As usual, US President Barack Obama is doing a diplomatic dance between the Israeli and Palestinian camps going one step forward and two steps back. He’s putting on a show in an attempt to please everybody and ends up pleasing no one. In his speech delivered at the State Department directed at the Arab world he caused excitement in Palestinian circles by outlining his two-state vision based on 1967 borders with some land swaps. He gave the impression that he wanted to see a pre-1967 Palestinian state with some minor adjustments, which predictably led to a firestorm in Israel and thrust America’s pro-Israel lobbyists and senators into a frenzy of outrage.
Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to say that’s not going to happen because the 1967 borders are “indefensible” and do not reflect changed realities on the ground. Moreover, he said there would be no peace talks with any future Palestinian authority dominated by Hamas.
Obama’s subsequent scheduled meeting with the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House was frosty although both men did their best to play down the chill in relations. Obama said there would always be disagreements between friends and Netanyahu promised to work with Obama to restart peace talks.
On 22 May came a test of the US president’s true intent and his chance to prove to a highly skeptical Arab world that he was no flip-flopper after all; this was an opportunity for him to emerge as a leader with the courage of his convictions who would do the right thing even if that meant losing votes in the process.
Would his speech before a rampantly pro-Israel audience at America’s home of Zionism AIPAC mirror his reach-out to Arabs just days before or would it be tailored to suit Israel’s champions and funders in the US in light of next year’s presidential election?
Of course, anyone who has been monitoring Obama’s cowardly twists and turns since he took office didn’t need a crystal ball to know the answer to that one in advance. Offending the AIPAC crowd would have been the kiss of death to the president’s re-election hopes but if Obama had been the giant of a man that his rhetoric portrays instead of the midget he really is, he would have chosen to change history rather than sell his soul to cling onto the top job.
“We also know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood,” he told the stony-faced audience. “I’ve seen it firsthand. When I touched my hand against the Western Wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”
But even that saccharine-clad message didn’t silence the handful of hecklers. It was only when he “clarified” what he meant by 1967 borders in his earlier speech tailored toward Arabs that he received unanimous polite applause.
“Since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what ’1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means. By definition, it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation.” Translated that means his “position” is meaningless. He is simply calling for a border to be negotiated between the occupying Israelis and an occupied people who have almost no bargaining chips.
Obama’s about-face was milk and honey for Netanyahu’s Likud Party members who praised the Israeli prime minister for his tough stance. “The wisdom and determination of the prime minister and the dividends they yielded were evident in President Barack Obama’s speech,” said Knesset member Carmel Shama-Hacohen. “President Obama gave an explicit, emphatic ‘no’ to the ’67 lines and Hamas . . .” His colleague MK Danny Danon accused Obama of “zigzagging in accordance with whatever position will give him more votes while justifying his Nobel Prize.”
America’s commander-in chief didn’t pull any punches on Hamas. He said “the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace,” adding, “No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction.” And he echoed Netanyahu’s demand that Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist, reject violence, adhere to all existing agreements—and release the long detained Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
No wonder Washington is reviled throughout the Middle East for its biased inconsistent policies! Obama is going around banging the drum for democracy yet he does not accept that Hamas was fairly elected or that Palestinians need to be united to make peace.
He talks about an Israeli boy who was robbed of a leg by a Hamas rocket, but doesn’t mention the hundreds of Palestinian children who have been maimed or killed by Israel’s bombs. He’s concerned for Shalit but cares not for the thousands who are locked-up in Israel’s prisons, some as young as 12. He said nothing about the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza trying to eke out a living under an Israeli blockade. He didn’t mention the Palestinian farmers whose olive groves and orchards have been destroyed by Israeli colonists or have been cut-off from their villages by an apartheid wall.
And how on earth can he expect Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist when it has expanded onto land that was stolen in 1967? Israel’s borders should be those that were delineated in 1948. Anything else contravenes United Nations resolutions and international law. Before Hamas can recognize the Jewish state its final borders should be determined and announced. In fact, Hamas once offered to recognize previous agreements but why should it when Netanyahu doesn’t recognize anything that was negotiated and finalized by his predecessors? If he did, then peace talks wouldn’t start from scratch but would be based on the January 2001 Taba Summit when negotiations neared final settlement.
