Will the Real Hillary Please Stand Up?

As first lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton was the darling of Palestinians and Arabs when late in Bill Clinton's term she uttered the hot button word, Palestine.

Since then Ms. Clinton has flip flopped depending on the political winds. As a senator for the state of New York she became a staunch Israeli supporter standing by the Jewish state whether it was justifiable or not. To win the US presidency she continued in this pro-Israel stance but as Secretary of State in the Obama administration, she flipped back.

Shortly after being sworn in and speaking on Al Jazeera TV (that in itself is a change of Washington's bias, according to Al Arrabiya TV), Clinton stressed clearly and unambiguously the Obama administration's rejection of any settlement activities including "natural growth," as she said. The unity of Obama, Clinton and envoy Mitchell on this prerequisite of the road map was welcomed by Palestinians living under occupation.

It is not hard to understand why everyone who supports a two-state solution sees Jewish settlement activities in what will become the Palestinian state as a knife in the heart of such a deal. The previous as well as current US administrations consider the creation of a viable Palestinian state with contiguity in the "national interest" of the United States. It follows that any actions that directly block the chances of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state are actions that are against US national interests and not just Palestinian interests.

So it was another shock when Secretary Clinton met with Palestinian President Abbas and pressed him to enter negotiations with Israel even if it doesn't adhere to the international community's demand of a 'freeze.' Instead of placing the pressure on the guilty party, Clinton considered Abbas's position a precondition while lavishing praise on right wing Israeli Prime Prime Minister Netanyahu for agreeing to build "only" 3,000 more new settlement units in the West Bank and continue to irritate Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Sixteen years earlier Palestinians in the occupied territories were surprised to hear that the PLO had reached a secret deal with Israel in the Norwegian capital Oslo. When Haidar Abdel Shafi, who headed the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace conference, learned that it didn't include a settlement freeze, he and many other Palestinians publicly opposed it. Since then, the demand that Israel completely freeze all settlement construction (including those attributed to natural growth) has become a litmus test of whether the Israelis are serious about peace.

Jewish settlements built on land occupied by Israel in 1967 are considered by the international community to be illegal and in clear violation of the Geneva Convention, which is aimed at regulating military occupations. More recently, in 2004, the International Court of Justice at the Hague unanimously ruled that the settlements were illegal when considering an appeal against Israel for building a wall inside Palestinian territories.

Successive US administrations have also repeatedly rejected settlement activity.

For the US, the settlements have proven to be an equal-opportunity obstacle, obstructing both Republican and Democratic diplomacy. Former President Carter believed he had a commitment to freeze settlements at Camp David. The Clinton administration attempted to put brakes on then-Prime Minister Netanyahu's efforts to construct a new settlement near Bethlehem. After a short hiatus, construction resumed. Today, Har Homa, built on Jabal Abu Ghnaim with the aim of cutting off Bethlehem from Jerusalem, is home to 19,000 settlers. Some of the new settlements that Netanyahu wants to continue building are in the same settlement that President Clinton opposed.

Jeff Aronson, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, concludes that Israeli leaders will continue to be able to fool their American counterparts on this issue. Some Israeli right-wing leaders like Menachem Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu trumpet their settlement achievements. Others, including Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert "talked left and built right". The UN security council has also ruled against settlements in numerous occasions, directly or in the prelude, to various resolutions.

Ironically, and as a result of the uproar by Arab leaders about Clinton's pro-Israel statements, she went to Morocco and told Arab foreign ministers that while what Netanyahu has done is "unprecedented," it is still doesn't meet the US expectations.

"This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be," she added. "But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth." Note the term "if acted upon."

So after all this flip flopping, many Palestinians ask the simple question of what is the real position of the US secretary of state, and will the real Hillary Clinton please stand up?

Daoud Kuttab is an award winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. His email is [e-mail]

 

Follow Daoud Kuttab on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daoudkuttab

Comments

[ncoffin]

Write on, Daoud! Great piece. Thanks for a timely reminder of the history here.

[oldgeek1]

No one wants a solution thus there is no solution.
The objective is to keep the status quo while talking about finding a solution.
The Arab league, OPEC and all the countries alike, yell and wave their hands but at the end of the day do nothing.

Will the real Hillary Clinton stand up, she has been. She is the upfront person on Americas policy and that is to walk the middle line because that is exactly what everyone wants. Act friendly make comments that are supportive of both sides, state policy that might upset some but not overly so and know the facts.

Hillary is very smart and too smart not to make a serious error and that is enough for her to be one of our best SOS's.

[Wael Nawara - Huffpost Blogger]

Excellent Piece !

Israeli Governments position towards the settlements either:
Talks left and builds right
or
Talks right and build right

The Result is - Builds right - all the time.

US Position towards the settlements either:
Talks Democrat and does nothing
OR
Talks Republican and does nothing

The Result is:
Israel continues to build settlements while the US does nothing.

Notice how Clinton uses the word "preference" to describe US position. If we were talking about preferences in buying a certain color of shoes or drinking tea with or without milk ... Preference ...

That's very FORCEFUL ... in fact, I am sure Bibi is now shaking with fear now that Mrs Secretary has unequivocally declared her preferences !

When will the International Community Realizes that International Law must be ENFORCED though Empowerment and Reform of the United Nations. That is is the only strategy to ensure that there is a peaceful tool to resolve conflicts. Failure to resolve conflicts in a fair manner congruent with Principles of Human Rights and International Justice is a recipe for War and Terror.

[Rog49Thomas]

Brother Dawud, you seem like a pretty smart guy.

How on earth did you get fooled into thinking that this or any US Administration really was interested in promoting peace between Palestinians and Israelis?

