Foreign Policy In Focus

The same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's received his “wildly receptive” welcome from the U.S. Congress Financial Times Associate Editor Philip Stephens wrote that “Elsewhere, Britain has been frustrated by Washington’s refusal to back publication by the international community of the essential parameters of an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement.” Translation: It is the U.S. that is preventing the major world powers from expressing the international consensus on the way forward in “peace process.” Stephens continued, “The president’s willingness to offend Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s obdurate prime minister, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for progress in the region.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has already said it might support the Palestinians when they go before the United Nations, as expected in September, and ask for a resolution affirming Palestinian statehood in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. If you rely on the major U.S. media you would never sense it but what Obama likely heard in Europe last week is that the rest of the world is even more certain than the British to back the UN move. Evidently in his meeting with European leaders, Obama tried to talk the others out of supporting Palestinian statehood when the matter comes up for a vote in the UN.

“The march to isolate Israel internationally -- and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations -- will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative,” Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a group that has become little more than a lobbying mechanism supporting the policies of Netanyahu’s governing rightwing coalition. “So in advance of a five-day trip to Europe, in which the Middle East will be a topic of acute interest, I chose to speak about what peace will require.”

President Obama didn’t exactly launch any “initiative” and his endorsement of a Middle East settlement based on the 1967 Armistice borders wasn’t nearly as bold as it is being portrayed. It is the consensus position of the vast overwhelming majority of the people and governments of the world. It has been for a long time, and everybody knows it.

The effect of the media reporting on Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., his talk with Obama, his rapturous reception at the annual AIPAC powwow and his over the top reception by the U.S. Congress has created a delusion here in the U.S. The verbal sparring between the two leaders, the haughty lecturing tone of Netanyahu’s response to the President, and the 28 or so standing ovations the Congress gave to him are only part of the story and have to be viewed in the context of the opinion of the rest of the world. It doesn’t even adequately reflect the views of the members of Congress. Their repeated standing ovations are more a testimony to the political power of the Israeli lobby than to their private convictions. Even some of Israel’s most adamant supporters amongst them are gravely concerned over Israel’s growing international isolation.

The cable news commentators that referred to the Israeli leader’s seeming political conquest of official Washington as “political theater” got it right: members of Congress, some of whom are otherwise knowledgeable and reasonable people, falling all over themselves to applaud what most of the rest of the world – including our most trusted allies—reject.

The dynamic on display this week in Washington between the two leaders has actually left the Palestinian leadership little choice but to appeal to the international community.

"The world will blame Israel as the main culprit if violence escalates again should the Palestinians unilaterally declare their independence this autumn,” said The Financial Times Deutschland in Germany. “Whether this blame would be correct or not, a government leader must act in such a situation. The Arab revolutions have made the situation even more urgent and increased the Palestinians' impatience.

"But even before his speech yesterday, Netanyahu willfully squandered this chance … despite his promises and declarations; he apparently wanted to play the blocker and the hardliner. And it served him well -- at least domestically."

"But it's a catastrophe for Israel's foreign policy,” said the paper. “Sure, Netanyahu was applauded in Congress, and he thanked Obama repeatedly for his support of Israel. But the audience for his speech and visit weren't just US politicians, who would stand by him anyhow. Instead of an Israeli vision of a peaceful Middle East, once again only the memory of Netanyahu's many refusals will remain in the mind of the global audience."

All hands appear to be on deck to try and head off a UN resolution. “Having the U.N. General Assembly pass a resolution recognizing an independent Palestinian state will only rally Israelis around Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, giving him another excuse not to talk,” wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman May 25. That’s just silly talk. Bibi doesn’t need another rationale for intransigence. He opposes any settlement based on any borderlines that doesn’t ratify the colonial conquest of Palestinian land.

That a new UN resolution will not produce a Palestinian state is so obvious that it’s curious that Obama bothered to say so, but as Retired Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a veteran Israeli negotiator has noted, “it is likely to isolate Israel and escalate Israeli-Palestinian tensions.”

While in Europe Obama was no doubt told again what he already knew: that the European Union fully backs the position that will be laid out in a General Assembly resolution. The Congressional applause had hardly died down when the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, backed Obama’s stance.

“Netanyahu's rejection of peace based on the 1967 borders is self-important and arrogant…especially given that Obama explicitly stated that a variation from the 1967 borders would be possible under a mutual land swap,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Spiegel last week. “Netanyahu is suppressing the political reality and betting on a stalemate instead. For the peace process, that is deadly.

