Published on TIME.com
The Obama Administration’s bid to relaunch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is falling apart faster than you can say settlement freeze — in no small part because President Obama began his effort by saying “settlement freeze.” On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself struggling to persuade skeptical Arab foreign ministers to see the silver lining in Israel’s “no, but” answer to the U.S. demand that Israel halt all construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. At least Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was offering to restrain settlement activity, Clinton argued, but Arab leaders, whom Obama had hoped would make reciprocal gestures towards normalization of ties with Israel, were not buying. For Arab League secretary Amr Moussa, Clinton’s message offered a grim outlook for the Administration’s peace efforts: “I still wait until we have our meetings and decide what we are going to do,” Moussa reportedly said Monday in Morocco, where Clinton was meeting with Arab leaders. “But failure is in the atmosphere all over.”
Asking the Arab states to accept Israel’s offer to simply slow down construction in the West Bank and its refusal to stop building and demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem — after President Obama publicly and repeatedly demanded it — has battered the Administration’s credibility in Arab capitals. And Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated on Monday his refusal to heed Washington’s call to begin negotiating with Netanyahu in the absence of a settlement freeze. Abbas has promised his public and his own Fatah movement, which is deeply skeptical of the prospects for dealing with Israel’s current hawkish government, that he won’t return to the table until Netanyahu has signaled his bona fides by halting all construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Netanyahu has used the Palestinian refusal to engage in unconditional talks as an opportunity to blame them for the impasse in solving the conflict, noting that Abbas spent last year in talks over a two-state deal with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert without ever mentioning a settlement freeze. Why are the Palestinians suddenly making such a fuss about a settlement freeze now, the Israelis ask, as if this signifies a hidden agenda. The Obama Administration appeared to take Netanyahu’s side last weekend, pressing the Palestinians to drop the precondition for talking. But the Palestinians point out that they weren’t the only ones raising the issue: the Obama Administration, too, had issued an unambiguous demand that Israel halt all construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in line with the 2002 road map. Read the rest here
Im hugely disappointed with Obama. Just like all the US presidents who came before him, he has screwed the Palestinians again and made the Arabs look like fools for actually believing that he would be fairer. He got the Arabs to concede that some of the larger settlements like Maale Admumim would stay, despite the fact that they were in violation of UN resolutions. and now cessation of new settlement activity seems to be the new goalpost instead of dismantling the settlements. Obama has turned out to be far more useless than other US presidents before him. At least with Bush and Clinton, Arabs knew they were getting a strong pro Israel president. But Obama put on a dog and pony show about being fair in the Middle East and then changed gears once he became President. Shame on Obama.
The Arab states represent countries that collectively: a) hold no elections; b) have death sentences for gays; c) practice slavery; d) allow no freedom of expression; e) are officially islamic and allow no other religions and the death penalty for anyone who tries to leave islam. Their secret police routinely arrest with impunity and torture with delight. Their propaganda departments churn out ceaseless lies. Women in these places are treated like domestic animals.
Anyone who thinks the president of America should give a fuck about what such scum think of anything on any issue at all has lost their moral compass and is beyond hope.
Here’s looking at you, Tough Tony. But then I’d expect that from a white who ran away from South Africa as soon as the blacks took over, opting for the good life in New York. Even though Mandela begged skilled workers to stay and help build up the country.
Obama is indeed a mounting disappointment for those moral “idealists” out there who hold out for a kinder world replete with a modicum of justice. The succession of reports that have been researched and written since the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009 have all pointed to the disproportionate use of force on the part of the Israeli military. That millions of people came to the same conclusion while watching events evolve in Gaza despite the imposed perimeter is a fact and to deny this visual fact of abusive conduct and try to persuade television spectators otherwise is a further insult to human intelligence. It is second only to the repeated use by certain allied governments of scaring their citizenry into cowed submission and silence.
I just get the feeling, the current administration really does not know HOW to deal with the situation, does not know what it wants ( demands keep changing). I wonder who is formulating the foreign policy ( too many advisers going in different directions!) and whether Obama is really in control. A real let down…..while homes keep getting demolished and Gaza seige continues.
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Over and over we hear laments about how the “chosen one”-in this case Obama- is gonna bring an end to the Arab/Israeli conflict. So now you are disappointed in the latest chosen one. As if the solution can be found by getting the previously unheard of ‘creative solution’ (a good example is offered by “progressives” saying Israel would “recognize the Palestinian Right of Return” but, in practice, only a handful of Palestinian refugees would actually be allowed back into Israel).
Maybe it’s time for new thinking. Maybe NO contractual peace agreement is achievable. That’s what Obama is discovering. Everybody blamed Bush by saying “he wasn’t doing enough”. Now they are starting to say the same about Obama. Maybe some “progressives” will actually open their eyes and see reality, for a change.
