On deaf ears: Obama's message to Israel
US president's inability to influence dichotomy or halt illegal settlements further stifles the peace process.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 05 Jun 2011 16:17
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Late May's extraordinary sequence of speeches and meetings involving US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - and the commentary surrounding it from official circles in both countries - did not make for an edifying interlude. The week beginning May 19 will not be remembered for displays of farsighted statecraft, or high moral courage. What we saw instead was brash, unapologetic chauvinism from Netanyahu, an outright refusal of moral leadership from Obama, and acts of political cowardice and opportunism from the US Congress outrageous even by the low standards of that frequently ignominious body.
But that is not to say that the week's display was not useful. On the contrary, much of importance was accomplished. Now, more clearly than ever, we can see the future. For if there were any questions remaining about the current nature and direction of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, May's events have put an end to them. Zionism is far from dead, and will surely survive, at least in altered form. But a fundamental change in the nature of the Israeli state has become inevitable.
To understand why, we should start with President Obama. It may seem mystifying in one so intelligent and insightful, but when, at the beginning of his administration, Obama set about to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute once and for all, he really had no idea what he was getting into. To this most logical, detached, and rational of men, the solution to the dispute must have seemed obvious. The salient issues had been reviewed endlessly for decades by all the parties. The key components of an agreement were well known. All he needed to do to get the negotiating process properly underway, he believed, was to address one key impediment: Israeli settlement policy.
Settlements halt negotiations
Obama understood that continued settlement was ultimately self-destructive for Israel. Pursued to its logical conclusion, it would obviate any possible two-state solution. Indeed, Israeli settlement policy had already long since obviated a two-state solution by the time Obama was elected, but let's leave that aside. Even if one engaged in a willful suspension of disbelief, to suppose that the Israeli prime minister and his party were really willing to give up their dream of substantially consolidating a "Greater Israel", continued settlement building would only perpetuate an endlessly seductive motivation for tactical delay, as more "facts" were created on the ground. And the longer Israeli delay and obfuscation persisted, the more Palestinian willingness and political cover to engage in the process would be undermined, reinforcing the popular Palestinian conviction that the point of any process was to mute their resistance and play them for dupes, in an effort to gain time for their complete dispossession.
Permanently stop the settlements, however, and the whole negotiating dynamic changes. Rather than being motivated to delay, the Israelis suddenly become motivated to agree on permanent borders, so that they can continue building where it is legitimate to do so. And the Palestinians, reassured that there will be something for them, at least, at the end of the day, become motivated to follow the process through to completion, knowing that "until everything is agreed, nothing is agreed".
Despite international cries to halt settlement expansion, construction continues in the West Bank and east Jerusalem [GALLO/GETTY]
Thus, Obama was entirely right to focus on the settlements. With that done, he believed he could then leave it to George Mitchell and his negotiating team to work out the details. What he did not count on - perhaps unforgivably in one who, after all, was himself a US senator - was the United States Congress.
As a young US intelligence officer in North Africa in the early 1980s, I befriended the leader of a large leftist labour union, a wise and clever man, by far my senior. Remember, in those days, it was the Arab left which was in the vanguard of support to the Palestinian cause, reinforced by the fact that the PLO styled itself as a leftist, "revolutionary" movement, in the 1970s-tinged spirit of the times.
"You know," my friend once said to me, "I used to lead anti-American demonstrations to protest your support of Israel. But in time, I began to understand that this was pointless. I realised that, in fact, you can do nothing."He raised his hands to grip his throat. "The Israelis," he said, "have you like this." What he was talking about was the US Congress. And though I was loath to admit it, he was quite right, even then.
Nonexistent pressure on Israel
What I was forced to acknowledge - if only to myself - in the 1980s, President Obama has come to learn, somewhat late in his political life, the hard way. In his quest to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop settlements, he really never had a chance. The reason is that where Israel is concerned, at least since the 1960s, the Israeli prime minister - whoever occupies that position - always commands far more influence in Congress than any US president could hope to. It is not even a contest. Pressure? What real pressure could Obama ever hope to exert over Netanyahu? A threat to cut off Congressionally-mandated aid? What could possibly have made him think he could push Netanyahu where he didn't want to go? As soon as Netanyahu decided to resist, the game was over; and the president, humiliatingly, was forced to take whatever temporary "partial moratorium" the Israeli PM was willing to give him. From there, the route to final failure of the George Mitchell project was a long, slow, downward spiral, leading to a muted crash.
This president is too sagacious to make the same mistake twice. I retain enough naïve faith in the sense and decency of the people of the US to believe that, in the past at least, when a two-state solution was still possible, a US president could have appealed to the US public over the heads of a lobby-dominated congress to exert enough pressure to save Israel from itself. But under the best of circumstances, to do so would trigger a mammoth political firestorm. To prevail, a US president would have to be willing to sacrifice his entire programme to this one cause. No president would do such a thing; arguably, no president should. And this president certainly will not.
