After much anticipation of this week's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, early reports indicate that President Obama spent most of his time "sternly urging Israeli and Palestinian leaders to do more to make Mideast peace talks possible." It's an unimpressive message from a president that has been urging the sides "to do more" for quite a while now, to no avail. Israel has refused the "total settlement freeze" that U.S. officials were demanding, Palestinians have rebuffed all attempts to bring them back to the negotiating table, and Arab leaders have shown no real interest in contributing "gestures" to move the process along.
In some ways, Obama repeated today some of the mistakes that have spoiled his efforts thus far. For no obvious reason--and clearly irritated by both Netanyahu and Abbas--the president had summoned the sides to this mini-summit and lectured them like rebellious children. No statement was agreed on, so he made one on his own. He demanded final status negotiations, despite the Israeli government's belief that interim agreements and gradual progress better fit the current situation. He showed little sympathy for Abbas' reluctance to negotiate, despite the fact that Abbas couldn't even attend this meaningless meeting without being subjected to a barrage of criticism at home. (The best advice may have come from a Hamas spokesman I heard on Israeli radio this week, who suggested that Abbas meet with the group's leader, Khalid Mishal, to stem the internal Palestinian conflict before even thinking about peace with Israel.)
But beneath the seemingly empty demands and banal pronouncements, a lot can be read into Obama's short statement. He said Israelis should "restrain" settlements, not "freeze" them--a distinct change in rhetoric from the past few months. He said "permanent status negotiations must begin, and begin soon"--but was careful enough not to commit to a time table, as he did not long ago. Gone is Hillary Clinton's cocky denial of any previous agreements between Israel and the United States regarding natural growth of settlements. A more subtle, humble approach carried the day. The president admitted that "it is past time to talk about starting negotiations," which is exactly what his special envoy, George Mitchell, will be doing next week when he continues the exhaustive work of negotiating over the start of negotiations.
Israel should restrain itself from declaring victory just yet. True, Obama had to draw down his overeager demands from Israel. But it is also true that Netanyahu, not long ago, had to reverse his opposition to a two-state-solution and publicly declare that his goal is similar to the one espoused today by Obama. True, Abbas was dragged to the summit only days after insisting that he will not come to any meeting unless settlement construction is frozen first. But it is also true that Netanyahu, the head of the right-wing Likud Party, is one of the first Israeli prime ministers to agree to some form of settlement freeze.
When Obama said today that "flexibility, common sense and sense ofcompromise … [are] necessary to achieve our goals," he failed to recognize that we've already seen a lot of it in recent months. It may not be going as smoothly as he had hoped. But not very long ago, in Cairo, a smart President Obama had said, "America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace." Today, finally, he seemed to internalize his own message.
Shmuel Rosner, an editor and columnist based in Tel Aviv, blogs daily at Rosner's Domain.
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COMMENTS (11)
rosner:
For no obvious reason--and clearly irritated by both Netanyahu and Abbas--the president had summoned the sides to this mini-summit and lectured them like rebellious children.
george:
How does Rosner know this? Because AP reports that Obama "sternly" urged them to get it done?
From this Rosner leaps to the rebellious children being lectured metaphor. Maybe he even made them stand in the corner with dunce caps on their heads too. I mean he MIGHT have, right?
Reading things into statements is something those who have a stake in skewing them for one or another political advantage always do best. That way the statement can be said to be either Israeli OR Palestinian bashing.
As for the settleme ... view full comment
rosner:
For no obvious reason--and clearly irritated by both Netanyahu and Abbas--the president had summoned the sides to this mini-summit and lectured them like rebellious children.
george:
How does Rosner know this? Because AP reports that Obama "sternly" urged them to get it done?
From this Rosner leaps to the rebellious children being lectured metaphor. Maybe he even made them stand in the corner with dunce caps on their heads too. I mean he MIGHT have, right?
Reading things into statements is something those who have a stake in skewing them for one or another political advantage always do best. That way the statement can be said to be either Israeli OR Palestinian bashing.
