The Washington Post trod over some familiar territory this past weekend with a 7,000-word retrospective on the Obama administration’s Middle East peace process misadventures. The account strives to put President Obama in a favorable light. But even the most sympathetic narrative of this period must come to grips with the president’s blundering, most of which was rooted in his determination to distance the United States from Israel in a vain attempt to score points with the Arab world. For the first three years of his presidency, Washington was focused on pressuring Israel, a policy that alienated the Jewish state but did nothing to nudge the Palestinians to make peace.
The Post’s lengthy rehashing of the president’s Middle East follies is part of the paper’s series of pieces evaluating the history of the last four years. It is worthwhile for the way it places in perspective the administration’s election-year Jewish charm offensive that has walked back some of the previous stands. It also makes clear that while President Obama deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the way he made a bad situation worse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also ought to be held accountable for her role in the ongoing debacle. That’s a not unimportant point considering that Clinton is in Israel this week as part of an attempt on Obama’s part to smooth over relations.
Though the president’s surrogates continue to try to portray him as Israel’s best friend ever to sit in the White House, the Post provides a reminder for those who care to remember the truth that he arrived in office determined to put an end to the closeness between Israel and the United States that had developed during the Bush administration.
The Post describes a meeting with American Jewish leaders that took place in the wake of the June 2009 president’s speech to the Muslim world and his snub of Israel during his visit to the Middle East:
“If you want Israel to take risks, then its leaders must know that the United States is right next to them,” Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the president.
Obama politely but firmly disagreed.
“Look at the past eight years,” he said, referring to the George W. Bush administration’s relationship with Israel. “During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”
Obama not only didn’t understand what had happened under Bush when the U.S. attempted to force the Palestinian Authority to eschew terror and embrace democracy, he knew nothing about the way the Arab world regarded the U.S.-Israel relationship. Rather than interpreting his kicking Israel under the bus as an invitation to compromise and make peace, it merely convinced them they could just sit back and let Obama hammer Israel. Even when Prime Minister Netanyahu acceded to Obama’s demand for a settlement freeze in the West Bank, not only did he receive little thanks from Washington, the Palestinians continued to refuse to negotiate, secure in the belief the president would do the dirty work for them.
The same thing happened in 2011 when Obama ambushed Netanyahu before he arrived in Washington for a visit by giving a speech in which he called for the 1967 lines to be the starting point for future negotiations over borders. Obama had “in a single morning changed decades of U.S. policy on how the negotiations would unfold on the final borders of Israel.” Though the president tilted the diplomatic playing field in their direction, the Palestinians still wouldn’t budge and instead sought a futile end run around U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations.
Just as interesting is the Post’s account of the way Clinton helped turn what should have been dismissed as a minor kerfuffle over the announcement of a new housing start in Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Biden into a major diplomatic incident. Though Clinton is still viewed by many American Jews as a friend of Israel, her 45-minute lecture of Netanyahu in which she treated the building of homes in 40-year-old Jewish neighborhoods of Israel’s capital as an “insult” to the United States was, in its way, just as significant as Obama’s later speech on the 1967 lines. Rather than moderating the desire of some in the administration to bash Israel, Clinton took a delicate situation and blew it up and in the process established a U.S. position on the status of Jerusalem that went further than any of Obama’s predecessors toward undermining Israel’s hold on its capital.
Though Obama’s Jewish surrogates are beating the bushes this year portraying the president as a stalwart friend of Israel, he began his presidency pursuing policies that won the applause of the left-wing J Street group and shocked the pro-Israel community. In the last several months, those stands have been reversed, leaving J Street isolated as the president now eschews any talk of pressure on Israel or distancing the U.S. from the Jewish state.
Optimists will view this sea change in policy as a result of Obama learning the hard way that the Palestinians are not interested in peace. Less sanguine observers will merely point to the calendar and note that the president’s conversion to more conventional pro-Israel policies coincided with the start of his re-election campaign. Those who believe he will stick to the stances he has taken this year if he is re-elected would do well to read the Post account and ask themselves whether their trust is warranted.
Bravo article.
Man-made disasters, anyone? " announcement of a new housing start "? I seem to recall it was one of a series of minor permit approvals, neither the first nor the last, before construction could get started. ____If there is anything in Hilary's record showing any support or sympathy for Israel before her first Senate race in NY, I'm not aware of it. When she embraced Suha Arafat yemach shma seconds after Suhu accused Israel of using nerve gas against peaceful Palestinians, I'm willing to believe Hilary's claim that she did not understand what Suha said because it was in Arabic and had not been translated. But I trust her on Israel about as far as I trust Obama, and not even as far as I trust her husband.
You've got to give them credit though. While Obama has driven the whole bus so badly off the cliff that there's no shock or surprise anymore each and every time Obama does the next outrageous thing, Jewish Democrats stand by him thick and thin. He still has, what, 75% of them no matter what. I swear he could have Hamas and neo Nazis and the Iranian Minister of Antisemitism over for a Halal near-beer and chat about his high speed rail initiative to ship all the Jews off to concentration camps in Montana, and American Jewish Liberals would STILL vote for him.
not quite that gloomy, Empress, his approval was down to 64% last time I checked (about 2 weeks ago). I'm hoping more of my Jewish brothers and sisters will see the light before November.
