President Obama started his first term seeking to distance the United States from Israel in an effort to jump-start Middle East peace talks. As it turned out, the fights he picked with Israel over settlements, borders and Jerusalem not only failed to entice the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, but also actually caused them to be more intransigent on issues that required compromise if peace is ever to be made. But that hasn’t stopped some on the left from dreaming about the president starting off his second term with one of their favorite fantasies: an American peace plan that would be imposed on Israel’s government on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
That’s the rumor floated by Akiva Eldar in Haaretz yesterday. The veteran journalist is a virulent critic of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and, like others on the Israeli left, has long since despaired of being able to convince their fellow Israelis to follow their advice. Since Israeli democracy has consistently failed to produce a government that will do as he thinks best, he is hoping the re-elected American president will issue a dictat that will effectively nullify the results of the planned January vote for a new parliament that is likely to return Netanyahu’s existing center-right coalition to power. But though Eldar is right to think that Obama would probably like nothing better than to hammer the Israelis again, he’s making the same mistakes Israeli leftists have made for the last 20 years of peace processing: ignoring the Palestinians. They can always be counted on to spike any deal no matter how favorable it might be to their cause.
It may be asking too much to hope the president and his foreign policy team have learned their lesson when it comes to counting on the Palestinians. Every attempt by Obama to tilt the diplomatic playing field in their direction has been met with rejection or indifference. Rather than taking advantage of the president’s stands on borders and especially Jerusalem, which have done more to undermine Israel’s position than that of any of his predecessors, the Palestinian Authority always refused to budge. Indeed, in a stinging insult to Obama that was a poor reward for his favors, the PA actually tried an end run around American diplomacy by asking the United Nations to recognize their independence without first making peace with Israel. In the last year, Obama appeared to get the message that there is no benefit to trying to help the Palestinians. Though that may have been as much a product of his election-year Jewish charm offensive as anything else, it is still hard to avoid the conclusion the president isn’t interested in wasting any more time on futile efforts that will always be rejected by Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas no matter how hard he presses the Israelis.
Nevertheless, Eldar thinks the second attempt of the PA to win UN recognition will give Obama the opening he needs to float a new American peace plan. Eldar assumes the president doesn’t want to veto the Palestinian initiative and fears the result of its adoption, since that would bring Israeli retaliation that could bring down Abbas. Though Eldar doesn’t mention it, it would also trigger a U.S. aid cutoff to the president’s beloved UN. Eldar thinks a better third option would be a U.S. peace plan that could be imposed on Israel in exchange for a promise to safeguard its security and to prevent Iran from going nuclear. To that end, he cites a report being prepared by former U.S. diplomats that would meet his criteria for an Israeli retreat and an independent Palestinian state.
But Eldar’s scenario is a leftist fantasy that won’t come true. The PA’s UN campaign — the so-called diplomatic “tsunami” that was supposed to isolate Israel but which turned out to be nothing more than a light drizzle — failed in 2011. That was not just the result of Obama’s veto threat, but also because even the Palestinians’ friends know that granting independence to the PA when its Hamas rival controls much of its territory is insane. The PA is a corrupt, bankrupt failure that can’t make peace even if it wanted to, and even the Europeans know Abbas’s gambit would be a disaster.
Obama might like to settle his account with Netanyahu, but he knows it would mean picking a nasty and costly political fight that would not bring peace any closer. Nor will it make Netanyahu more amenable to a compromise over Iranian nukes–something that is probably much higher on Obama’s priority list.
The next four years are likely to be just as stormy as the previous four were for the U.S.-Israel relationship. But the idea that Obama will stick his neck out for the Palestinians is probably just wishful thinking for Netanyahu-bashers.
In exchange for a promise to safeguard its security and to prevent Iran from going nuclear? nAfter all, it's not like the US has ever broken a promise to Israel, right? nOr to anyone else. Just ask Taiwan. Or the anti-Castro Cubans. Or the South Vietnamese. n nAnd if Israel were dumb enough to rely on such a promise and, G-d forbid, it ever came time to ask the US to live up to it, it's not like the Jew haters who spread lies already (and who spread the same lies before and during both world wars) would start bleaating that the Jews are trying to force the US into a war for their own interests.
Good post. n nOne misconception, though. n nJonathan wrote: "They can always be counted on to spike any deal no matter how favorable it might be to their cause." n nThere is no deal short of Israel's destruction that is favorable to their cause, because their cause IS Israel's destruction. It is their identity and their purpose. They are a genocidal weapon, masquerading as a nationality. Thankfully, so far, incompetently.