As for the settlements, I repeat myself:
And though the Israeli settlements are a violation of international law, fuck that; that's part of the U.N.; and Israel, like the U.S., has always been rather cherry picky about the U.N. It's okay in 1948, but not okay now. Hypocrisy is what THEY do though.
After all, it's obvious the settlements are not even on occupied land.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, paragraph 6, provides that:
"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
You just ratonalize this by insisting it is relevant only if the governmnet does this---forcefully. If the settlers steal the land and governmnet does nothing to stop them....well, obviously, that's different.
Right. After all, what could the Israeli government do? They were probably outnumbered.
Obama:
"America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace."
Boy, that sure narrows it all down, doesn't it?
Peace is merely the absense of conflict. It is not therefore another word for justice. Justice however can often become the illusion that those who have the economic, political and military wherewithal to enforce one peace over another get to say What It Is.
george walton
If all three parties weren't expected to "declare victory" after today's summit, then why on earth did Obama insist on having it?
If all three parties weren't expected to "declare victory" after today's summit, then why on earth did Obama insist on having it?
Lets pause here and think about the construction of this one sentence:
"When Obama said today that "flexibility, common sense and sense of compromise … [are] necessary to achieve our goals," he failed to recognize that we've already seen a lot of it in recent months. "
What would possess someone to write a sentence like this? Are "flexibility, common sense, and sense of compromise" really so objectionable that their propounder should be criticized for not - strictly within the confines of the same sentence - recognizing another "fact," one which pertains to a different (though obviously related) point? These two points are hardly even in tension with one another, and lobbing this "critici ... view full comment
Lets pause here and think about the construction of this one sentence:
"When Obama said today that "flexibility, common sense and sense of compromise … [are] necessary to achieve our goals," he failed to recognize that we've already seen a lot of it in recent months. "
What would possess someone to write a sentence like this? Are "flexibility, common sense, and sense of compromise" really so objectionable that their propounder should be criticized for not - strictly within the confines of the same sentence - recognizing another "fact," one which pertains to a different (though obviously related) point? These two points are hardly even in tension with one another, and lobbing this "criticism" at Obama strikes me as sort of like criticizing Shmuel Rosner for, when he writes of how "Israel should restrain itself from declaring victory just yet," for failing to recognize that the Palestinians have been shooting rockets into Israel. In the end, Rosner is reading a whole bunch into a press report - makes one wonder why. (...so Israel can declare victory?)
"If all three parties weren't expected to "declare victory" after today's summit, then why on earth did Obama insist on having it?"
bI462, would you rather nothing is done? What is wrong with talking them out of their juvenile stance. More and more I sense that you prefer the status quo. I will stand corrected.
I've always been puzzled as to why there's this constant talk of making peace, but every time something is initiated, the messenger of peace is attacked by both sides. Usually for very petty and silly reasons.
"If all three parties weren't expected to "declare victory" after today's summit, then why on earth did Obama insist on having it?"
bI462, would you rather nothing is done? What is wrong with talking them out of their juvenile stance. More and more I sense that you prefer the status quo. I will stand corrected.
I've always been puzzled as to why there's this constant talk of making peace, but every time something is initiated, the messenger of peace is attacked by both sides. Usually for very petty and silly reasons.
bI462, would you rather nothing is done? speaking for myself scrubby, I say yes. There is not a damn thing the US can do to bring about peace and I would love it if Obama just walked away, sure he can send Mitchell to engage in a meaningless dance to claim something is being done. Everyone knows there is not a snowballs chance in hell of a settlement so lets put it on a backburner. Netanyahu is a hack, but he ain't stupid so this "victory" of his is as far as he can possibly go, and I doubt the Palestinians want to get pummeled again, so yeah, I can live with this status quo. Anyway, we have to since that is all we will have.
bI462, would you rather nothing is done? speaking for myself scrubby, I say yes. There is not a damn thing the US can do to bring about peace and I would love it if Obama just walked away, sure he can send Mitchell to engage in a meaningless dance to claim something is being done. Everyone knows there is not a snowballs chance in hell of a settlement so lets put it on a backburner. Netanyahu is a hack, but he ain't stupid so this "victory" of his is as far as he can possibly go, and I doubt the Palestinians want to get pummeled again, so yeah, I can live with this status quo. Anyway, we have to since that is all we will have.