Where did you get the 64% number? If it is a reliable estimate of the % of the Jewish vote Obama would get if the election were today, then maybe he will eclipse Carter's 1980 record low % if the Jewish vote. We can only hope Obama manages it. n nYesterday's NYT, had a front page article on Penny Pritzker, who headed Obama's 2008 finance committe and who they credited for his election, saying that without her help in 2004 and again in 2008 he wouldn't be residing at 1600 PA Avenue today. The story was that Ms. Pritzker, one of the liberal Chicago Jews who has done so much to advance Obama's political career, has not signed on to help him this time around, and is not doing nearly as well this time around fund raising among the heavy hitters who supported him the last time out.
"Israel sat on the sidelines", I'm sorry, apparently pulling all Jews out of Gaza wasnt good enough as a gesture of goodwill and peace?? And clearly he hasnt noticed the rocket fire Israel got in return for such goodwill?? ROMNEY 2012
Most American Jews stupidly seem to think that they owe something to the Democratic Party. Everybody forgets that the Holocaust happened while a Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was in the White House. And FDR did nothing for the doomed Jews in Europe and North Africa. In fact, when American troops landed at Algiers [November 1942] –with the help of the mostly Jewish underground– FDR allowed the Vichyite French government there to stay in power and maintain the anti-Jewish laws put in effect in North Africa as in France itself. That meant that Algerian Jews sent to labor camps before the American landing were kept in those camps.
Pr. O premises were all based on left, far left and Ed Said brainwashing (LIES). This was and remains a recipe for failure. The chances are that if he is re-elected he will most likely prove that he will not have learned from his failed experience. Why should there be as many Muslim states as Muslims wish while denying ONE single Jewish state. nOne may wonder if he is more Christian than Muslim! To go to church is no prove of anything. He appears as having kept a significant Muslim sensibility fed at wrong source.
Coming as Hillary does from a restricted covenant suburb of Chicago (like Upchuck Percy) why should any of the facts in the article surprise anyone. All har life Hillary has reeked of Jew hatred to any who wanted to see. That she had Jewish mentors is a black mark on them and another (one of many) on the coalition os scum, slime, filth, vermin and manure that is the Democ-rat party. That she is simpatico with her fellow Chicago Democ-rat is only natural.
Reply to watsa46: n nI agreed with your comments, but I'd like to ask you if you are sure that Pr. O's religious views, as taught by Rev. Wright, conform to the gospel. n nLiberation theology is not Christian theology. n n It is a wolf clothed in sheep's wool. It is a theology based on envy, resentment, and revenge. It was rampant in central and South American Catholic dioceses when the Polish pope was elected. He stopped it cold. He said the church condemns injustice but stops short of calling for political steps like revolutions. The holy father knew too well how the tentacles of the USSR revolution enslaved his native Poland for decades, causing tyranny, torture and death. n nDuring the 2008 campaign reporters bought up thousands of dollars of the Rev Wright's tapes and uploaded to Youtube. They were quickly taken down, but I watched several before the elections. Those tapes were very powerful. I am paraphrasing what I remember, so take my recollections thusly. n nRev Wright used Scripture, but was it appropriate?. Regarding the death of Jesus of Nazareth, he described it: the Jews and the Europeans (Romans) killed a man from Palestine with tinted skin. n nThis logic is a little fuzzy for me since my Italian girlfriend and my husband's Jewish partner each have lovely tinted Meditteranean skin. Would one group of tinted people kill another because of the same tinted skin? But the Rev's crowd clearly didn't discern, and in the video the Rev's flock shouted out its loathing of the bad guys. (Us) Remember Orwell's two minutes of hate?. n nRev Wright also used OT scripture to compare Europeans and their descendants to the lying, murderous pharos with their powerful police & armies & who enslaved and oppressed. I suspect this imagery is a projection of BLT's similar views of Americans of European descent, and I suspect he meant Jewish people included in this sweep. n nI am sympathetic about this imagery because I think this type of scripture kept hope alive and prevented despair during pre-civil war slavery. To avoid despair in such circumstances is a remarkable testament to human character. n nBut endless grievance is harmful too. Victimology saps the hope and confidence of youth, especially. I would think that is the last think the American blacks who survived slavery would want for their grandchildren. n n I am part Irish and heard from my AOH grandmother that our ancestor Irish Catholic family endured 400 years of inter-religious bondage,hunger, etc. before the famine drove starving Catholics to America. I have no prejudices against protestants of Irish or English descent, whose king ordered the Catholics to become landless and impoverished,. Perhaps inter-racial bondage doesn't leave such a deep scar. n n
Let's not forget the influence that Hillary's close aide Huma Abedin has on her Mideast policy.
Dave L, many people today, especially the young, don't know what a restricted covenant suburb is. Why don't you explain it? As I understand, it means that real estate purchase agreements in the area contain a clause forbidding sale of the RE to Jews and/or other undesired groups, Blacks, Italians, Asians, etc.
I thought Bilbo told us Hillarious was the "Smartest woman in the World"….Whut happened? LOL Dumb broad