in the future.
David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, recently noted in a New York Times op-ed how congressional Republicans and their supposed deficit-hawk budget chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, backed away from challenging the neocons on military spending even if that required deeper cuts in Medicare and other social programs for Americans.
"Ingratiating himself with the neo-cons, Mr. Ryan has put the $700 billion defense and security budget off limits," Stockman wrote.
In essence, that's the deal the neocons and Likud demand in exchange for their support for Republicans, a readiness to prioritize Israel's security needs and to support Israel's actions regardless of how offensive they are to the rest of the world.
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