Obama’s Irrelevant Bid for Mideast Peace
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not always a zero-sum game. Sometimes both sides win, and this is one of those times. It must be admitted that this is a somewhat counterintuitive idea, especially since most observers of the peace process seem to think that the breakdown in negotiations between the two parties is an unmitigated disaster for all involved.
In fact, it is a disaster only for the Obama administration, and both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas have the right to claim something like a victory.
The reason for this is a simple one: It is in the interests of both these leaders to preserve the status quo. Therefore the Obama administration’s insistence on renewing negotiations was a threat. That threat, for the moment, has been alleviated. Indeed, over the last several months, the entire negotiating process amounted to little more than pantomime, with both sides making the necessary gestures at progress while supplying the necessary obstacles to ensure that progress would not actually happen.
It is tempting to see this as a corrupt and debased way of dealing with a serious situation. Yet both sides have very good ideological and political reasons for adopting it. Netanyahu’s political reasons are clear.
In order to make concessions to the Palestinians, he would have to place his governing coalition — and, possibly, his entire political future — at risk. He would have to do so, moreover, to reach an agreement with an enemy he does not trust, which has already shown a willingness to abandon negotiations in favor of terrorist violence.
Netanyahu’s position is no better ideologically. While he has stated publicly that he would accept a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty, it is clear that the prime minister is unenthusiastic. For most of his political career, he has seen peace with the Palestinians — certainly with Fatah — as highly unlikely, if not impossible. The Palestinians’ refusal thus far to recognize Israel as a Jewish state can only harden that view. For Netanyahu, there is little point in destabilizing both his government and the current security situation by entering into serious negotiations.
Abbas has a less obvious — if in some ways more perilous — dilemma. His most dangerous enemy at present is not the Israelis (who, along with the United States, are propping him up with arms and money), but the Hamas regime in Gaza, which represents a serious popular threat to Fatah rule.
In order to reach an agreement with Israel, Abbas would have to make highly unpopular concessions on issues such as refugees and borders, likely destroying whatever remains of his legitimacy and opening the door to a Hamas takeover. Even if Abbas managed to survive, such a threat could expose the Palestinians to civil war. And to prevail in a showdown, Abbas would have to rely on American and Israeli aid, further solidifying his image as a puppet.
I am sorry to see such a “balanced” view. Here are some jarring facts on the ground that Kerstein leaves out.
1) Abbas would lose funding that is being supplied by the West in such a settlement. His or any other Palestinian Government would have to shrink in order to accommodate to the funds available.
2) Abbas has never compromised on any issue during negotiations that has remained on the table after being made public. He still insists upon ’67 borders and an apartheid state without Jews. He still proclaims that Arabs would have to be imported into Israel under “Right of Return” though he would be acquiring a state for these folks.
3) The failure of withdrawal from Gaza augurs poorly for any Palestinian state. Indeed, further withdrawal may bring about another war all too easily. No world government will guarantee Israel’s security if it grants sovereignty to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. It will then be a local conflict in which Jews are whittled down slowly without recourse.
4) The wind is blowing at the UN. Israel will need every inch of territory to defend itself against world government insistence upon its truncation. Signing an agreement will negate the gains of the San Remo Conference that currently stands as the basis for Israel’s existence under international law.
Let me break this to you clearly, Israel desperately wants peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world and will do almost anything apart from national suicide to achieve this. Successive Israeli governments have made unilateral and dangerous territorial concessions to the Palestinians, Israel has made demographic and financial concessions to the Palestinians, and finally Israel has made serious diplomatic and building concessions to the Palestinians. Not one time have the Palestinians ever responded positively to these concessions, but have only made more and more absurd demands. The Arab world as well has reacted to these concessions with increased antagonism and hostility.
The Palestinians and the Arab world do not want peace with Israel, they are demanding Israel’s destruction and the genocide of the Jews, something that doesn’t seem to bother American President Barack Hussein Obama.
Obama, by failing to even recognize the Palestinians and Arab rejectionism and uncompromising positions, not only not criticizing them but rather supporting them, has only made the charade of Israeli Arab peace negotiations even more of a tragic and deadly joke than they already were.
Furthermore, no one, not the Americans, not the Europeans, and of course not the UN seems to even care that a rogue, terrorist, and genocidal Palestinian state already exists in the Gaza Strip. Indeed, no one seems to notice or care that this Hamas Palestinian terror state demands Israel’s destruction daily, and is launching missile, rocket, mortar, and terrorist attacks on Israel every single day. They only seem to pay any attention or make any criticism when Israel take self defence measures.
There is no chance that the Palestinians will ever negotiate a peace settlement with Israel because this is not their goal, their only goal is Israel’s destruction.
Ken, I agree with you.
I get that many folks don’t spend a lot of time reading/learning history, certainly not American or European politicians.
But one only has to have a rudimentary grasp on geography to look at a map and understand that is the arab world really had their Palestinian “brothers” best interests at heart, there is plenty of real estate to go around.
The Palestinian approach to Israel has always been the same as a VERY angry spouse in a divorce proceeding. They can’t even communicate with the other without bursting into angry outbursts, and the thought of any concession, even in the case of something they hold no personal interest in, makes their head explode.
More in that vain, at least in our case, the US has an unhealthy percentage of politicians who are lawyers. They are(at least currently) being driven by an agenda to punish Israel, even when it’s illogical to do so. Apparently that is what the ivy league law schools are teaching these days.