This is a non starter for a very simple (and crass) political reason: If Obama goes out on an anti-Netanayahu binge, Bibi will win an even more resounding victory at the polls in February and the israeli public will totally reject any more peace moves. We are a stiff-necked people (thank the good Lord) and don't exactly like other people tell us what to do. Remember Sharon's warning to George W.Bush (of all people): We are not Czechoslovakia (in ref. to Munich 1938)
No it's absurd. Because Obama could circumvent Israel entirely and offer up the whole of Israel to the Arabs, ethnically cleansed of all Jews. They would still refuse unless it came with 500 billion dollars. They don't want a country, they don't want the Jews to have one.
If you think the American left is arrogant, obnoxious, and rude, let me introduce you to the Israeli left. n nThe asses are blowing on a house of cards, historically speaking, and they don't give a damn. n nMust be the foreign passports in their back pockets.
Even The Soviet Union was better to The Jews than the Israeli left
Abbas wants to retire. He tried to defer to Fayyad, but his people don't like Fayyad, and Hamas won't accept him because he's liked by the Americans. Fatah needs good leadership, not a propagandist like Abbas who has no idea how to lead a country.
They have none of them ever wanted to form a state. A nation is boring. You have to collect the trash and create contract law and keep the lights and sewers running and negotiate labor disputes and DO all those things that states do. They don't want that. They want to murder Jews. They want to march around firing in the air with their black ski masks. How does anyone think they'd manage a nation? How would all legal and social interactions and disputes get settled? Car bombs or firing squads. Pick one. In truth, pick neither. Reach for "Blame the Jews" and eager stupid western liberals rush in to manage their affairs for them. n nI for one sincerely believe that the Arabs should be permanently relieved of ALL social responsibilities whatsoever and should be paid, cash in hand, by all the parties that be, to stay home do whatever they like. No schools, no jobs, no independent civil institutions. Nothing. Outsource it all to western liberals and NGO's. Pay the Arabs more or less a stipend equivalent to living a pretty good middle class EU life and they can all stay home watch TV, make more Arabs and generally lead a relaxed leisure lifestyle. The only condition is that they can't wage mass murder at least not on anyone except themselves. For 20-40 billion Euros a year, all of the world's problems, according to those very same people, could be solved with nary a shot being fired or any sort of vapid demand being placed on the Arabs. Let them declare their state. Let them pretend that the switches and knobs do something. They don't, it's all make believe but it gives them something to do. Let them seethe and fume and shake their fists at Allah while they're out getting a new free washing machine or new free flat screen. Their hatreds and antisemitism will never go away. There's no sense in trying to fix it. It is what it is. They will always unto the end of time scream and pout and whine for a new holocaust. Doesn't matter. Pay them off and keep them fat stupid and harmless while they devolve back to the Dark Ages. Eventually with radical Islam rising they will unwind the clock a thousand years and render themselves moot.
I understand how you feel. Arafat knew how to lead an insurrection, but not a country and so whenever he got close to peace, he started another intifada. Abbas, his propagandist, can propagandize, but that's all. That's why I suggest new leadership. An ambitious, skilled leader will want a country of his own to lead, especially if American money is to be had. Right now the world pays the Palestinians to fail, and that's what they do. n nEven Hamas is turned outward toward destroying Israel, rather than inward to developing a successful country. They're still ruled by their colonial heritage and have substituted Israel for Europe.
Since the Eldar piece is behind a subscriber firewall, somebody has this story very wrong. The US cannot veto General Assembly resolutions, which is how the Palestinians would be requesting their non-member state status. After the Security Council failure (not at the hands of a veto), they like their chances there. n nSo if Eldar believes that pressuring Israel avoids the problem of using the US veto, he does not know what he is talking about. Or Mr. Tobin may be presuming that Mr. Eldar believes this. But someone is factually wrong. n nRegardless, Obama does want to get things done in the US and so wants to either do things with a high probability of success or lose in ways that eventually weaken the Republicans. Another spat with Israel does none of those things and sucks time off a short calendar in which to achieve things. n nIt is not necessary to love Obama to figure he does not want his own party to have a meltdown on the order of the Republicans in 2006. It is hard to see him returning to this issue.
I am more concerned about what Obama is about to impose on the USA. The Israelis will just have to fend for themselves.
Well Obama did win after all and consideingr the approach Netanayhu took during the campaign You have to expect there'll be some payback