When foreign policy “realists,” pseudo-realists, and leftists claim that the pro-Israel establishment is preventing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, their argument fails to account for one aspect of recent Mideast history: During the administrations of American presidents seen as favoring Israel, the Jewish state’s leaders made serious offers for a final-status agreement.
So the argument that more “daylight” is needed between the U.S. and Israel is generally met with proper skepticism. So is the declaration that President Obama is just as pro-Israel as his predecessors, he’s just showing his friends a bit of tough love–heavy on the tough, light on the love. Aaron David Miller, part of Bill Clinton’s Mideast negotiating team, doesn’t think there’s any reason to fool yourself about that last point. He has written an article for Foreign Policy’s website detailing the six most damaging myths of the U.S.-Israel relationship. No. 6 is: “Barack Obama is just as pro-Israel as Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.” Miller writes:
There’s no question that Obama understands and appreciates the special relationship between Israel and the United States. But Obama isn’t Bill Clinton or George W. Bush when it comes to Israel — not even close. These guys were frustrated by Israeli prime ministers too, but they also were moved and enamored by them (Clinton by Yitzhak Rabin, Bush by Ariel Sharon). They had instinctive, heartfelt empathy for the idea of Israel’s story, and as a consequence they could make allowances at times for Israel’s behavior even when it clashed with their own policy goals. Obama is more like George H.W. Bush when it comes to Israel, but without the strategy…
If Obama had a chance to reset the U.S.-Israel relationship and make it a little less special, he probably would. But I guess that’s the point: He probably won’t have the chance.
Miller has made this point before. And when he says “He probably won’t have the chance,” that’s because the American public and their representatives in the Congress don’t want to downgrade the U.S.-Israeli relationship, so they will work to prevent Obama from doing so. The problem for the president is that he cannot argue that his way is more effective—he thus far has moved the parties in the conflict further away from where they’ve been in the past—or that he is the victim. After all, even Clinton—who never hid his disdain for Benjamin Netanyahu–got Netanyahu to sign a deal, and with Yasser Arafat no less.
Under the previous two administrations—one Democratic, one Republican–the Israeli right, left, and center have all signed agreements, made final-status offers, or led Israel to make unprecedented sacrifices for the peace process. As Yossi Klein Halevi wrote recently: “Israelis still recall with disbelief how Obama refused to honor Bush’s written commitment to Ariel Sharon—that the U.S. would support settlement blocs being incorporated into Israel proper. And never has an American president treated an Israeli prime minister with such shabbiness as Obama has treated Netanyahu. Indeed one gets the impression that of all the world’s leaders, Obama most detests the prime minister of Israel.”
Read that last sentence again and understand why it matters that Obama thinks less of Israel than his predecessors did, and why he has failed both the Israelis and the Palestinians because of it.
but many Israelis believe that the Oslo Accords were a huge mistake. Rabin, before he was assassinated, was growing exasperated with Arafat's many violations of those accords.
what’s interesting to me is that after the Koran burnings in Afghanistan, Obama saw fit to apologize to AMERICAN Muslims. I found this very odd, but nobody commented on it in the media. American soldiers were killed. would you not think American Muslims would be on the side of the American soldiers?
and if not…why not?
He (Obama) has failed Americans as well. Americans generally want peace in the holy land. American Christians and American Jews as well. I am not sure that the same can be said of most American Muslims. Muslims world wide have been brain washed with hate very much as the Germans were from 1933 to 1945. But the Muslim hate, I believe is much deeper and they will not recover as quickly (if that was 'quickly') as Germany has recovered. Obama has only made this worse by his antipathy towards Israel.
Let's see, Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO – which I am still gagging over and Bush '43 promised the PLO their own state. Clinton didn't get along with Netanyahu. The Oslo experient failed – the PLO still wants to destroy Israel. If Israel feels the need to have the Arabs govern/have their state, then common sense would tell Israel to find Arab groups who are willing to live in peace with Israel because the PLO is not.
"… or led Israel to make unprecedented sacrifices for the peace process" n nWhat unprecedented sacrifices? Can you be more specific?
How about unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza, offers of large-scale withdrawals from the West Bank, and accepting a divided Jerusalem (a crazy idea, if they're ever was one)? Yet that was what was done or on the table with Barak and Sharon. n nThe reality is that it is essential to get rid of Obama and his team. Having swooned in his first year in office over "engagement" with the Muslim world, he's now discovering what any sensible observer could have told him: there are no functional political alternatives to the present Arab regimes; their collapse means the rise of Islamic parties, which cannot be dealt with on any basis recognizably rational to Israel or any other Western country; Iran is the region's most pressing danger; and Israel and the Israeli conflict with Palestinians is far from the region's essential problem. n nUnfortunately, Obama's policies were dominated for a crucial two-year period by the bankrupt "realist" faction whose irrelevance and danger they pose to the US has been demonstrated repeatedly since the end of the Cold War (or earlier), but which has burrowed deeply into the bowels of the political class, backed with imported oil money. Its views and tendencies are unpopular in Congress and among voters, for good reason, so it has to operate in a half-shadow fashion. n nObama and his people now belatedly recognize, at least partially, the fatuousness of their weird mixture of leftism and "realism" — they have to deal with collapse in Libya; approaching collapse in Egypt and Syria (once the Arab world's most powerful countries), as well as Yemen; and everyone in a rising panic about Iran's nuclear weapons program. The problems for them is that it's too late. American influence in the Middle East is at a 30-year low and will evaporate for good if Iran gets functional nuclear weapons. Regional wars and civil wars will become, once again, the norm without the superpower presence. n nThere's no good solution to this issue in the American context, except to kick Obama and his crowd out. Supporters of Israel need to make it their top domestic priority.
Olmert made the same offers to Abbas in 2006 to no avail.
Come back in November after the election and tell me how many Jewish Voters voted for Ohbongo. We'll see how many Jews Ohbongo has fooled!
Rubes.
” The problem for the president is that he cannot argue that his way is more effective—he thus far has moved the parties in the conflict further away from where they’ve been in the past. ”
But that’s it. It seems that his game is to set the region in flames. Everything he has done so far has been to destabilize the ME, and getting rid of “That Shi**y Little State” will be a bonus.
” the Israeli right, left, and center have all signed agreements, made final-status offers, or led Israel to make unprecedented sacrifices for the peace process. ”
Have you noticed how he has ignored that to attack apartment building in Jerusalem as a threat to peace?
Facts don’t matter in his agenda.
Yeah, American Jews will vote Democratic no matter how abusive Obama is to Israel. American Jews are Americans Jews first and second, and while Israel to them is an important issue, it still doesn't eclipse their American roots. It's a shame but it's still understandable, since most American Jews view Israel as a foreign country, not as a their homeland. American Jews have an affection for Israel and a pride in Israel's accomplishments, but for most American Jews, Israel is another far away country.