“We need to make an attempt to draw Hamas into a democratic process and bring it on to the path of freedom -- just as we succeeded in doing with Fatah during the 1990s. That would also include informal talks with Hamas.

“And that's a position we Europeans are going to maintain,” continued Asselborn. “Still, you can't just put conditions on the Palestinian side, as they're not the only source of the violence. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison. There, 1.7 million people live in an area one-seventh the size of Luxembourg. To shut its borders and to only allow certain goods into the country and hardly any out -- this is also a form of violence. In the West Bank, Israelis continue to build settlements on expropriated land. It is a constant provocation.”

One might think that it would shore up political support for the rightwing politician at home but that would be a mistake. “American Jews have been dragged over the past few days into the controversy between their government and Israel's government, and that is neither to their benefit nor to the benefit of the State of Israel,” was the editorial comment of Haaretz, considered by some to be Israel's most influential daily newspaper.

“Unlike the many American politicians who turn Jewish organizational conferences into election rallies, Obama did not make do with rousing declarations about America's commitment to Israel's security and to the unity of Jerusalem, said the newspaper. “Though he is already thinking about his upcoming presidential election campaign, Obama looked the Jewish community in the eye and told the truth.

“The refusal by Netanyahu and his political allies to recognize the 1967 borders as a starting point leads permanent-status negotiations into a dead end. From there, the road is short to violent confrontation with the Palestinians, diplomatic isolation and perhaps even economic sanctions,’ said Haaretz.

“The large Jewish peace camp in the United States must support the president and reject political activists who have turned Israel's fate into a ball on America's domestic political court. The time has come for the Jews of New York and Illinois to stand beside their worried brethren in Jerusalem and Sderot, who have welcomed Obama's message and are hoping for it to become reality. Between loyalty to Obama's way and loyalty to Netanyahu's way, they must choose loyalty to the future of the State of Israel.”

Obama “knows that, given Netanyahu's political constraints and his worldview, chances for productive negotiations with the Palestinians are practically zero,” says Carlo Strenger, Tel Aviv University philosopher and psychoanalyst and member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists. “He also knows that the Palestinians' bid for recognition by the UN general assembly, where the US does not have veto power, is likely to receive more than two-thirds of the vote, probably including Britain and France.

“So Netanyahu is losing,” says Strenger. “But the real victims of his rightwing government's disastrous policies are the people of Israel. The specter of Israel's ever-growing isolation and increasing international pressure on it looms large. As Israeli prize-winning historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell writes in Haaretz, ‘Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state’.”

“The clear losers in Netanyahu’s shortsightedness, wrapped into grandiose verbal pyrotechnics, are the citizens of Israel. Once the dust of the media storm settles down, we will be faced with the stark truth: the specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large. Once the Palestinians succeed in their bid for statehood, the Netanyahu government will be facing international criticism of its settlement policies unprecedented in force and intensity.

“The tragedy is that Israel's growing isolation and the Palestinians' unilateral move could be avoided. Instead of fighting Palestinians' bid for recognition, Israel should support it.”

Fareed Zakaria wrote May 25 in the Washington Post: “The problem is that Netanyahu has never believed in land for peace. His strategy has been to put up obstacles, create confusion and wait it out. But one day there will be peace, along the lines that people have talked about for 20 years. And Netanyahu will be remembered only as a person before the person who made peace, a comma in history.

“It was a tactical triumph for the Israeli premier,’ said the Financial Times. “But it is Israeli citizens, not the US Congress, who will have to live with the consequences of a leader who will not make the compromises needed for peace with the Palestinians – and with an Arab world reinvigorated by the wave of revolution against tyrants Israel has come to rely on.”

“History has been in the making all over the southern bank of the Mediterranean, and it won’t skip the Palestinian territory,” commented the French newspaper Le Monde. Everywhere, the ‘Arab spring’ is bringing together people with the same demands for dignity, democracy and freedom, and there is no reason why it should not reach the Palestinians, too.’

On May 28, at Group of Eight summit in the French seaside resort of Deauville, leaders of world's richest countries gave “strong support" to President Barack Obama's stance on pre-1967 borders. In a draft statement at the G8 summit in they urged Israelis and Palestinians "to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues.

"To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."

