With the dust having settled following President Obama's New York meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a sober assessment of what actually happened, and what may happen next, is in order.
In the days following the bilateral meetings, the trilateral session and President Obama's speech to the General Assembly, reactions were predictable. The Israeli side, taking their cue from Netanyahu, crowed, while much of the Arab media both criticized Obama for "caving in" in the face of Israeli intransigence, and decried the humiliation of Abbas -- who was seen as having been abandoned by the U.S. on the critical issue of settlements.
In the U.S., reactions varied, ranging from supporters of the White House who keyed in on Obama's "impatience" and "sense of urgency", to critics who termed the president's performance weak and indecisive.
Several observations must be made:
- The notion that Netanyahu won and Abbas lost may be right, but only because this was a widely shared perception which will, no doubt, have political consequences, at least in the short term. The hard-line right in Israel feels emboldened, as is evidenced by some of Netanyahu's own comments and the provocative behavior of some of his supporters. Similarly, the Palestinian Authority's hard-line opponents have also felt emboldened, stepping up their criticism of Abbas' leadership.
- The claim that Obama "blinked" because Israel refused to accept a settlement freeze, thereby frustrating the president's efforts to elicit parallel confidence-building gestures from the Arab states, creating the positive environment that would have "kick started" negotiations, may also be true. But only to a degree. It can also be argued that the United States president was attempting to make the best of a bad situation by pressing forward with his three-way meeting in which he expressed his impatience and declared his determination to move forward to permanent status negotiations. How much worse would it have been, one might reasonably ask, had the president done nothing and appeared to be surrendering to a troubled impasse.
- In this context, it is important to recall that in his public and private remarks Obama made clear his intention not just to move to "negotiations without preconditions" (which is what Netanyahu may have wanted), but to move to negotiations that would address "all outstanding issues" and be based on "the historical record of past negotiations" dealing with "permanent status issues: security, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem" (which is what Netanyahu clearly did not want). And, Obama did not forsake his position that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements".
- This said, it appears that while Netanyahu can boast of emerging as "victor" from this round, it may be both short lived and "hollow". The negotiations he sought were to have been limited to security cooperation and economic peace. This is not what he will get. Instead, it was Obama who laid down firm markers for the content and direction of the next round.
- The president's "impatience" and "sense of urgency" should also be noted, for two reasons. Time is not on the side of peacemaking. As long as Israel drags its feet and continues to establish "facts on the ground", a peace agreement becomes more difficult to achieve. And, given the continuing dangers posed by other regional concerns, delay makes moving toward a resolution of the conflict more necessary, and at the same time, more complicated.
Because, as Obama continues to assert, a comprehensive regional peace is not just an Israeli and Arab concern, but a matter of U.S. national security interests, he insists that he is redoubling his efforts to push his team to get negotiations underway in the coming weeks.
For now, Mitchell will continue with U.S.-Israel and U.S.-Palestinian bilateral talks. As the president made clear, these intensive consultations will continue for but a short time. By mid-October, Mitchell is to report to Secretary of State Clinton, who, in turn will give a progress report to the president. Should the impasse remain, and that is the likely scenario, many believe that Obama will need to step forward making a long-awaited intervention -- laying out a plan of his own. It is at this point that the mettle of the Obama administration will truly be tested.
The bottom line to all of this is that, as unsettling and confusing as the New York events may have been, they are but a step in a longer process, setting the stage for a more substantial challenge and, possibly, another showdown in the weeks ahead, where another setback will not be an option.
It's hard to spend any time with Israeli President Shimon Peres and remain pessimistic about the possibility of peace.
Very interesting, James.
Americans with any pride in their country, (obviously, Israel-firsters and Repugs are excluded) have to be outraged that our country is embarrassed by Israel, which wouldn't even exist without us. Many of these Americans are now questioning the relationship with this state
Obama wants peace in the Mid East. Israel simply wants land, now occupied by another ethnic group
We have a conflict of interest ; who's side are you on?
This is part of the problem: That the Arab media (and the "street"?) see it as any time Abbas doesn't get what he wants as a "humiliation." Therefore it's a zero-sum situation: Abbas either wins (gets everything) or loses (doesn't get everything).
It's the kind of attitude like that that encourages intransigence and stubbornness. Abbas *has* to demand a lot, because anything less than that would be a loss. But then neither Obama nor Netanyahu can accept it...and so the cycle repeats.
The Israelis still have all the settlements in the west bank and east Jerusalem, and are growing them in size and population every day. They still maintain the occupation that is in place solely to guard the settlements and help them expand. Keep in mind that the US state department reads the Geneva convention and finds the settlements to be illegal, and that not a single other nation on earth accepts their legitimacy. Yet they have persisted and grown.
The Israelis still have a total lockdown of Gaza, controlling the borders, air and sea, and have blockaded ( a siege) just about everything.
What has Abbas gotten? Nothing.
What has the US gotten from all of this? 9/11 and the threat of more terror to come from what Bill Clinton called the Philosophical underpinning of middle eastern terrorist recruitment".
But of course, the Palestinians do not in fact have nothing. Israel has been removing checkpoints and roadblocks for months now, and the West Bank economy has improved greatly over the past few years. It's true that Gaza is still under blockade, but then again rockets and mortars are still being shot out of there, so what would you expect?
One other thing: 9/11 was not a result of the US relationship with Israel. It was a result of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia. In fact most Islamic extremists hate Israel because they see it as a pawn of the US, not the other way round.
Oh - and you forgot to mention Israel's other bogeyman - the EU. They've given aid to the Palestinians too.
http://www.rense.com/general31/rege.htm
I do think we should stop all foreign aid, particularly military aid to Israel. Enough is enough they can stand on their own two feet.
Better yet, how about we concentrate on the issues that affect Main Street?