Obama's Radical Shift Against Israel
Lawrence W. White
This article originally appeared in
Pundit Press
http://punditpress.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-radical-shift-against-israel.
html
President Barak Obama gave a talk at the State Department last Thursday that
once again shows how poorly he understands foreign policy in general, and
the Palestinians in particular. After indicating privately that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not be a major part of his talk, the
President then made the statement that any peace deal between Israel and
the Palestinians should be based on the 1967 borders.
In his earlier missteps in dealing with the region, he has consistently
made matters worse for the so-called "peace process", and has now upped
the ante exponentially.
So what is wrong with his speech? I will focus on six items.
1 First, he has rewarded the Palestinians for doing nothing.
In his speech, he declared that the Palestinian Arabs should have an
independent state based on the 1967 borders. Why is our president giving
out gold stars for bad behavior? Why is he doing this just after Hamas and
Fatah have announced their unity? And just after the infamous New York Times
Op Ed by Mahmoud Abbas essentially promising perpetual war against Israel?
..What does the PA need to do in return? Where are the demands that it end
rejection of a Jewish state? Where are the demands that the Palestinians
refugees are to return to the Palestinian state, and not the Jewish one?
Apparently the PA is to be rewarded for being rejectionist, militant,
allying with a terrorist entity, refusing the idea of negotiating an end to
the conflict. Does this make any kind of sense?
<http://www.frumforum.com/at-aipac-obama-chooses-escalation?utm_source=FrumF
orum+Twitter&utm_medium=twitter> David Frum asks " if the President is
prepared to state now, in advance, that he has a view on the territorial
outcome of negotiations, why won't he state now, in advance, that he has a
view on Palestinian refugee claims? Why won't he state a view in advance on
the non-division of Jerusalem?"
Resorting to the pre-1967 borders means a full withdrawal by the Israelis
from the West Bank and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. A
Palestinian state, dominated by Hamas, would be devastating to Israel.
Imagine if the thousands of rockets from Gaza were now coming from the West
Bank and falling on Jerusalem. Is this policy initiatve an appropriate gift
to a declared Islamic terrorist organization?
2. Obama defines the 1967 lines (lines, not borders) as the basis for a
Palestinian state. What is wrong with using the 1967 borders? First, these
are not borders in any kind of legal sense. These "borders" are actually the
cease fire lines of 1949 following Israel's War of Independence against
seven invading Arab armies. A major cornerstone of U.S. policy has been
based on UN Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for borders to be
"secure and recognized." Obama's call for a solution based on the 1967
lines is an unwise and unworkable bow toward the Palestinian position
The 1967 lines are not defensible. Prior to 1967, Israel was 8 miles wide,
Jerusalem was surrounded on three sides, and Ben Gurion International
Airport was only a few miles from hostile forces. The borders prior to 1967
put the bulk of Israel's population within artillery reach of their enemies,
and denied Jews access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Immediately after the 6 day war of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson said that
a return to the pre-war borders "is not a prescription for peace but for
renewed hostilities",
3. President Obama calls on Israel to take "bold steps". In other words,
Obama is calling on the party that has been willing to negotiate to give up
more in advance of any actual negotiation, while he is calling on the
Palestinians to ... do nothing.
Obama declares that "The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel . must act
boldly to advance a lasting peace." Come again? Israel alone "must act
boldly"? Israel's enemies have made clear that their goal is to eliminate
the Jewish state. The Arab side says it will never recognize a Jewish state.
They state that regardless of what else happens, they will never agree to an
end to the conflict. It is Hamas that says it will always have as a goal the
annihilation of Israel. So what does Obama mean when he says that "Israel
must act boldly"?. When faced with Hamas' determination to murder every last
Jew, what is he thinking?
Has not Israel taken bold steps? What was the withdrawal from the Sinai to
achieve peace with Egypt about? Was not the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza
a bold move? Or the various concessions following the Oslo accords? Or the
offer made to Yassir Arafat at the 2000 Camp David summit? Of the offer made
by Ehud Olmert to President Abbas, met with silence? Israel has offered
repeatedly to negotiate, no strings attached. What has the other side
offered?
Few words demonstrate Obama poor understanding of the nature of the
conflict than his call for Israel to "act "boldly". This is a reprisal of
Obama's recent call to American Jewish leaders to "search your hearts". It
is easy for Obama to call on Israel to act boldly, His family is sleeping
soundly on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, while Israeli children are
being bombarded by rockets from Gaza. The call for boldness is not policy;
it is a shallow sound bite.
