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.
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Cantor, who was leading a 25-member congressional delegation to the Middle East, said he was also disturbed by the Obama administration’s criticism of the eviction of two Arab families from an East Jerusalem neighborhood earlier in the week.
“I’m very troubled by that, because I don’t think we in America would want another country telling us how to implement and execute our laws.”
In letters, Obama asked Arab states for confidence-building measures toward Israel
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“In letters, Obama asked Arab states for confidence-building measures toward Israel”
Israel has never been at a loss to develop red herrings in order to stop any effort to derail the final touches on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the peace movement, and the late efforts of American presidents, like Clinton and Bush, to enact a fair and just solution. The problem here is that Obama seems to be buying into it, and is dutifully going about quelling these false, distractions, which take time, and therefore stall peace efforts.
And Obama’s smart enough to know what he is doing. Has he been had, and admitting such?
Don’t take it personally. Obama isn’t delivering on diddly-squat. Less, I think, out of malice than because he believes that all people are basically good.
Somebody should tell him how well that worked out for Anne Frank.
Please get differing impressions about Obama, and they seem to extend from naive to shrewd. I personally tend to think he operates more toward the latter trait. After all, he is tackling issues that Democrats have steered away from for years, having been pulled more toward the center on the force of right wing politics, the politics of greed and “what’s in it for me?”
Let’s give him time. My concern is that he is not openly backing Hillary or Mitchell in the Middle East venture. Maybe the problem is that the plate is full right now as our corporate medical care system reacts to the prospect of losing profits. Still, I would have liked to hear something out of him on foreign policy, just a word or two might have helped.
The Cairo speech was not all that and a bag of chips. And in any case, speeches are words. It is deeds that count. Ask Afghans, Pakistanis, and Iraqis what they think about Obama’s deeds. Ask Palestinians just how impressed they are. As my dear friend in Gazza said the day after Obama was elected “Obama will not help us, but he will be good for America, and so I am glad he won.”
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Reporting from Gaza City and Jerusalem – Hamas government forces stormed a mosque in the Gaza Strip and apparently subdued a heavily armed group of Al Qaeda-inspired militants whose imam had vowed to impose theocratic rule in the Palestinian territory.
Sixteen people were reported killed in fighting that raged for much of the day in the city of Rafah. At least 120 people were wounded.
Residents contacted by telephone said it took Hamas six hours to capture the two-story mosque from a group calling itself Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God. Fighting spread to the nearby home of the imam, who had fled the mosque, and ended early today after an explosion demolished part of the house, witnesses said.
The whereabouts of the imam, Abdel-Latif Moussa, was unclear.
Medical officials said combatants on both sides were killed, along with some civilians, including a child caught in the crossfire of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(Jerusalem Post) – Nachman blamed the American attitude against settlements in part on what he termed the “Jew boys” in the White House, such as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior Obama adviser David Axelrod.
There was no peace before the Six Day war in 1967, and at that time there were no settlements, Nachman said. Similarly, he said, Ariel did not even exist until 1977, but the fact that it did not exist did not facilitate peace. And again, he added, Israel destroyed its settlements in Gaza four years ago, but nothing changed.
The only way to achieve peace, he said, was to come to permanent status solution and deal with the settlements within that context. The issue of settlements, he said, was “purely symbolic.”
Meanwhile, a number of settlement heads met in Ma’aleh Adumim to protest a de facto settlement freeze already in effect, noting that Netanyahu has not authorized a single new construction project in the West Bank since taking office at the end of March.
The settlement leaders plan to launch a campaign against both the de facto freeze and any freeze that may be agreed upon with the Americans. They plan to hold protest vigils outside Netanyahu’s residence (pdf) and to call on right-wing parties to leave the coalition if the current refusal to authorize new projects continues.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’ll disagree. He’s sent the best envoy yet to the region. He’s put more pressure on Netanyahu than anyone has yet. Listen to him complain–and moan–to his congressional shills here. But there was already some give on the settlement issue. (Don’t expect it to be settled in one fell swoop.)
I am personally sick of those who say “It’s been six months, already.” That’s a Republican stance. Don’t set markers, look at positions. I see Obama’s position on the illegal settlements far and away more progressive and promising, and I’ll be mor patient than you.
It is okay to disagree.
In the views of many, Obama finched when Netanyahu refused to stop settlement building, and the debate is now about how much building should be allowed, continuation of 2,500 now under construction, and construction of schools needed to educate children.
Read between the lines. Israel under Netayahu has no intention of withdrawing any settlements from the West Bank at all. The expansive Jordan Valley abut Jordan will never be relinquished (his statement), Jerusalem will remain a unified city (East Jerusalem annexed after the 67 war, his statement), and forget the Palestinian refugees.
Do the math: Netanyahu’s ideas about a Palestinian state are akin to Sharon’s, bantustans inside of a Greater Israel from the Jordan River to the sea.
The issue of settlement construction was critical to the beginning of peace negotiations. The Obama-Mitchell-Clinton team lost the first battle, the most important of all. Netanyahu has shown the Israeli people that he is Obama’s match.
We are in for another four years of IP debate at a minimum.