Think of the Palestinian Statehood Bid in the UN as a Hurricane; Think of U.S. Policy as New Orleans
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” –Rahm Emanuel
By Barry Rubin
One of the amazing things about the amazing incompetence of the Obama Administration is that we’ve become so accustomed to it that we take for granted things that would have made opinionmakers during past presidencies clutch the upper left side of their chests and collapse, writhing in agony.
Or to put it another way, if an Obama policy falls in the public arena and the mass media acts deaf will anyone say: “OMG! Can this really be happening?” Well, I will follow Rahm Emanuel’s advice and hope that this serious crisis could be for this administration an “opportunity…to do things you think you could not do before” or to start looking for a new policymaker.
Consider that the United States is on the verge of a foreign policy disaster that could easily have been averted by proper statecraft. The Palestinian Authority (PA, technically speaking, along with its Hamas partner) is about to demand that the United Nations break every Israel-Palestinian agreement over almost twenty years, destroy any possibility of serious future negotiation, reward Palestinian intransigence, and generally make a mess of the Middle East.
The specific issue is recognition of a Palestinian state as existing right now. The result, as I’ve outlined previously, would be catastrophic and don’t let anyone get away with pretending that this isn’t a bad thing or won’t make much difference.
A “normal” U.S. policy would have begun pressing the PA to back down from this strategy almost a year ago, when PA leaders began talking about it. Rather than take quick action—or, indeed, punish, pressure, or even criticize the PA for anything it did—the Obama Administration stood by and made disapproving murmurs from time to time.
We are now facing the consequences of the policy of: let’s be weak so people will like us; leading from behind; not rewarding friends or punishing enemies,; refusing to use U.S. leverage (Turkey votes against sanctions on Iran? Let’s put them in charge of Syria’s future!); and generally letting other countries walk all over the United States. I’d love to list other examples of similar issues here but don’t want to take your time so you can fill in the additional details.
Now, the cloud once the size of a man’s hand has turned into a more serious big brother of Hurricane Irene. If you don’t mind my mixing hurricanes, think of U.S. foreign policy as New Orleans.
A colleague suggests that the administration is now panicked. I think it isn’t panicking but should be. A sign of not understanding the magnitude of the problem is that it is only now starting to do what should have begun around September 2010, not September 2011. If you are a U.S. citizen living in a Muslim-majority country you might think about what you will be doing later this month.
As a result, the United States has no leverage over the PA, a client that depends on Washington for any possibility of actual peace, having a real state, and paying its bills. Equally, it has no leverage over virtually any other country in the world in terms of voting on this issue. America has been transformed from superpower to super-cower, begging the PA to take pity on it and back down from an obviously successful strategy.
I love the way the New York Times’ article puts it:
“The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians recognition as a state at the United Nations. It may already be too late, according to senior American officials and foreign diplomats.”
Yes, it might also be too late—just maybe—to stop the American Civil War or prevent the 1929 stock market crash. What the Obama Administration has done is to:
–Propose a new round of PA talks with Israel.
–Made clear that it will veto the PA bid in the Security Council.
This is about the most serious threat since a small mammal (I don’t want to offend anyone by mentioning its precise species) told the Big Bad Wolf not to blow down its house of straw and eat him or he’d bleed all over the Wolf’s clothes.
First, the PA doesn’t want negotiations with Israel. It has been rejecting talks for two years, even refusing them during a requested Israeli freeze of construction on West Bank settlements, even when an east Jerusalem freeze was added to it. The PA also rejected talks within minutes after Obama laid his personal prestige on the line in September 2009 to announce a high-level summit at Camp David.
Let’s face it: these people don’t want serious negotiations. Why? Because they don’t want a peace agreement with Israel; they want a state unfettered by concessions or compromise so they can pursue total victory and Israel’s destruction. (There’s nothing “right-wing” about that conclusion. All the facts point to it and only wishful thinking says differently.)
As for the U.S. vetoing the proposal, what does the PA care about that? It will mainly hurt the United States. There will be a vote in the General Assembly with a margin of support for the PA (cowardly Western democracies which know the idea is terrible will abstain and let the United States take the heat) similar to the size of the majority in the U.S. Congress supporting a declaration endorsing Mother’s Day. Second, there will probably be anti-American riots throughout the Muslim-majority world. Any good done by Obama’s almost three-year-long effort to make Arab and Muslims like him will be cancelled out.
Fortunately, though, Obama doesn’t hold a grudge, at least against foreign enemies who “diss” him and America.
I know that I’ve tried to be entertaining here through the use of sarcasm and humor. But my warning and critique are not exaggerated. This was an avoidable crisis and will be much worse than almost anyone recognizes.
The non-EPA approved icing on the cake is that afterward the Obama Administration will do absolutely nothing to the PA or to affect negatively those who voted for it which will, of course, encourage additional acts of diplomatic hostility and real world disasters of this type. The Obama Administration’s apparent motto is expressed by wearing a large sign that says, “Kick me.” Unfortunately, the object being kicked isn’t the personal property of the chief executive but belongs to the United States of America.
‘Consider that the United States is on the verge of a foreign policy disaster that could easily have been avertable by proper statecraft’
I think this 2 state final solution train was headed for a major wreck all along.
I don’t think anything could have averted it.
God has His idiot in the White House for a reason.
You know the old Yiddish saying ? ‘Man Plans God Laughs’
My question of the month to you and Israel is ;
Is Israel’s Covenant with Death,the false peace Road Map About to be annulled ?
