Yesterday, the White House posted a “readout” of President Obama’s call to Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas, who is beginning the 65th month of his 48-month term. Obama congratulated him on the start of the proximity talks, urged him to do “everything he can” to prevent incitement or delegitimization of Israel, and said he “looks forward to receiving President Abbas at the White House soon.”
There is an obvious disparity between the treatment of Abbas and that of the leader of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu was kept waiting until the last moment before receiving a presidential audience; the meeting was held after business hours and with a side-door entrance and exit; he was blindsided at the meeting and left alone while Obama had dinner with his family; there was no meeting with the media before or after; and there was not even a picture. The only thing missing was a parting gift of an iPod loaded with Obama’s Cairo speech. Abbas will get the opposite treatment on every count, starting with a news release announcing that the president looks forward to meeting him.
The slight to Israel is obvious, but there is an additional reason for the ostentatious treatment of Abbas. The dirty little secret of the “peace process” is that the U.S. wants a Palestinian state more than the Palestinians do, for reasons discussed in Walter Russell Mead’s perceptive post, “The Middle East Peace Industry” — worth reading in its entirety (but only with Nadine’s important comment on it). Mead notes that the “Middle East peace process is the longest running piece of diplomatic theater on the world stage,” dating from 1919 (with a two-state solution proposed by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs), with repeated failures caused by the continuing Arab goal of one state rather than two.
The Palestinian lack of interest in the latest version of the “peace process” is palpable. A year ago, Israel announced that it wanted immediate negotiations without preconditions; formally affirmed a two-state solution as the goal of the negotiations; and took an unprecedented step to help them start. The Palestinians refused to commence negotiations intended to give them a state, still refuse to attend them in person, and are willing only to let the Obama administration negotiate for them. They have discovered that saying “no we can’t” produces not criticism of them but pressure on Israel to make more concessions, followed by congratulations to the Palestinians.
And — if Abbas decides an agreement is his last hope too — opposed by most Palestinians?
What is Rice doing? I suspect she’s doing what she always does when visiting Israel: sticking the knife in the back of the only civilized country in the region. From demanding the “evacuation” of Jewish homes in yet another failed Land for Peace ploy, to cheerleading the release of child-murdering terrorists, to throwing a hissy fit every time a Jew in Jerusalem paints his bathroom (“settlements!!!”), she is remarkably consistent in her utter disregard for Israel’s security and criminal cluelessness about the Palestinians, whom she compared to Jim Crow-era blacks.
I’m not sure why this vexes you. She’ll put the dog leash on Olmert and do her part to weaken Western Civilization in the face of unrelenting Jihad.
Olmert on a dog leash? That’s above my pay grade.
Well, it IS a good question why Rice is in Israel, but there’s no question at all why her visit is a bore. There’s a big Russian elephant in the room, and this apparently business-as-usual visit is ignoring it.
Perhaps the Bush administration sees Rice’s visit as an affirmation that Russia will not knock us off our prior course for global security with the current unpleasantness in Georgia. It would be nice if someone would say this, instead of leaving us to divine what we may from a series of unexplained actions.
Meanwhile, the sooner I have to get no visuals at all of Mr. Olmert in any condition, the better.