Obama is coming face to face with reality
By Ted Belman
Herb Keinon of JPOST informs us Officials: No confrontation expected with Mitchell
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According to the new government’s assessments, a clash assumes the two parties have well-defined polices that are in conflict with each other - something that is not currently the case, especially since neither the new Obama administration nor the Netanyahu government has completed its respective policy review.
The prevailing sense in Jerusalem, the Post has learned, is that the Obama polices do not differ too greatly from those of the former Bush administration when it comes to the Middle East, regarding neither a two-state solution nor the settlements.
This flies in the face of repeated warnings from all and sundry that a clash was coming, paricularly over settlements.
The way I see it, Obama can’t force Abbas to accept the Israeli offer nor can he force Israel to accept the Arab offer. He is still publicly wedded to the two-state solution but realizes that Annapolis and the Roadmap have run their course. Thus he must look for a way out of the impasse. This is what Netanyahu offers him.
In late January I wrote Obama pairs economic security for Palestinians with physical security for Israelis and made the point that his ideas are compatible with Netanyahu’s. Afew days later,Gil Hoffman reported Sharansky: Netanyahu won’t clash with Obama
Obama does not want to father another failed approach. Particularly when he must focus on more important things such as
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1. the pullout from Iraq and its aftermath
2. the Iranian Bomb
3. the Pakistan/Afghan problem
4. Hamas and the ongoing smuggling
The EU pressure on the US and Israel to continue the peace process will lose some of its force as the US is left to solve these problems without the help of the Europeans.
The more Obama is rebuffed by Iran, the more he will want to work with Israel. Even Nixon, a known antisemite worked with Israel when it was in America’s interest to do so.
Furthermore Egypt and Saudi Arabia are focused on Iran’s growing influence and the Bomb rather than the Palestinians. Obama is getting the message.
I expect there will be friction over the construction in the setlements and a compromise will be worked out that enables Israel to keep building, albeit in a limited way, and the US to save face.
QUESTIONS
Why has Obama made peace in a 2 state solution for Israel and Palestinians his top priority?
Why has he committed promises, resources and people to that end?
Why has he sent George Mitchell to confer with the parties and regional leaders?
Why have the regional leaders agreed to meet with Mitchell?
Is it in Israel’s interests to push forward for peace with the Palestinians given that the PA, Fatah and Palestinians they represent do not seem to have backed away from their maximal demands and Hamas is stuck on genocide of the Jews and destroying Israel?
Why should Netanyahu not be playing for time and in fact a better time to push for peace that advantages Israel?
Why should Netanyahu play ball with Obama and push Obama’s agenda as hard and fast as Obama wants?
Given Joe Biden’s veiled threat against Israel taking any action against Iran and offering nothing as an alternative to restraining Iran, why should Israel believe anything Obama says?
Comment by Bill Narvey — April 13, 2009 @ 8:50 am
Israel should tell the Americans that we will not even discuss the Pali conflict until Iran is rendered a toothless adversary. Publicly Israel should say anything to her advantage and behind the scenes play hardball. These articles look like made to order spin by the willing. They fly in the face of most every credible analysis to date. I discount most of this article as disinformation but then the question is by whom?
Comment by yamit82 — April 13, 2009 @ 11:24 am
I concur mostly with your other questions but the one above does you in. It presupposes that we want Peace? maybe we do maybe we don’t the word needs definition and a lot of meat to the bone. You throw out the word as a given and it ain’t. Any time somebody throws out willy-nilly terms like peace, love, hate etc I like to have something more specific to either agree on or challange. Can you do that Narvey?
Comment by yamit82 — April 13, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Yamit, why are you so difficult? The subject I was addressing was not the merits of a detailed peace paradigm, be it the quartet’s 2 state peace solution or anyone elses peace paradigm.
I was however addressing the point that Obama has made pushing forward to a conclusion with the 2 state peace plan a showcased urgent priority of his and in so doing he is exerting tremendous pressure on Israel to aid him in realizing his policy goal.
I raised questions as to why Obama was so insistent on pushing forward now with the 2 state solution. Further, I expressed by my questions my thinking that Israel needs to resist Obama’s pressure or not concede anything to Obama. Rather, Israel must identify what is in her best interests and devise and implement policies in furtherance of those interests.
If and where Israeli interests intersect with American interests, then and only then should Israel work with Obama on the 2 state solution and the issues surrounding that peace paradigm.
Comment by Bill Narvey — April 13, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
Narvey I said I agreed with your questions I just challenged you sort of on what I perceive are your own conflicts( intellectually) Now if as many if not most of us are 100% against a two state solution and most of us consider it to be suicidal for Israel and where in the recent past you generally agreed with that position then or now you you sort backhandedly put that option back on the table using euphemisms like Israel should decide what is in her best interests etc. A bad policy is a bad policy. A suicidal policy is a suicidal policy no matter who makes and implements the policy. If you can see where Americas and Israel policies can intersect that would or could allow a 2 state solution I am all ears and if not why write it?
Comment by yamit82 — April 13, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
I hope your predictions are right, Ted.
Comment by Laura — April 13, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Yamit, what I have said before, without getting into my reasons is:
I do not see how a 2 state solution can work. That however for now is the only game in town.
I would like to see Israel assume sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza and have the Palestinians voluntarily move to neighboring countries or other countries of the world that would have them. I don’t see that happening. Israel would have to swim up the waterfall of world opinion if it could get the world to go along with that.
If the West would either induce or force the Middle East to accept that Jordan is already a Palestinian state, having a population of 70% Palestinians and thus the Palestinians should all move to their home that has been there since its inception, that would bring about peace. I do not see that happening in the current murky political milieu.
What we have is a stalemate and an unstable one at that.
Israel needs peace. This instability and low grade war is costing Israel a fortune and it simply cannot go on forever and if it continues as it has, it cannot end well for Israel.
The Palestinians also need peace to begin living decent and productive lives.
They are not aware of this however because they put their Jew hatred and dreams for the destruction of Jews and Israel ahead of living decent peaceful lives. Put another way they have made themselves believe that they can only live decent and peaceful lives if Israel ceases to exist. World opinion that presses in on Israel, is willfully blind to this reality. What is troubling is that some Jewish leaders also seem willfully blind to that reality.
As the song says, “something’s gotta give”.
At some point circumstances will come together to enable the current 2 state peace paradigm it to happen. If there is a Middle Eastern war, that could result in a new peace paradigm being ushered in to accomodate a new reality if there is a decisive victory for Israel for for her enemies.
As has been noted many times, the Palestinians are famous for missing opportunities to miss opportunities. Each time Israel was on the brink of caving in to American and Western pressure to concede its future to the Palestinians for a moment’s peace and a thin hope of a future peace, the intractable Palestinian Jew hatred seethed and boiled over, making it impossible for Israel to cut her own wrists and bleed out for the sake of the Palestinians and to satisfy the world.
As for where American and Israeli interests intersect, they clearly intersect as regards the war between Islamists and the West.
America however also of necessity must try to deal with Islamists including the Saudis who have played a double game. If America serves her common interests with Israel, America could hurt her broader economic interests vis a vis the Saudis and OPEC. The EU is in the same position and they have moved further along towards looking only to their own economic interests and finding solace in the false hope that by appeasing Islamists, the Islamists will have their fill and leave the EU alone.
Comment by Bill Narvey — April 13, 2009 @ 5:22 pm