On the same day, over a dozen Israeli intellectuals and public figures sent a letter to European governments urging them to ”officially recognize a Palestinian State,” noting that "the peace process has reached its end,"

The letter, initiated by Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, said in part, "Peace has fallen hostage to the peace process. As Israeli citizens, we announce that if and when the Palestinian people declare independence of a sovereign state that will exist next to Israel in peace and security, we will support such the announcement of the Palestinian State with borders based on the 1967 lines, with needed land swaps on a 1:1 basis."

The letter was signed by former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, former Foreign Ministry Director General Alon Liel, and former Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch, Nobel laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman, and Israel Prize Winner Professor Avishai Margalit.

"We urge the countries of the world to declare their willingness to recognize a sovereign Palestinian State according to these principles," the letter read, adding "the Palestinian appeal to the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian State does not harm the Israeli interest and is not at odds with the peace process."

Carl Bloice, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, is a columnist for the Black Commentator. He also serves on its editorial board.

From my family’s Haggadah*:

The sages speak of four kinds of children who view the Seder in four different ways and so ask different questions:

The wise child asks: What does this all mean? This child should be taught about the details of the Seder. Talk with this child about the nature of freedom and justice and about the need to act to transform the world.

The isolated child asks: What does this mean to all of you? and in so doing isolates him or herself from the community of the Seder. This child should be answered by saying: Join us tonight. Be fully here. Listen closely. Sing and read and dance and drink. Be with us, become a part of us. Then you will know what the Seder means to us.

The simple child asks: What is this? This child should be told: We are remembering a long time ago in another land when we were forced to work for other people as slaves. We became a free people and we are celebrating our freedom.

Then there is the child who is too young to ask. We will say: Sweetheart, this wondrous evening happens in the spring of every year, so that we may remember how out of death and sorrow and slavery came life and joy and freedom. To remember the sorrow we eat bitter herbs; to remember the joy we drink sweet wine. And we sing of life because we love ourselves and each other and you.

Passover 2011 has come and gone, but President Obama’s recent speech on the Middle East and subsequent attempts to coddle Benjamin Netanyahu (met with recalcitrance on the latter’s part), not to mention Bibi’s speeches to congress and AIPAC, have raised some questions about Jewish attitudes on redemption and liberation. The always-excellent Max Blumenthal interviewed delegates to the AIPAC convention and produced a cringe-making video highlighting their ignorance. I think we have some children to add to the list.

The Child Who Thinks Palestinians Have Chosen Occupation

“They’ve had an opportunity to have their own state, should they want that.” “They’re not living under occupation because of Israelis, they’re living under occupation because of themselves and their brethren.”

This child should be made aware of Palestinian objections to the sundry “states” on offer over the course of the last century. For starters, when the British crown imposed a mandate on Palestinians in 1922, the terms did not include the words “Palestinian” or “Arab” nor the political rights of people so described, though it did mention the national rights of the Jewish people and the establishment of a national home for the same in Palestine. This child will likely bring up the proposals put forth in 1948, 1967, and by Ehuds Barak and Olmert. For the reasons why these proposals were justifiably unpalatable to the Palestinians, this child should be referred to the writings primarily of Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi.

The Child Who Thinks Might Makes Right

“We already won. We have the state and they don’t.”

This child should be asked to consider the applicability of this argument to the worldwide historical expulsions of Jews that he is so fond of raising as a shield any time Israeli depravity is noted. This child should also be made aware that “It’s your land? We fought a war, and we won! IT’S OUR LAND!” is a strong candidate for Worst Sentiment Ever, objectively. However much allowance the Jewish Bible makes for the conquest and enslavement of another tribe, the world’s moral atmosphere has moved beyond the period when this idea was tolerable to anything like a majority of people, and this child would do well to awaken himself to that state of affairs.

The Child Who Is Unclear About His Views on Democracy

“The only democracy in the Middle East.”

This child should be prompted to consider the ease with which he switches from democratic glorification (in the case of Israel) to democratic denigration (in the case of Egypt, a democratic government which could conceivably halt the peace treaty between the two nations). If democracy is the ideal, Israel will have to cope with the democratic aspirations and wills of regional neighbors hostile to its occupation of Palestine and risk a diminution of national security. If, on the other hand, democracy is anxious-making, Israel loses its claim to moral authority, and is stuck relying strictly on religious appeals, which are ineffective on those of us who believe that religion is a central problem in the region, rather than something to which to aspire. (Additionally, it will have to respect the democratic will of the Palestinians, even when it produces leadership as unsavory as Hamas’).