4. President Obama is calling on Israel to give away the store while the
toughest issues remain to be decided. He states that borders should be
agreed on first, and issues such as refugees and the status of Jerusalem
decided later. Who came up with this formulation, and what were they
thinking?
This method of negotiation leaves other issues hanging, to be determined
after Israel has given up all of its negotiating chips. If Israel were to
agree on withdrawal from all the territory on the West Bank, what leverage
would be left with which to bargain when the issue of refugees came up? No
lawyer would advise this mode of negotiation.
Israel has previously stated that all core issues, including Jerusalem and
the so-called 'right of return' should be discussed at the same time so that
the issues on which the Arabs will have to make concessions if there is to
be a real peace can be taken into consideration, and not just those issues
in which Israel will have to make concessions.
5, President Obama has ignored the main game changer, i.e. the pact between
Fatah and Hamas. He did say that the "agreement between Fatah and Hamas
raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel" As Jennifer Rubin has
pointed out, "this is not just a profound question for Israel, it is an
absolute bar to negotiation".
Remember that the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel and
death to Jews worldwide; Obama's way of getting around this is to ignore it.
Further, there is a legal problem here. Given the Hamas designation as a
terrorist organization, and its unity with Fatah, the United States should
not be continuing to fund this entity. And yet, any attempt to discuss this
is met with dissimulation, with statements like "we need to see what Hamas
will do" We already know what Hamas will do. As long as the United States
provides this non-answer, Hamas does not need to do anything different.
6. The plan ignores and indeed reverses prior commitments. According to
<http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=221485> Herb
Keinon, "In 2004, US President George Bush, in exchange for then Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, wrote a letter
saying that in any future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians it
would be "unrealistic" to expect a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949
Armistice lines (the 1967 lines), and that a just and fair solution to the
Palestinian refugee issue would be their absorption in a future Palestinian
state, rather than Israel."
In return for this promise, Israel withdrew from Gaza, a move that has
proven very costly. But at least Israel had that promise in writing from the
president of the US. Now it appears that with his speech, President Barack
Obama has "essentially thrown that letter out the window."
The chances that President Obama's formula will actually lead to peace are
zero. So why did Obama include these statements?
<http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/19/summing-up-obama%E2%80%99s-spe
ech-making-israel-pay-for-the-%E2%80%9Creset%E2%80%9D/> Jonathan Tobin has
suggested that there are two reasons.
First, Obama has never deviated from his irrational and absurd belief that
Israeli concessions, contrary to all the lessons of history, will magically
create peace. And the second is that he included these words as a way to
"appease the Arab world so as to help "reset" U.S. relations with the
Islamic world" (which won't work) Thus Israel is being asked to pay an
enormous price so that Obama will supposedly be more popular among the Arab
states.
Neither a peace, nor a resetting of Obama's popularity will happen. The
formulation is dead in the water.
Meanwhile, a whole host of journalists, commentators and political leaders
have criticized the President's speech.
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/20/lieberman-calls-parts-of-obamas-sp
eech-profoundly-ill-advised/> Senator Joseph Lieberman said Obama's speech
was "an unhelpful and surprising set of remarks about Israel and the
Palestinians that will not advance the peace process and in fact is likely
to set it back. ... Unilateral statements of this sort do nothing to bring
the two parties back to the negotiating table and in fact make it harder for
them to do so. They also damage the relationship of trust that is critical
to peacemaking."
However, there is some support for the President from the usual suspects.
J Street, a corrupt and dishonest organization who function both as
<http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamas_court_jews_the_rise_of.html>
Obama's court Jews, and as lobbyists for Mahmoud Abbas, wholeheartedly
endorse the approach outlined by the President. J Street does go one step
further, adding that they hope the President will now put his words into
action (translation; more pressure on Israel to agree on the path of
suicide)
Michael Lerner of Tikkun, using his trademark hubris from his safe perch on
Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, again lectures the Israelis as to what is good
for them. He tells his acolytes to start a media campaign with the message
"No, Mr. Netanyahu! Americans Don't Support Your Intransigence and
Rejection of a Plausible Path to Peace. We stand with President Obama on
Peace Negotiations"
According to Lerner, If only the "right wing government" of Israel (Lerner
always describes the Israeli government as right wing, whether Likud, Labor
or Kadima) were to listen to Michael Lerner, then the Arabs would throw down
their spears in favor of pruning hooks, no longer train for war, and welcome
the Jewish state into the community of the Middle East. Lerner is like Rip
Van Winkle, except that he has been asleep for the last 100 years.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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