...so yeah, I can live with this status quo. Anyway, we have to since that is all we will have....
I heard a lecture not too long ago by a very savvy guy Efraim Inbar of the Bar Ilan University Political Science department conclude with the three approaches being mooted these days in Israel:
1. The position that Egypt and Jordan may be internally constrained to swallow up respectively Gaza and the West Bank to accommodate and coopt the animus emerging from these places sending bad waves threatening thee countries' stability;
2. Those who counel a kind of unilateral withdrawl to defensible borders; and
3. (his preferred position and leaving out Iran) Those who say we can do not very much siginfi ... view full comment
...so yeah, I can live with this status quo. Anyway, we have to since that is all we will have....
I heard a lecture not too long ago by a very savvy guy Efraim Inbar of the Bar Ilan University Political Science department conclude with the three approaches being mooted these days in Israel:
1. The position that Egypt and Jordan may be internally constrained to swallow up respectively Gaza and the West Bank to accommodate and coopt the animus emerging from these places sending bad waves threatening thee countries' stability;
2. Those who counel a kind of unilateral withdrawl to defensible borders; and
3. (his preferred position and leaving out Iran) Those who say we can do not very much siginficant now without a partner for peace--who will recognize Israel as a Jewish state--and until we have such a partner we will essentially maintain the status quo with some tinkering along the periphery such as restraining settlement growth, abandoning certain West Bank checkpoints promoting West Bank economic growth, the latter not being the peripheral in fact, and so on. We can live with the status quo. Limping along so is not so terrible.
I find Rosner's reading of the tea leaves of the recent diplomatic gestures and public statements interesting but trivial and his trying to find a winner here akin to a parlour game.
As for this:
“…Lets pause here and think about the construction of this one sentence:
"When Obama said today that "flexibility, common sense and sense of compromise … [are] necessary to achieve our goals," he failed to recognize that we've already seen a lot of it in recent months. "
What would possess someone to write a sentence like this? Are "flexibility, common sense, and sense of compromise" really so objectionable that their propounder should be criticized for not - strictly within the confines of the same sentence - recognizing another "fact," one which pertains to a different (though obviously related) point? These two points are hardly even in tension with one another, and lobbing this "criticism" at Obama strikes me as sort of like criticizing Shmuel Rosner for, when he writes of how "Israel should restrain itself from declaring victory just yet," for failing to recognize that the Palestinians have been shooting rockets into Israel. In the end, Rosner is reading a whole bunch into a press report - makes one wonder why. (...so Israel can declare victory?)…”
the sentence is in this paragraph:
“…When Obama said today that "flexibility, common sense and sense ofcompromise … [are] necessary to achieve our goals," he failed to recognize that we've already seen a lot of it in recent months. It may not be going as smoothly as he had hoped. But not very long ago, in Cairo, a smart President Obama had said, "America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace." Today, finally, he seemed to internalize his own message…”
I read this sentence differently. There is by Rosner no objection to these three listed qualities I’d argue and ask textually what support there is for him finding them objectionable. There is in the sentence a clear disjunction and no tension between the assertion of them and that Obama, arguably, has failed to recognize them. It’s like me saying, “Reading comprehension is an indispensable ability, but you fail to display it.” Moreover, Rosner in the paragraph goes on rather cleverly in fact to say that Obama internalizing his words in Cairo is one example of “flexibility, common sense and sense of compromise” and generally to suggest without specification that are others. This is praise n of these qualities, not their burial.
Obama continues the "peace process" process of the Clinton administration. This requires the studious avoidance of the core issue (Arab refusal to recognize Israel defined by ANY borders) and intense focus on the distractions like Jews building houses on the oldest part of Israel, land that was twice handed to the Arab residents and twice murderously rejected by them (in 1947 and again in 2000). Obama has put Israel back on the Oslo bus to nowhere, with a roadmap to nowhere, and together, they will ride it nowhere at the price of more Israeli lives.