The Child Who Cannot Distinguish Palestine from Pakistan

“They’re gonna do a trade with the Pakistanis back and forth until they reach an agreement.”

This child should be instructed that Palestine is not the same thing as Pakistan and should be informed of an exciting website called Wikipedia, where can be found details on many of the factors that differentiate them. Furthermore, this child should only be taken as seriously on matters of importance to Palestinians as should a believer in goblins and unicorns on the topic of biology. Lastly, this child should be given a copy of Robert Dreyfuss’s Devil’s Game, which outlines how the US-Israeli-Saudi-Pakistani alliance fostered the growth of Hamas, Hizbollah, the Taliban, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula and other such unseemly Islamist organizations as, it was thought at the time, an antidote to secular leftist pan-Arab thought. (Whoops.)

The Child Who Denies the Existence of the Occupation

“I don’t believe they’re living under occupation. It’s a loaded question, and I won’t answer that.”

This child should be shown photographs of soldiers with machine guns and grenades, patrolling the marketplaces of Palestine and asked which country’s soldiers he would prefer to monitor his activities and frisk and detain him and his friends that would similarly not count as an occupation. He should also be referred to relevant doctrines of international law and to words uttered by George W. Bush ("There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967.”) and Ariel Sharon (“You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation — to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation”).

The Child Who Brings Up American Indians as a Metaphor

“Seconds ago, you said – and correct me if I’m wrong – that the land of Israel or that Palestinian area belongs to you, right? Okay, now, I suppose you would also say that California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona belong to Mexico.”

This child should be told that he has the metaphor backwards. In it, the Indians are the Jews, i.e. a population with thousands of years of claim to the land, overcome by a different people who, having exerted dominance over the land for only a few hundred years, haven’t got meaningful claim to the land. This child should be notified that it is incumbent upon him willingly to sacrifice his family’s home so that an Indian can live there. In point of fact, almost all the suppositions he is making are wrong, Arabs having lived in that land for thousands of years and have committed against the Jews nothing like the genocide visited upon American Indians. If anything, the point his metaphor makes is about the complexity of history and the consequent worthlessness of reviewing this history toward solving the problems on the ground.

The Child Who Insists that Life Is Great for Arabs Living In Israel Proper

“Arabs in Israel have a higher standard of living than anywhere else in the Middle East.”

This child should be told of the pressure Israeli Arabs face to leave, especially in Jerusalem.

The Child Who Professes that Jewish Endurance of the Holocaust Grants Jews a State

“We’re not gonna go and walk out of the gas chambers and not have a place to live. You have to understand that. If you can’t accept that, there will never be peace. Unfortunately.”

This child should be asked, “Why isn’t the Jewish homeland annexed from Germany?” If he moves to religious arguments, the Islamic and Christian significance of Jerusalem should be explained to him. Presumably, he knows about the Wailing Wall, but he should be asked to identify the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and then asked to reconsider religion as a basis for the establishment of a state.

The Child Who Thinks That Israeli Violence against Palestinians is Self Defense

“So once the Palestinians value their own lives over killing Jews, there will be peace.” “You cannot equate moral equivalence between a guy shooting you and someone shooting back.”

This child should be provoked to issue a sound argument for why Palestinians haven’t any right to defend themselves. That or he should have to make the case that they haven’t they got anything to defend themselves against. He should be asked about just war theory: have an occupied people no recourse against occupation? He is right in asserting that attacking civilians is vile and despicable (as Hamas is for disagreeing), but he should be notified that all Palestinians are civilians, because Palestine is not a state and can therefore not raise a military. He should be asked whether striking out against an occupying army isn’t a form of self-defense.

* * * *

If only we could have this conversation between people who didn’t work themselves into a frenzy immediately, dayenu.

*The text recited at the Seder on the first two nights of the Jewish Passover.

J.A. Myerson, Executive Editor of the Busy Signal, is the Artistic Director of Full of Noises and a teaching artist with Urban Arts Partnership. He writes primarily on American Politics and Human Rights. Follow him on Twitter.

But apart from that cynical thought, let us be straight about one thing. Bin Laden was killed this Sunday, and it does offer serious possibilities.