YBD is actually on to something. It is time to impose the Saudi peace plan on the Palestinians and Israelis.
I’m not disappointed with Obama. I never had the slightest hope that he would in any way, shape or form diverge from the overwhelmingly pro-Israel bias of previous US administrations.
I agree with the first poster that Obama has done more harm than good in the sense that, previously, dismantling of the squats was the (theoretical) position of the US. Now, it’s about ‘freezing’ settlements – and even that isn’t actually required.
it’s time now (in fact the time is long overdue) for the Palestinians to abandon the language of ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’ and adopt the language of justice. It is justice they need, not some ‘peace’that’s going to earn plaudits for some US politician.
Matthew-
How do you propose to do that?
Maybe it is time for Obama to go to the UNSC and propose a resolution that would precisely define the borders for Israel with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt AND Palestine and then REQUIRE Israel to honor them. I suspect that if the US did this, the rest of the UNSC would go along and since the US would be proposing it, Israel would have no way to have it vetoed.
In other words hand Israel a fait acompli and force them to face reality. Israel would be livid with Obama, but they hate him already, so it wouldn’t matter much. Israel has bought and paid for Congress and the President for far, far too long and it is long past time that the US did what is best for Americans instead of what is best for Israelis.
Sure, the Israeli owned US congress would howl loudly and might even try to impeach Obama, but by then the deed would be done. If congress decided to make a “federal case” about it, it might force the people of the US to examine why the US has favored Israel so much over the years to the detriment of the US.
Even if a later US president wanted to change it, at least one other nation would veto any attempt at change.
Until the US president visibly and directly humiliates the Israelis, the Israelis will control US policy in the ME to the detriment of the US.
The day is rapidly coming when the Arab nations will be far, more important to the US than Israel can ever be.
BTW – the borders I would propose would give Shaba Farm to Lebanon, the Golon to Syria and the entire West bank to the 1967 line and Gaza to Palestine. If we really wanted to tick off Israel we could split Israel in two with a Palestinian controlled 2KM wide “channel” between Gaza and the WB. After all, it wouldn’t be that hard for Israel to get permission to build bridges over the Palestinian territory.
‘The day is rapidly coming when the Arab nations will be far, more important to the US than Israel can ever be.’
Well, arguably they already are far more important – at least in the strategic rather than the domestic politicial sense. The problem is, because almost all of the ARab states are US clients, Washington has never had to choose between Israel and ‘the Arabs’. Although the Arab regimes make a token show of condemning Israel, they do nothing concrete to support the Palestinians and in many ways work against them. So, effectively, Israel and the client Arab states are on the same side.
More to the point though, I would say the day is rapidly coming when the US is not all that important. Within the next few decades, it will be one among many world powers. Already, it is no longer able to dictate events in the ME. China, India, Brazil etc are not likely to be remotely interested in Israel’s contrived ‘security concerns’ and it wont’ be possible to blackmail their leaders with ‘antisemite’ smears either, because they couldn’t care less. They will operate, like all logical powers, on a basis of what’s good for them, not what’s good for a minor Levantine nation.
If the Israelis had any sense, they’d take their winnings and get out now while they’re still ahead. But arrogance and hubris won’t allow this. In the future, they will bitterly regret this.
The US federal Government subsidize the Israel Government to the tune of several billion dollars per year. Any one who thinks the US can’t get Israel to stop building settlements is wrong!
That millions of people came to the same conclusion while watching events evolve in Gaza despite the imposed perimeter is a fact and to deny this visual fact of abusive conduct and try to persuade television spectators otherwise is a further insult to human intelligence.
thank you very much of abusive conduct and try to persuade television spectators otherwise is a further insult to human intelligence.
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That millions of people came to the same conclusion while watching events evolve in Gaza despite the imposed perimeter is a fact and to deny this visual fact of abusive conduct and try to persuade television spectators otherwise is a further insult to human intelligence.
BTW – the borders I would propose would give Shaba Farm to Lebanon, the Golon to Syria and the entire West bank to the 1967 line and Gaza to Palestine. If we really wanted to tick off Israel we could split Israel in two with a Palestinian controlled 2KM wide “channel” between Gaza and the WB. After all, it wouldn’t be that hard for Israel to get permission to build bridges over the Palestinian territory.
Vote For The Coolest Blog powered by WordPressGreat blog article. Thank you author.
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I just get the feeling, the current administration really does not know HOW to deal with the situation, does not know what it wants ( demands keep changing). I wonder who is formulating the foreign policy ( too many advisers going in different directions!) and whether Obama is really in control. A real let down…..while homes keep getting demolished and Gaza seige continues.
i thought they need focus on football now ….. if they don’t know how to work that just play football …. go patriots !!
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