This is just another of the periodic charades designed to give cover to our brave allies in the region (who also have no interest in peace) and to placate the Arab street.

[Wisdo]

Clinton's FLipFlopping:

"We will support Israel’s efforts to send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iranians, to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom,”

Hillary Clinton told the rally staged by Zionist organizations in support of Israel's premeditated and massive assault on Lebanon in 2006.

“Send a message” is such an innocuous phrase to describe mass murder and state terrorism. How is this message being sent? In southern Lebanon, Israeli planes dropped leaflets warning villagers that they should flee north for their lives. When they complied, a warplane attacked a column of refugees incinerating 18 people, most of them children. Then other planes demolished the main roads as well as all of the bridges over the Litani River, forcing many of the refugees to abandon their vehicles and continue their exodus on foot.

Homes, schools and even hospitals and ambulances have been targeted by Israeli bombs and missiles. On Sunday morning, an Israeli air strike took out an entire wing of the Jabel Amel hospital in Tyre, killing a family of nine, who had come there seeking aid after suffering a previous bombing of their apartment building.

This is what Mrs Clinton stands for: The military domination of the middle east by Israel and its right to attack its neighbours with impunity and with no regard to civilian casualties or civilian infrastructure.
Partner for peace? Or partner for Israel?

[Macready]

well said Wisdo . . . right on target . . . Hilary is a partner for israel . . . she is totally unsuited for the job of SS .. she should have stayed a senator

[Justtellthetruth]

She is incapable of doing the job. She is far too compromised by her years of association with the ultra right wing of Israeli politics. The official stance had to be CLARIFIED by the state department after her embarrassing and ill conceived statement. This is not the person the country needs to confront the Netanyahu administration. They need ALL stick and no carrots to get them to the negotiating table and Clinton just can't pull that off.

[duxguts]

The real Hillary stood up in Africa when she answered a question from a student.

[placpje]

Wrong question.

Hillary, as any S0S is following the policy directives of the President. Obama tried to establish his bona fides with the Palestinians and bring them to the table by demanding a freeze on settlements. The Israelis balked at the demand and it failed. As a result, he's trying to minimize the significance of the Israeli's refusal to halt the settlements, while offering praise to both sides in an effort to jump-start the permanent status negotiations. He tells the Palestinians we'll keep pressuring the Israelis for a freeze, but it's no longer a pre-condition for negotiations. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/world/middleeast/23prexy.html?_r=2&hp

As POTUS, Obama is the one making the decisions, and he has indeed "flip flopped depending upon the political winds". The real question is, .....

......... will the real Obama please stand up?

[party-of-one]

Unfortunately, President Obama cannot personally attend to every detail of every issue in government and foreign relations. He must elegate and depend on others to represent him. If Hillary was representing the President, as you contend, her job was to be careful and do it well. By all accounts, she was too public and too careless in her comments. That's not good commentary if her role is to be the nations chief diplomat. But Hillary is more about Hillary, and she wants headlines. But it often backfires.

Hillary may want to stick to the meet and greet roles and leave both public and private diplomacy to those more talented, skilled and experience.

[placpje]

No one's saying he can (or should) "personally attend to every detail of every issue in government and foreign relations" .... nice strawman attempt. The same, old "plate to full" argument? As J0n Stew@rt said, 'It's chow time!"

She IS representing the President, and she is doing it well. YOU don't think so? Someone who's spent the last two years of his life attacking her?

wow.

BTW - "By all accounts"??? LOL .... just doing her job and taking the heat for the POTUS. He likes to stay safely out of the line of fire .... just like with the Senate and HCR.

[samjer]

So true Placpje! Hes the one who should get a backbone. When it comes to the Israelies and for that matter all the hotspots that consider him a weak president who doesnt follow through on his tough retoric. Hes the one who told the Israelies that there wont be any more building on the settlements and then doesnt back it up. Then Hillarys the one holding the bag. He must be making a secret deal with the Israelies like he did the Pharmas.

[party-of-one]

Samjer, but didn't Hillary mis-speak once again, and now is "clarifying" her comments to say she meant to support the position you accuse Obama of abandoning?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/04/hillary-clinton-us-wants-_n_345074.html

[party-of-one]

Daoud Kuttab brings balance and perspective to a tough issue too many Americans know nothing about. History has wronged the Palistenians, and the world community must find a responsible way to redress it.

Mr Kuttab asks who is the real Hillary Clinton? But he also answers it: "Ms. Clinton has flip flopped depending on the political winds" There is the real Hillary. Her positions are calculated to serve her own personal intersts, often badly calculated with really terrible judgment,.

[alexa07]

Whether Hillary is the vehicle or not, the USA is still in Israel's corner, no matter what. Both the '06 attack on Lebanon as well as the recent Gaza carnage, illustrated in the Goldstone, were opportunities for the USA to take a stand, either the Bush adm or Obama's. Both are to blame for not standing up to Israeli state-induced brutalities upon civilian populations. Recently, Hillary's ridiculous comments in Israel; Susan Rice's regarding the Goldstone R. & President Obama chiding about "Palestinian incitement" instead of Israeli violence upon families in Gaza are proof that the Palestinians are in for a rocky ride. Don't expect any slack from the new Obama people because, if anything, they seem just as eager to placate the Israelis.

[alysheba 3]

The real Hillary has been standing up for years. She is the one who will do and say anything she needs to to get what she wants.

[vascopyjama]

Absolutely correct. Another failure just like a lot of other Obama appointees.

[Wisdo]

Clinton is the top recipient of funds from Aipac.

[CarlaM56]

You're right about Hillary. She'll do or say whatever gets her in the door.