That was one of the clear messages from Obama in his so-called "Arab Spring" speech of May 19. Like others writing in these spaces, I was harshly critical of that speech, particularly where Palestine was concerned. "passive", I said; a refusal to lead. And when, in light of the perversely negative reactions to the speech from both the Israeli prime minister and his supporters in the US, one heard that Obama would be addressing the annual convention of AIPAC, the leading US pro-Israel lobby, three days later, I didn't want to listen. One can stomach only so much compensatory pandering at a single go.
But I soon realised that I was missing the point. In fact, far from a simple exercise in pandering - although his speech to AIPAC was replete with it - the second of the presidential speeches in question was actually quite consistent with the first. Of course the president was not going to expose himself politically, yet again, to try to press an achievable peace on an unwilling Israel. He cannot. Instead, these two speeches should be seen for what they are: An attempt by Barack Obama, insofar as politics will allow, to speak honestly with the Israeli people and all who support them.
Some of what the president was trying to say, he could say openly. For some, he had to speak in code. But what he was trying to convey, in effect, is this:
You Israelis have nothing to fear from me. My commitment, and that of my country to your security is unshakeable. I will support you in every way I know how. We in America will do all we can to assure your ability to effectively counter, on your own, any external enemy, even at the cost of our own security. We will resist, as best we can, any and all efforts to exert pressure on you in international forums, whether you are right or wrong. We will continue to use all our influence on the Palestinians and on regional leaders, bribing them with favours, cajoling them, playing on their fear, anxiety and naïve faith in us to influence their actions in your favour. In short, I will do what all recent US presidents have done, just as they have, and without fail.
But honesty and sincere concern for you compel me to speak the truth, as others have not. So please know this: In the end, given your current situation, I cannot help you. Please do not think that I or my country can save you from yourselves. If your dream is a Jewish and democratic state, you are on a path to self-destruction. The demographics of Palestinian population increase west of the Jordan insure this. The wave of non-violent popular resistance sweeping the Arab world will not bypass the Arabs in your midst. Soon you will confront far more acutely the internal moral dilemmas faced by all oppressors. The status quo is thus unsustainable for you, and further delay in addressing it will not help. And while you can continue to count on us, the rest of the world is already growing tired of your endless occupation. If it continues, they will abandon you. In the end, our support will not be enough to save you from international opprobrium, isolation and, ultimately, the essential failure of the Zionist enterprise.
I tell you this as a sincere friend. You will get no more unwanted pressure from me. I can suggest a partial formula for a settlement with the Palestinians which I believe may work, if you choose to exercise it. In any case, we will continue to do all we can from the outside, but as regards the fundamental choices only you can make, I can do nothing else. Beyond that, you are on your own.
US president's inability to influence dichotomy or halt illegal settlements further stifles the peace process.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 05 Jun 2011 16:17
EmailPrintShareSend Feedback
Late May's extraordinary sequence of speeches and meetings involving US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - and the commentary surrounding it from official circles in both countries - did not make for an edifying interlude. The week beginning May 19 will not be remembered for displays of farsighted statecraft, or high moral courage. What we saw instead was brash, unapologetic chauvinism from Netanyahu, an outright refusal of moral leadership from Obama, and acts of political cowardice and opportunism from the US Congress outrageous even by the low standards of that frequently ignominious body.
But that is not to say that the week's display was not useful. On the contrary, much of importance was accomplished. Now, more clearly than ever, we can see the future. For if there were any questions remaining about the current nature and direction of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, May's events have put an end to them. Zionism is far from dead, and will surely survive, at least in altered form. But a fundamental change in the nature of the Israeli state has become inevitable.
To understand why, we should start with President Obama. It may seem mystifying in one so intelligent and insightful, but when, at the beginning of his administration, Obama set about to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute once and for all, he really had no idea what he was getting into. To this most logical, detached, and rational of men, the solution to the dispute must have seemed obvious. The salient issues had been reviewed endlessly for decades by all the parties. The key components of an agreement were well known. All he needed to do to get the negotiating process properly underway, he believed, was to address one key impediment: Israeli settlement policy.
Settlements halt negotiations
Obama understood that continued settlement was ultimately self-destructive for Israel. Pursued to its logical conclusion, it would obviate any possible two-state solution. Indeed, Israeli settlement policy had already long since obviated a two-state solution by the time Obama was elected, but let's leave that aside. Even if one engaged in a willful suspension of disbelief, to suppose that the Israeli prime minister and his party were really willing to give up their dream of substantially consolidating a "Greater Israel", continued settlement building would only perpetuate an endlessly seductive motivation for tactical delay, as more "facts" were created on the ground. And the longer Israeli delay and obfuscation persisted, the more Palestinian willingness and political cover to engage in the process would be undermined, reinforcing the popular Palestinian conviction that the point of any process was to mute their resistance and play them for dupes, in an effort to gain time for their complete dispossession.
Permanently stop the settlements, however, and the whole negotiating dynamic changes. Rather than being motivated to delay, the Israelis suddenly become motivated to agree on permanent borders, so that they can continue building where it is legitimate to do so. And the Palestinians, reassured that there will be something for them, at least, at the end of the day, become motivated to follow the process through to completion, knowing that "until everything is agreed, nothing is agreed".