Obama continues the "peace process" process of the Clinton administration. This requires the studious avoidance of the core issue (Arab refusal to recognize Israel defined by ANY borders) and intense focus on the distractions like Jews building houses on the oldest part of Israel, land that was twice handed to the Arab residents and twice murderously rejected by them (in 1947 and again in 2000). Obama has put Israel back on the Oslo bus to nowhere, with a roadmap to nowhere, and together, they will ride it nowhere at the price of more Israeli lives.
blackton
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2023583
what a country, right?
blackton
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2023583
what a country, right?
hey basman, I like this Efraim Inbar, especially since he put into words (#3) exactly what I am feeling, so thanks for that.
"Obama has put Israel back on the Oslo bus to nowhere, with a roadmap to nowhere, and together, they will ride it nowhere at the price of more Israeli lives." That is a bit of hyperbole, I don't see how riding a bus to nowhere kills anyone. Hamas will try to kill jews no matter what, it is up to the Jews to stop them from doing so, not Obama. There is nothing that Obama can do to make the Palestinians recognize Israel, I remind you we invaded Iraq, installed a provisional government there, gave them hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars and the Iraqis have not r ... view full comment
hey basman, I like this Efraim Inbar, especially since he put into words (#3) exactly what I am feeling, so thanks for that.
"Obama has put Israel back on the Oslo bus to nowhere, with a roadmap to nowhere, and together, they will ride it nowhere at the price of more Israeli lives." That is a bit of hyperbole, I don't see how riding a bus to nowhere kills anyone. Hamas will try to kill jews no matter what, it is up to the Jews to stop them from doing so, not Obama. There is nothing that Obama can do to make the Palestinians recognize Israel, I remind you we invaded Iraq, installed a provisional government there, gave them hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars and the Iraqis have not recognized Israel.
This was from this May:The parliament's Foreign Affairs committee last week discussed the demand for compensation from Israel following "the damages caused to Iraq" as a result of the attack on the reactor 28 years ago. The move was initiated by Parliament Member Muhammad Naji Mahmoud.
According to Mahmoud, Iraq deserves compensation worth "billions of dollars" from Israel, in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolution on the bombing of the nuclear reactor.
The committee members plan to pass a bill which would require the Iraqi government to work to obtain the compensation from Israel. Mahmoud stressed that filing a damages claim would not symbolize any recognition of Israel.
Look, I am not blaming Bush for Iraqi recalcitrance even after all we did, so how can you possibly blame Obama who has offered Arabs nothing?
I don’t know about the status quo being fine, blackie. Every single move that got both sides to this point - the current status quo - was contested and almost haggled to death, but they got to this point anyway. I believe somebody has to prod and drag them slowly but incrementally toward final status, both for their own sake and ours.
The assumption that the fear of being pounded by the Israelis would diminish Palestinian restlessness is wrong. And wrong, also, is the belief among many that it can’t possibly get worse for us and the Israelis if the status quo remains. Time and technology, I think, could become the ally of Hamas. The status quo is dangerous.
I don’t know about the status quo being fine, blackie. Every single move that got both sides to this point - the current status quo - was contested and almost haggled to death, but they got to this point anyway. I believe somebody has to prod and drag them slowly but incrementally toward final status, both for their own sake and ours.
The assumption that the fear of being pounded by the Israelis would diminish Palestinian restlessness is wrong. And wrong, also, is the belief among many that it can’t possibly get worse for us and the Israelis if the status quo remains. Time and technology, I think, could become the ally of Hamas. The status quo is dangerous.
...I believe somebody has to prod and drag them slowly but incrementally toward final status, both for their own sake and ours...
Conventional wisdom is that no one ca and the parties themselves have to be ready, willing and able?
So what is Israel to do if it does not have a partner who will acknowledge its existence as a Jewish state and then negotiate in good faith on the basis of that good faith recognition?
Does it have any opition other than to limp along.
Also consider this:
Israel's Gaza Vindication
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post
Monday, September 21, 2009
When it was launched last December, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, ... view full comment
...I believe somebody has to prod and drag them slowly but incrementally toward final status, both for their own sake and ours...