I just wonder if the trampling and ‘passing through’ are the Palestinian mobs ?
‘Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we have made a pact.
The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by,
For we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.”…….
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, [o]firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed. “I will make justice the measuring line
And righteousness the level; Then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies
And the waters will overflow the secret place.
18 “Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol will not stand;
When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you become its trampling place.
19 “As often as it passes through, it will seize you; For morning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night,
And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means.”
20 The bed is too short on which to stretch out, And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in.
21 For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim, He will be stirred up as in the valley of Gibeon,
To do His task, His unusual task, And to work His work, His extraordinary work.
22 And now do not carry on as scoffers, Or your fetters will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts Of decisive destruction on all the earth.
Isaiah 28
Sheer madness. Palestinians stand to lose much more than Israel with this, which of course is bad for Israel because the world holds Israel accountable for all of the bad decisions the Palestinians make.
Take this along with the madness of Erdogan who could easily have taken the limited apology and money offered (not that he deserved it) and let it go. Now he is painting himself into a corner with threats and for no good reason.
If there is no reason to be found than the answer lies outside its boundaries. Hatred is the common theme and always had been. Hatred of Jews and by extention Israel. It will never go away which leads to a sort of liberation. We can free ourselves of the burdon of responsibility for eliminating it.
The hurricaine analogy is perfect. We cannot control the hurricaine. We cannot reason with it. There is one on the horizon, evacuation is not an option so all we can do is prepare shelter. Anyone who has been through a similar emergency knows that feeling of calm when decisions are made and the path is clear. This will not be the end of Israel. Adversity only makes her stronger.
In a little hilltop village they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and they gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
Well I’m living in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
The poem appears to be familiar, Spindok. Where’s it from?
As you note, Spindok, Hatred of Jews (such as myself) has a liberating quality. Since we know there is absolutely nothing to be done except to allow ourselves to be exterminated (not going to happen), there is nothing to be done except to struggle for our own survival in any way we can the consequences be damned. It’s a kind of up against the wall syndrome or cornering a rat (not that we, Jews, are rats); we have nothing left to lose. I recall that I once learned in schoolboy rows not to humiliate my opponent too much; always leave him with a way out; otherwise, you would be facing a desperate man, the worse kind of opponent. As a Jew and an Israeli, that’s how I’ve come to feel. There are many more like me. Perhaps, and strangely enough, Obama’s done us a favour, “liberating” us from the consequences of necessary actions.
Maybe Obama knows that the Jews will take the blame anyway (again).
This is why i find myself writing something I never, ever, thought I would write: “I will vote for any Republican in the next election.”
The economic folly of the Obama administration we can deal with; it may take a couple of decades, but we can do it. His foreign policy bids fair to be, and I use the word carefully, catastrophic. The president and his advisers in this area strike me as nothing so much as a bunch of bright college seniors majoring in international relations.
This would be bad enough if it were just an inept foreign policy but from Honduras to Syria the Obama administration has made it clear that it has genuine, real sympathy for anti-westerners, seeing some sort of authenticity in them. It’s not just Israel–again, look at Honduras or off-hand remarks like Hillary’s that the Falklands situation should be subject to negotiation.
Our allies get the back of our hands; our enemies get an outstretched hand.
Won’t the UN acceptance of a PAL state enable Israel to treat attacks from Gaza like a normal country would? If so this creates a major advantage of allowing Israel to finally deal with Hamas? Maybe this is Fatah’s hidden agenda…ha ha wishful thinking.
The PA has already discounted the American subsidy. It can do so because it receives substantial aid from elswhere, not least the EU.
US diplomacy needs to lean on the Europeans. It is not enough for them to obstain from the UN vote, they too must make clear to the Palestinians, now, in advance, that their subsidy will end. They are part of the Quartet. They too supported the Oslo agreements. They have an obligation to do everything possible to avoid their abrogation. Moreover, the Europeans have for a long time desired to become major Middle East players.
Here is their chance. By acting in a major way, by showing their teeth, by taking a stand and shapping events, rather than as always, following along.
The Europeans occupy the catbird seat in this situation. Without their dough the PA is hamstrong. Neither Iran or the Saudis will make up for that money.The Europeans are positioned to stop this UN gambit. The US must lean on them, not on the Palestinians, they have already made up their mind. If the US, under Obama, has renvived faded friendships, here is the time and place to use those chips.
That should be abstain, hamstrung, revived …
Robert H:
The poem is the lyric from Bob Dylan’s ‘ Shelter from the Storm’
Thank you
I should have referenced it
So familiar to me that I forgot.
I think we ought to give the PA their state: how about Illinois?
How about the island off of New Zealand the Zionist movement was offered way back when? Is that still available? Deleting one star from the US flag would cost more than the aid the US gives the Pals. Note Obama was only 1 of 2 senators and not the governor…plz don’t engage in collective punishment of all Illinoisians:-).
I almost suggested my own home state (CA), but thought that–given his leanings–Obama and his family really ought to have a more up close and personal proximity to those peace-loving Palestinians.
So many excellent points worth discussing… I don’t know where to begin.
Mr Rubin, I’ve always enjoyed your columns since you began writing here at Pajamas Media, but this one is terrifyingly brilliant. With humour and insightful analysis you’ve described precisely what is so terribly wrong with Obama and his disastrous foreign policy.
Please fix the link for “as I’ve outlined previously”
4 cents on the dollar? Herman Cain really is a shrewd businessman!