Despite international cries to halt settlement expansion, construction continues in the West Bank and east Jerusalem [GALLO/GETTY]
Thus, Obama was entirely right to focus on the settlements. With that done, he believed he could then leave it to George Mitchell and his negotiating team to work out the details. What he did not count on - perhaps unforgivably in one who, after all, was himself a US senator - was the United States Congress.
As a young US intelligence officer in North Africa in the early 1980s, I befriended the leader of a large leftist labour union, a wise and clever man, by far my senior. Remember, in those days, it was the Arab left which was in the vanguard of support to the Palestinian cause, reinforced by the fact that the PLO styled itself as a leftist, "revolutionary" movement, in the 1970s-tinged spirit of the times.
"You know," my friend once said to me, "I used to lead anti-American demonstrations to protest your support of Israel. But in time, I began to understand that this was pointless. I realised that, in fact, you can do nothing."He raised his hands to grip his throat. "The Israelis," he said, "have you like this." What he was talking about was the US Congress. And though I was loath to admit it, he was quite right, even then.
Nonexistent pressure on Israel
What I was forced to acknowledge - if only to myself - in the 1980s, President Obama has come to learn, somewhat late in his political life, the hard way. In his quest to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop settlements, he really never had a chance. The reason is that where Israel is concerned, at least since the 1960s, the Israeli prime minister - whoever occupies that position - always commands far more influence in Congress than any US president could hope to. It is not even a contest. Pressure? What real pressure could Obama ever hope to exert over Netanyahu? A threat to cut off Congressionally-mandated aid? What could possibly have made him think he could push Netanyahu where he didn't want to go? As soon as Netanyahu decided to resist, the game was over; and the president, humiliatingly, was forced to take whatever temporary "partial moratorium" the Israeli PM was willing to give him. From there, the route to final failure of the George Mitchell project was a long, slow, downward spiral, leading to a muted crash.
This president is too sagacious to make the same mistake twice. I retain enough naïve faith in the sense and decency of the people of the US to believe that, in the past at least, when a two-state solution was still possible, a US president could have appealed to the US public over the heads of a lobby-dominated congress to exert enough pressure to save Israel from itself. But under the best of circumstances, to do so would trigger a mammoth political firestorm. To prevail, a US president would have to be willing to sacrifice his entire programme to this one cause. No president would do such a thing; arguably, no president should. And this president certainly will not.
That was one of the clear messages from Obama in his so-called "Arab Spring" speech of May 19. Like others writing in these spaces, I was harshly critical of that speech, particularly where Palestine was concerned. "passive", I said; a refusal to lead. And when, in light of the perversely negative reactions to the speech from both the Israeli prime minister and his supporters in the US, one heard that Obama would be addressing the annual convention of AIPAC, the leading US pro-Israel lobby, three days later, I didn't want to listen. One can stomach only so much compensatory pandering at a single go.
But I soon realised that I was missing the point. In fact, far from a simple exercise in pandering - although his speech to AIPAC was replete with it - the second of the presidential speeches in question was actually quite consistent with the first. Of course the president was not going to expose himself politically, yet again, to try to press an achievable peace on an unwilling Israel. He cannot. Instead, these two speeches should be seen for what they are: An attempt by Barack Obama, insofar as politics will allow, to speak honestly with the Israeli people and all who support them.
Some of what the president was trying to say, he could say openly. For some, he had to speak in code. But what he was trying to convey, in effect, is this:
You Israelis have nothing to fear from me. My commitment, and that of my country to your security is unshakeable. I will support you in every way I know how. We in America will do all we can to assure your ability to effectively counter, on your own, any external enemy, even at the cost of our own security. We will resist, as best we can, any and all efforts to exert pressure on you in international forums, whether you are right or wrong. We will continue to use all our influence on the Palestinians and on regional leaders, bribing them with favours, cajoling them, playing on their fear, anxiety and naïve faith in us to influence their actions in your favour. In short, I will do what all recent US presidents have done, just as they have, and without fail.
But honesty and sincere concern for you compel me to speak the truth, as others have not. So please know this: In the end, given your current situation, I cannot help you. Please do not think that I or my country can save you from yourselves. If your dream is a Jewish and democratic state, you are on a path to self-destruction. The demographics of Palestinian population increase west of the Jordan insure this. The wave of non-violent popular resistance sweeping the Arab world will not bypass the Arabs in your midst. Soon you will confront far more acutely the internal moral dilemmas faced by all oppressors. The status quo is thus unsustainable for you, and further delay in addressing it will not help. And while you can continue to count on us, the rest of the world is already growing tired of your endless occupation. If it continues, they will abandon you. In the end, our support will not be enough to save you from international opprobrium, isolation and, ultimately, the essential failure of the Zionist enterprise.
I tell you this as a sincere friend. You will get no more unwanted pressure from me. I can suggest a partial formula for a settlement with the Palestinians which I believe may work, if you choose to exercise it. In any case, we will continue to do all we can from the outside, but as regards the fundamental choices only you can make, I can do nothing else. Beyond that, you are on your own.