Conventional wisdom is that no one ca and the parties themselves have to be ready, willing and able?
So what is Israel to do if it does not have a partner who will acknowledge its existence as a Jewish state and then negotiate in good faith on the basis of that good faith recognition?
Does it have any opition other than to limp along.
Also consider this:
Israel's Gaza Vindication
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post
Monday, September 21, 2009
When it was launched last December, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. Not only pundits like me but senior officials of the Bush administration predicted that the Israeli army would not succeed either in toppling Gaza's Hamas government or in eliminating its capacity to launch missiles at Israeli cities. Instead it would subject the Jewish state to another tidal wave of international opprobrium and risk its relations with West Bank Palestinians and Egypt.
Mostly, we were right. But today, Operation Cast Lead, as the three-week operation is known in Israel, is generally regarded by the country's military and political elite as a success. The reasons for that are worth examining now that a new and even more hawkish Israeli government is weighing whether to flout Washington's prevailing opposition to a military attack on Iran.
Israel's satisfaction starts with a simple set of facts. Between April 2001 and the end of 2008, 4,246 rockets and 4,180 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 14 Israelis, wounding more than 400 and making life in southern Israel intolerable. During what was supposed to be a cease-fire during the last half of 2008, 362 rockets and shells landed. Meanwhile, between late 2000 and the end of 2008, Israeli forces killed some 3,000 Gazans.
Since April there have been just over two dozen rocket and mortar strikes -- or less than on many single days before the war. No one has been seriously injured, and life in the Israeli town of Sderot and the area around it has returned almost to normal. Israeli attacks in Gaza have almost ceased, too: Since the end of the mini-war, 29 Palestinians, two of whom were civilians, have been killed by Israeli action.
Hamas, of course, remains in power and unmoved in its refusal to recognize Israel. It is still holding an Israeli soldier who was abducted in 2006. It is still smuggling material for weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border and, if it chose to, could resume rocket attacks on Israel at any time.
The point, however, is that Israel has bought itself a stretch of relative peace with Hamas, just as its costly 2006 invasion of Lebanon has produced three years of quiet on that front. From the Israeli perspective, a respite from conflict is the most that can be expected from either group -- or from their mutual sponsor, Iran.
"They will never change their ideology of destroying Israel," a senior government official told me last week. "But you can deter them if they are convinced you are not afraid of fighting a war."
But what of the grievous Palestinian suffering in the invasion -- Israel itself counted 1,166 dead Gazans, including more than 450 civilians -- and the international backlash that has caused? Just last week a U.N. commission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone condemned what it called "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population," and suggested that responsible Israelis be hauled before the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.
Israel's leaders worried a lot about losing the war that way. But as they see it, they suffered only scratches. Egypt, which quietly collaborates with Israel's blockade of Gaza, came under pressure to change its policy but held firm. No Arab country toughened its stance toward Israel: According to the Obama administration, as many as five may be willing to offer diplomatic and economic concessions if Israel freezes its West Bank settlement construction.
Perhaps most significant, Hamas's rival for Palestinian leadership, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, is considerably stronger than it was before the war. Probably it will renew peace talks with Israel within weeks. As for the Goldstone report, the heat it briefly produced last week will quickly dissipate; the panel was discredited from the outset because of its appointment by the grotesquely politicized U.N. Human Rights Council.
The Gaza invasion was the second military operation Israel embarked on in less than 18 months despite disapproval from Washington. The other was its bombing of a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria in September 2007. Then, too, officials in Washington feared a dire diplomatic backlash or even a war between Israel and Syria. Nothing happened.
As they quietly debate the pros and cons of launching a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel's political and military leaders no doubt will be thinking about that history. That doesn't mean they will discount American objections -- Iran would be a far harder and more complex target, with direct repercussions for U.S. troops and critical interests in the region. But, as with Gaza, even a partial and short-term reversal of the Iranian nuclear program may look to Israelis like a reasonable benefit -- and the potential blowback overblown.