Gullibility and skepticism seem joined at the hip. People who would take their umbrellas if the Obama administration told them it was sunny outside are quite willing to believe and quote any deranged website with a conspiracy theory. It is interesting to note the convergence of left and right -- Osama’s death was faked, Obama’s birth certificate was forged.

Occam’s razor compels me to think that neither is true. And by the way, I was living close to the World Trade Center, saw and heard the planes, and commented at the time on Rudi Giuliani’s spectacular incompetence at putting his emergency headquarters in Number 7 World Trade Center and stocking it with tanks containing thousands of gallons of fuel in defiance of his own city’s Fire Department regulations.

That consistent incompetence is a factor that has fueled a thousand conspiracy theories. Going after Saddam Hussein and downplaying Afghanistan allowed Bin Laden to get away. Trusting the Pakistani ISI, former CIA surrogates in the region, allowed him to stay away. The war in Afghanistan was consistently under-resourced so the Bush White House could exorcise its own familial ghosts in Baghdad.

But strategic incompetence has not obviated flashes of tactical brilliance on the part of conservatives. As I said at the time, the perennial TV news backdrop of the triptych of the burning World Trade Center flanked by Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein helped provide the emotional strength for the war on Iraq, despite it having nothing to do with Al Qaeda or the 9-11 attack. It occurred to me that some of the exultation on those young faces in the flash mob with their unseemly celebration of Bin Laden’s death could have derived from subliminal childhood exposure to those images. It is also that image which has given some metaphysical substance to the absurdity of a war on an abstraction, the “War on Terror.”

Which comes back to the death of Bin Laden. It was a very risky move for Obama. “Liberals” and Democrats are not allowed the luxury of spectacular failure. Jimmy Carter’s abortive attempt to rescue the hostages from Teheran haunted his career. A similar helicopter crash in Pakistan could have sealed the fate for the Obama White House.

Of course an assassination on the territory of a foreign and allegedly friendly state could also have caused problems. It is indeed illegal in a prima facie way, but Bin Laden’s presence in a major Pakistani metropolis certainly embarrasses the government there. It was in everybody’s interest not to inform the local authorities. The Pakistan government could disclaim knowledge, and the US could be certain that any information they passed on would go straight to warn Bin Laden. Indeed, such is the climate of rancor among American conservatives one would almost wonder if one of the worries in Washington was a risk of leaks or sabotage from insiders there. But internationally, while, say Beijing and Moscow might tut tut about it, the heirs of the KGB are hardly in a secure pulpit to sermonize, and their real feelings are more likely to be admiration than admonition.

Even the burial at sea is, shall we say, a red herring. Few of his victims got to choose their funeral rights, and the Sunni Wahabi tradition is spartan in the extreme.

In any case the action has given Obama a big boost domestically at a time that he needed it. It would be ironic if healthcare for elderly Americans were protected because the President has overseen the assassination of an elderly Saudi, but that’s politics!

Internationally, it will not necessarily have that much effect. Bin Laden was no Lenin overseeing an Islamist international. Al Qaeda was a state of mind more than an organized conspiracy. He was no Old Man of the Mountains sending out his assassins, but his example inspired the varying spontaneous degrees of psychopathology among the disaffected. 

But his rallying cause for jihad still holds: US support for Israel is as strong now as ever. Obama would have had more beneficial international results taking out Netanyahu politically than eliminating Bin Laden physically, since it would address that genuine cause. Recent poll results from Iran and Egypt suggest that the US still provides plenty of room for suspicion in the region. 

One possible consequence is that Obama might be tempted to declare victory and pull out of Afghanistan. He could even claim budget savings to protect Medicare! However, the Taliban were not controlled by Al Qaeda and his death is unlikely to affect their belligerence. His elimination at least allows the US to get over its prejudices and get into serious talks with the Pushtoon communities for a negotiated settlement of some kind. 

Indeed the exorcism of the Bin Laden ghost could even provide political cover for talks with Hamas and Hizbollah. Of course anyone except Fox news pundits knows that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with them at all, but with his shade out of the way, an emboldened Obama could do it.

But it comes back to the same core problem. At the core of America’s fractious relationship with most of the world, and particularly the Middle East, is Washington’s relationship with Israel -- and he is unlikely to get Netanyahu’s “permission,” for it. Would he go ahead anyway? How about being tough on terror -- and on the excuses for terror as well? It is possible and desirable, but is it likely?

For more by Ian Williams visit Deadline Pundit.