Posted on 04/30/2010 5:39:56 AM PDT by SJackson
As of this writing, the so-called proximity talks seem once again to be in the offing.
Following letters of concern - signed by an overwhelming number of senators and members of the House - to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a sharply critical public rebuke by Senator Charles Schumer, the Obama administration seems to have backed off from its insistence that Israel formally commit to a construction freeze in Jerusalem in order to bring the Palestinians into the aforementioned proximity talks. And the president himself sent an unprecedentedly conciliatory letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
To be sure, there are reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite some very tough public declarations that Israel would not restrict construction anywhere in Jerusalem, had in fact ordered an informal freeze. Perhaps there is a correlation between that and the administration's new tone.
Whatever the reasons, the outward signs indicate a realization on President Obama's part that challenging Israel's stance that Jews can build anywhere in Jerusalem is counterproductive at best. Advertisement
But we've seen a version of this movie before and wonder whether Mr. Obama has finally decided to respect the Israeli "red lines" and tell the Arab world he can only go so far in pressuring Israel. One does not have to buy into the notion that the president has an anti-Israel animus to appreciate that his worldview is fraught with danger for Israel.
During the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama said many times that central to his plan of bringing change to the way the U.S. conducts its affairs would be a sustained outreach to those in the Third World who have been our adversaries and a more robust involvement in attempting to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
He argued that much of the difficulty the U.S. has had in the international arena - and he singled out the country's relationship with Iran as one example - was attributable to the sense that America had sought to impose its will on the world in pursuit of what was perceived to be America's national interests.
In retrospect, it now seems a clash with Israel was inevitable. If Iran was one of those so wrongly put upon by prior administrations, then of course, according to this mindset, so were the Palestinians. Indeed, as it turned out, one of President Obama's first post-election initiatives was the announcement of an enhanced American role in the Middle East.
If there were any doubts that this foreshadowed an effort to dampen U.S. support for Israel and tilt at least somewhat toward the Palestinians, the president's Cairo speech, in which he declared that the U.S. would engage in a full court press to demonstrate to Muslims that they had a friend in the White House, should have eliminated them.
Significantly, Mr. Obama in that speech became the first American president to characterize the establishment of Israel not as the culmination of the yearning of Jews for their ancient homeland but as a payback for the suffering of the Holocaust. Not only did he thus embrace the core Arab narrative, he also failed to speak of the values and interests shared by Israel and America.
So it should not have been surprising that the Obama administration promptly declared that Israel had to totally suspend any construction on any land seized in 1967 in advance of a resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. This followed the Palestinians' decision to terminate negotiations in anticipation of just such a move by the administration.
Once the declaration came, the prospects for resumption of talks without an Israeli commitment was rendered impossible since the Palestinians could hardly be perceived as more conciliatory than the U.S. government.
The president relented when Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month freeze on construction in the West Bank. Although Mr. Netanyahu had specifically excluded Jerusalem from the freeze, Secretary of state Clinton declared it an "unprecedented" gesture and urged the Palestinians to go back to the negotiating table. The Palestinians continued to object, insisting that the freeze include Jerusalem.
There matters stood until the Obama administration came up with the notion of indirect - "proximity" - talks that would allow the Palestinians to participate while not frontally conceding the total freeze point.
But when Vice President Biden was in Jerusalem to hail the resumption of talks (however indirect), there came that announcement that Israel would be building in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo. Although the timing of the announcement was unfortunate, it was not a particularly remarkable development given the prior explicit exclusion of Jerusalem from any construction freeze. Yet President Obama seized on it as a reason to come down hard on Israel, an action that served to once more raise questions about the depth of his commitment to Israel.
The fact that Mr. Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, Senator George Mitchell, is now pushing for the prompt start of proximity talks suggests that the president is moving beyond Ramat Shlomo and prepared to respect the Israeli position on a construction freeze in Jerusalem.
Yet there should be no illusions about the fundamental significance of the construction freeze issue. It is not just a matter of empty posturing.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem following its capture of the area during the Six-Day War. The Arab world and indeed the U.S. and the international community never accepted Israel's claim and insist that the final status of East Jerusalem must be decided through negotiations. So by agreeing to any restrictions on its right to build in East Jerusalem, Israel would be compromising its claim of sovereignty.
In other words, the idea that President Obama was merely trying to maintain the status quo until the end negotiations are completed is misplaced. It is a definite choice between two conflicting positions.
At bottom, President Obama has to decide whether to seriously respect Israel's red lines as it sees them and over which they cannot be expected to cross, or to lean toward Palestinian outreach while paying empty public obeisance to an "unshakable" bond between Israel and the United States. His choice will determine whether the Palestinians finally opt for realism and recognize that the U.S. is not going to run interference and negotiate for them and that they must seriously do so themselves.
The letter Mr. Obama sent to the Presidents Conference last week is a hopeful sign. It contained the usual bows to the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel and other such. But it also included the following comments:
I am deeply committed to fulfilling the important role the United States must play for peace to be realized, but I also recognize that in order for any agreement to endure, peace cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be negotiated directly by the leaders who are required to make the hard choices and compromises that take on history .
Significantly, the president went on to delineate the "special relationship":
Our countries are bound together by shared values, deep and interwoven connections, and mutual interests, Many of the same forces that threaten Israel also threaten the United States and our efforts to secure peace and stability in the Middle East. Our alliance with Israel serves our national security interests.
Just words? Maybe. But Mr. Obama at last seemed to acknowledge Israel as a partner rather than a pawn. Perhaps the abject failure of his outreach approach around the world has sobered him and made a difference. Perhaps he has come to appreciate that even a president cannot just arbitrarily blow inconsequential things like Ramat Shlomo out of proportion. And perhaps he now realizes he has to be sensitive to members of Congress and their reelection concerns.
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Don’t trust anything Obama says. He is definitely anti-Israel.
Coming around? What does that mean? He wants to give all of Jerusalem to the a-rabs?
Bookmark.
He’s blowing smoke!
I agree w/ that assessment. Were I Israel I would be wary of any agreement negotiated by that bird.
The answer is no.
He might realize that his positions are not popular even among his disciples but is still knee-jerk anti-Israel. Heck, anti-ally.
Don’t fall for it. Obama is no friend of Israel and never will be. He might be making nicey-nice “noises” either to lull his enemies into a false sense of security or to make himself appear more center and less left - but it’s all an act.
Wishful thinking. The Jewish Press usually is much more open-eyed about things like this.
But Mr. Obama at last seemed to acknowledge Israel as a partner rather than a pawn.
He’s always done that. I see nothing in this article to suggest a change of heart, apart from a brief respite from the public denunciations.
Obama, and his like, do not change. He may indeed reverse course on this—but due only to the political force applied against him. Like the Muslim world itself, he only respects power and strength.
Obama is the biggest liar in the known universe. Don’t trust him, his words, his czars, “SGT Shultz “ Gibbs, so many, they’re all crooks and liars.
Obama will “give in” to Netanyahu on Jerusalem. The the next month 0bama will say, “I gave in to you on Jerusalem. You have to give the Golan Heights to Syria otherwise my negotiating credibility is destroyed”
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