I despised George W. Bush and all he stood for but I respect him more than Obama for his authenticity and determination to stand by his decisions as odious as many of them were. Bush, as an intellectually challenged right-wing ideologue was misguided but sincere in his support for Israel. On the other hand, before taking office Obama sympathized with Palestinian suffering. He knows the facts, understands right from wrong and has deliberately chosen the wrong side based on political expediency. Perhaps the $1 billion debt relief he’s pledged to Egypt will help salvage his conscience.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
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Israel has no right to exist on stolen land
Obama understands right from wrong and has deliberately chosen the wrong side based on political expediency
Posted on May 30, 2011 by Linda S. Heard
As usual, US President Barack Obama is doing a diplomatic dance between the Israeli and Palestinian camps going one step forward and two steps back. He’s putting on a show in an attempt to please everybody and ends up pleasing no one. In his speech delivered at the State Department directed at the Arab world he caused excitement in Palestinian circles by outlining his two-state vision based on 1967 borders with some land swaps. He gave the impression that he wanted to see a pre-1967 Palestinian state with some minor adjustments, which predictably led to a firestorm in Israel and thrust America’s pro-Israel lobbyists and senators into a frenzy of outrage.
Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to say that’s not going to happen because the 1967 borders are “indefensible” and do not reflect changed realities on the ground. Moreover, he said there would be no peace talks with any future Palestinian authority dominated by Hamas.
Obama’s subsequent scheduled meeting with the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House was frosty although both men did their best to play down the chill in relations. Obama said there would always be disagreements between friends and Netanyahu promised to work with Obama to restart peace talks.
On 22 May came a test of the US president’s true intent and his chance to prove to a highly skeptical Arab world that he was no flip-flopper after all; this was an opportunity for him to emerge as a leader with the courage of his convictions who would do the right thing even if that meant losing votes in the process.
Would his speech before a rampantly pro-Israel audience at America’s home of Zionism AIPAC mirror his reach-out to Arabs just days before or would it be tailored to suit Israel’s champions and funders in the US in light of next year’s presidential election?
Of course, anyone who has been monitoring Obama’s cowardly twists and turns since he took office didn’t need a crystal ball to know the answer to that one in advance. Offending the AIPAC crowd would have been the kiss of death to the president’s re-election hopes but if Obama had been the giant of a man that his rhetoric portrays instead of the midget he really is, he would have chosen to change history rather than sell his soul to cling onto the top job.
“We also know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood,” he told the stony-faced audience. “I’ve seen it firsthand. When I touched my hand against the Western Wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”
But even that saccharine-clad message didn’t silence the handful of hecklers. It was only when he “clarified” what he meant by 1967 borders in his earlier speech tailored toward Arabs that he received unanimous polite applause.
“Since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what ’1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means. By definition, it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation.” Translated that means his “position” is meaningless. He is simply calling for a border to be negotiated between the occupying Israelis and an occupied people who have almost no bargaining chips.
Obama’s about-face was milk and honey for Netanyahu’s Likud Party members who praised the Israeli prime minister for his tough stance. “The wisdom and determination of the prime minister and the dividends they yielded were evident in President Barack Obama’s speech,” said Knesset member Carmel Shama-Hacohen. “President Obama gave an explicit, emphatic ‘no’ to the ’67 lines and Hamas . . .” His colleague MK Danny Danon accused Obama of “zigzagging in accordance with whatever position will give him more votes while justifying his Nobel Prize.”
America’s commander-in chief didn’t pull any punches on Hamas. He said “the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace,” adding, “No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction.” And he echoed Netanyahu’s demand that Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist, reject violence, adhere to all existing agreements—and release the long detained Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
No wonder Washington is reviled throughout the Middle East for its biased inconsistent policies! Obama is going around banging the drum for democracy yet he does not accept that Hamas was fairly elected or that Palestinians need to be united to make peace.
He talks about an Israeli boy who was robbed of a leg by a Hamas rocket, but doesn’t mention the hundreds of Palestinian children who have been maimed or killed by Israel’s bombs. He’s concerned for Shalit but cares not for the thousands who are locked-up in Israel’s prisons, some as young as 12. He said nothing about the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza trying to eke out a living under an Israeli blockade. He didn’t mention the Palestinian farmers whose olive groves and orchards have been destroyed by Israeli colonists or have been cut-off from their villages by an apartheid wall.
And how on earth can he expect Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist when it has expanded onto land that was stolen in 1967? Israel’s borders should be those that were delineated in 1948. Anything else contravenes United Nations resolutions and international law. Before Hamas can recognize the Jewish state its final borders should be determined and announced. In fact, Hamas once offered to recognize previous agreements but why should it when Netanyahu doesn’t recognize anything that was negotiated and finalized by his predecessors? If he did, then peace talks wouldn’t start from scratch but would be based on the January 2001 Taba Summit when negotiations neared final settlement.
I despised George W. Bush and all he stood for but I respect him more than Obama for his authenticity and determination to stand by his decisions as odious as many of them were. Bush, as an intellectually challenged right-wing ideologue was misguided but sincere in his support for Israel. On the other hand, before taking office Obama sympathized with Palestinian suffering. He knows the facts, understands right from wrong and has deliberately chosen the wrong side based on political expediency. Perhaps the $1 billion debt relief he’s pledged to Egypt will help salvage his conscience.
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.