When a well-known left wing Israeli journalist such as Gideon Levy, a staple liberal writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, complains of inaction and backtracking from the Obama administration concerning his comprehensive Middle East peace initiative, whose central pillar is the two states solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not an apartheid conclusion that Netanyahu must know is inevitable, people listen.
The backtracking is clearly evident when Obama’s demand for a settlement freeze went over the wayside as Netanyahu simply refused the demand and continued building. That this move was supported by the Israeli public, which has now been pulled into the right wing camp, is also evident. Who the hell is Obama to tell Israel what to do?
With great sorrow and deep consternation, we hereby declare the death of the latest hope. Perhaps rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the famous quote by Mark Twain, but the fears are being validated day after day. Barack Obama’s America is not delivering the goods. Sharing a glass of beer with a racist cop and a pat on the back of Hugo Chavez are not what we hoped for; wholesale negotiations on freezing settlement construction are also not what we expected. Just over six months after the most promising president of all began his term, perhaps hope has a last breath left, but it is on its deathbed.
He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit.
But what happened?
According to Levy, “the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery.”
Israel won the settlement freeze argument and all that is left is “petty haggling” over whether it should be a half year or a full year, or whether about 2500 apartments now under construction should continue, whether natural growth should be accommodated, and what about those kindergartens?
Jerusalem has also imposed its will on Washington as well and continued its ethnic cleansing by trashing Palestinian homes.
The object is obviously to stall any forward movement. Netanyahu, we are told, will once again meet Mitchell in London at the end of the month, the later the better in order to find a “magic formula” for a settlement freeze. Not a chance. “The momentum is gone,” Levy rightly surmises. “There is nothing to fear from Obama.” Even Ehud Barak, the Labor Defense Minister, pulled out the old, worn out gag, “there is no Palestinian partner,” the same one he pulled out after the Camp David failure.
There is no left left in Israel, and there is no partner in Israel now to conduct peace negotiations.
Poor George Mitchell has found his match.
Other Israeli politicians have also smelled American weakness and had the chutzpah to announce to residents of one of the largest settlements in the West Bank, Ma’aleh Adumim, that “Israel will not freeze any construction. To hell with Obama. The danger has passed. Israel is once again permitted to do as it pleases.”
Nothing, it seems, remains of the speeches in Cairo and Bar-Ilan University. Obama has not spoken about Hillary’s and Mitchell’s efforts in weeks. Even in Washington, friends of the Israeli occupation are “once again rearing their heads.”
Levy concludes,
An America that will not pressure Israel is an America that will not bring peace. True, one cannot expect the U.S. president to want to make peace more than the Palestinians and Israelis, but he is the world’s responsible adult, its great hope. Those of us who are here, Mr. President, are sinking in the wretched mud, in “injury time.”
Obama’s Middle East initiative is for all practically purposes is dead in the water. He has been had. We now wait for the next phase, which may take years: Israeli Apartheid. Jimmy Carter was right after all.