And our fearless leader is no better than the ambulance chasers that advertise on TV here(Not that I agree with much of the foreign policy from previous administrations regarding Israel/Palestinian relations. It’s just our current one is so unbalanced in it’s muslim ideology, that the idea that it can be thought of as a fair arbitrator is absurd). If you have to be dishonest about an issue to support your views, than the truth, except in the case of suppressing it, doesn’t matter.
And the unbalanced support of the MSM towards leftist politicians only fuels the debacle of the Israeli/Palestinian “peace” process(Which I believe is true world wide).
Well said Ken.
While we are at it since the war on terror is actually a war against the political culture of the middle east why is anyone even discussing rewarding the godfathers of modern terrorism, the Palestinians, with a state? This is the appeasers’ credo; if you reward bad behavior you LESS of it, rather than more. The same idea that produced such outstanding results in the past.
Even the discussion of a Palestinian state encourages terrorism.
President Obama is in over his head on this issue like no other issue he faces for 2 reasons: he is dealing with cagey veterans accompanied by wheels within wheels – men who deal with reality and not Obama’s coulda, woulda, shoulda view of the world based on a fantasy and luxurious view of history that success by the West is immoral and failure by the East and South equal morality, oppression and imperialism. That’s liberal kid stuff.
Second is Obama’s utter lack of knowledge of the history of the conflict in any way that could address its nuance. If that “premiere intellectual” Noam Chomsky and Norm Finkelstein fall down regularly all over this issue after having studied it all their careers, how is Obama, who perceptually sides with muslims just cuz he likes the idea, gonna come to grips with this?
Obama is totally at sea on this one and will never do a thing. The issue of the settlers in the West Bank is not a looming issue for Israel but for the Palestinian Arabs as their intransigence is shrinking their state every day. Any Palestinian leader who signs off on a two state solution that is actually attainable, meaning right of return being taken off the table, will immediately be assassinated like Sadat.
The bottom line is this: Israel, right or wrong holds all the cards, every one of them and putting up with toothless criticisms from the West preferable to violence; a larger Gaza is the example Israel has with a Palestinian state in the West Bank. The Palestinian Arabs show no sign of not continuing with the same attitudes and policies they have exhibited for over 6 decades and so they will continue to move nowhere. Peace is nowhere in sight and a demographically expelled West Bank that will become part of Israel proper in a few decades is.
Who cares anymore. Hamas and Hezbollah, who control the Palestinians, will not co-exist with Israel and want Isreal destroyed. The Palestinians LOVE Hamas and Hezbollah and have no intention of getting rid of them for the sake of the “Peace Process.” So where do you go from here? Nowhere. These people are done, finished. There will be a war soon, especially if Iran gets a nuclear bomb and either uses it on Israel or gives it to Hezbollah to use on Israel. Either way it will be close to the end of times in that part of the world and the west, including Obama, is siding with the people who want to destroy Israel. So Israel will simply wait until the Palestinians and the Iranians make their next, deadly, move.
You are basically dealing with a bunch of people who are determined to kill each other and there isn’t much we can do about it. If the Palestinians and the Israelis really, really, wanted a peace agreement, they would have had one by now. After all, they’ve only had 60 YEARS to come up with one! Nope, this is a fight to the finish and it will probably happen much sooner rather than later.
“For Israel, there are the settlements, and the looming demographic problem they represent.”
The Arab settlements in Israel and the looming demographic problem they represent are indeed a problem.
Oh, that’s not what you meant? Then start getting your picture about this whole conflict right. Misframing like this is the reason why Israel got into the Oslo mire in the first place.
Start here:
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict” – replace with: “The Jewish-Arab conflict” or “The Jewish-Muslim conflict.”
Bingo. Words matter.
That’s why the left twists them at every opportunity.
Concessions concessions consessions.. WHEN will the WORLD get ANY concessions from the Trans-Jordanians? I’m sick and tired of the PC police cow-towing to the empathy-seeking, terrorist-electing, non-self- governing wastes of space. And that’s precisely what they are, and then some for their circumstance.
Heck, the Western teet-sucking Haiti, post and prior earthquake Haiti are more together than those infections surrounding Israel.
I’d tell these ‘poor souls’ to go to Jordan or Egypt, but that’s right.. those countries don’t want ‘em either. But the aforementioned sure like providing tunnels/transporting weaponry, anti-Semetism attitudes though..
‘The Palestinians and the Arab world do not want peace with Israel, they are demanding Israel’s destruction and the genocide of the Jews, something that doesn’t seem to bother American President Barack Hussein Obama’.
…
That is the only truth!
There is now way to make both sides happy or secure at this time. Palestine is just the stick that is being used by Muslims to beat Israel. Both Jordan and Egypt could cede land to become Palestine aren’t most of these people born in what was Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon? This round of “peace talks” is just one more pathetic attempt by one more US President seeking immortality. There must be too much CO2 in D.C. for people to think and behave reasonably.
I can picture a skinny black kid,with big ears and wearing flip flops,and the famous ‘slurpee’ in his hand ,going to the Middle East and being serious??????.
Obama ,you are a joke
“He would have to do so, moreover, to reach an agreement with an enemy he does not trust, ”
Let me fix that for you:
“He would have to do so, moreover, to reach an agreement with an enemy only a complete fool would trust, ”
There ya go!