Palestinians drop the ball as Obama squeezes Israel
It is unfortunate that the Obama is not also making the Palestinians prove their commitment to peace.
By Yoel Marcus Tags: Palestinian Authority Barack Obama Israel news Middle East peaceFrom the start, we were afraid that life with U.S. President Barack Obama would not be a picnic. The signals from Washington were quite clear from the start of the president's term; with all the problems he has to solve at home, he can't be expected to pamper Israel as his predecessors did. Moreover, we have a tendency to be suspicious of a president whose senior advisers are Jewish.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads a government that includes extremist elements, understood from the start that this was not the right time to irritate the new administration. Obama's overture for a Mideast peace agreement - as part of which he made a speech in Cairo, of all places, while skipping over Israel - was another sign that he does not consider us the most important factor, as we have become accustomed to thinking.
Netanyahu, who is no fool, understood that Obama's move required a positive response. And that was in fact forthcoming, in his Bar-Ilan speech of June 14, 2009, during which Netanyahu made the most far-reaching proposal ever uttered by any Israeli prime minister ever: "Two states for two peoples." There is no need for a translation in order to understand that what he proposed to the other side is a Palestinian state, which means an end to the occupation and the drawing up of permanent borders at the painful price of withdrawal and the eviction of thousands of settlers.
Instead of taking the prime minister at his word, nobody picked up the gauntlet. The Palestinian leadership considered the proposal a trap and piled up one condition after another, effectively refusing to renew negotiations. As a reporter who covered the Camp David summit hosted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, I wonder if we would ever have achieved a peace agreement had Egypt demanded the freezing of the settlements in Sinai and other preconditions for the final negotiations.
What is the purpose of a peace conference or direct negotiations, if not to solve the entire array of problems that are not amenable to intermittent solutions? There will be those who say Egypt could permit itself to attend a summit in the wake of the surprise of the Yom Kippur War. But the Palestinians can also come to peace talks with heads held high in the wake of their prolonged armed struggle against Israel, which caused former prime minister Ariel Sharon to awake from the dream of Greater Israel.
And instead of holding Netanyahu to his public commitment, the Obama administration cooperated with what former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger described as the Palestinians' talent for missing opportunities. American mediators have wasted months listening to far-fetched Palestinian excuses for refusing direct negotiations with Israel.
It isn't clear why the idea of proximity talks came up when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his friends in leadership positions used to come and go freely for talks with Israel's prime minister and foreign minister in Jerusalem. Not to mention the fact that the proximity talks with Syria have long since made a bad name for this type of negotiation.
What the U.S. administration has proposed is not proximity but distance - keeping the two sides apart and establishing a forum for each side to make far-fetched demands. So what if there's a settlement freeze for 10 months? What difference does that make when Israel declares it is ready for the establishment of a Palestinian state?
Netanyahu won't receive a medal for never telling a lie. But I believe him when he says that he didn't know ahead of time that Interior Minister Eli Yishai would announce a plan to build 1,600 apartments in Jerusalem precisely during the visit of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Obama was right to be angry, and when the president of the United States is angry, the entire world is angry. Netanyahu added insult to injury when he asserted the right to build in Jerusalem and was strongly reprimanded in a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The more we tried to justify ourselves, the more we got into trouble. What did Netanyahu expect when he phoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel? That they would condemn Obama?
Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, was overcome by panic when he made his headline-grabbing declaration that this is the most serious crisis we have had with the United States in 35 years. But what can you do when Obama himself toned down his reaction and Oren denied that he even said what he was quoted as saying?
Clinton criticized us in Washington too, but she took a step forward when she said the United States is committed to Israel's security. Obama also took a step forward when he announced that there is no crisis with Israel. The crisis may have been checked, but the coals are glowing. It's a shame that during those public appearances the two did not also reprimand the Palestinian leadership that is piling on conditions for renewing negotiations with Israel.
This is the first time that an Israeli government is proposing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and they are preoccupied with nonsense such as freezing construction for 10 months. America won't let Israel build beyond the Green Line once negotiations begin anyway. Israel must prove that it is committed to peace. It is unfortunate that the Obama administration is not making this demand of the Palestinians as well.
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No, you can't always get what you want And if you try sometime, you may find You get what you need The answer may lay outside your heads
you mean the palestinian myopic sense of righteousness?
not even those who are blinded by their myopic sense of righteousness.
fact is: netanyahu offered talks without preconditions. this means: without preconditions also on the israeli side. this means: talk also about jerusalem, the so-called refugees etc. etc. so, why are you not honest with yourself but repeat the mantra of alleged israeli preconditions? by the way: when the palestinians are so much against settlement construction - why didn't they start talks already in the past as offered to them? talks -not ongoing preconditions for talks- are the only possibility to stop the construction. can it be that the palestinians don't want to have the two-state-for-two-peoples-solution and that therefore they prevent the talks from taking place by uttering stupid preconditions?...
Whatever Wanda. I don't like the O'Bama admin either. However, this one thing I actually do agree with. What gives Israel, with a population the same as NYC on a tiny piece of land, have the right to disrespect our country in this way? How many American lives would be lost for Israel if another Mid-East World war broke out?
fact is: netanyahu offered talks without preconditions. this means: without preconditions also on the israeli side. this means: talk also about jerusalem, the so-called refugees etc. etc. so, why are you not honest with yourself but repeat the mantra of alleged israeli preconditions? by the way: when the palestinians are so much against settlement construction - why didn't they start talks already in the past as offered to them? talks -not ongoing preconditions for talks- are the only possibility to stop the construction. can it be that the palestinians don't want to have the two-state-for-two-peoples-solution and that therefore they prevent the talks from taking place by uttering stupid preconditions?...
If the Palestinians didn't like the "occupation", then why did they chose Intifada over statehood, and Hamas over peace?
fact is: netanyahu offered talks without preconditions. this means: without preconditions also on the israeli side. this means: talk also about jerusalem, the so-called refugees etc. etc. so, why are you not honest with yourself but repeat the mantra of alleged israeli preconditions? by the way: when the palestinians are so much against settlement construction - why didn't they start talks already in the past as offered to them? talks -not ongoing preconditions for talks- are the only possibility to stop the construction. can it be that the palestinians don't want to have the two-state-for-two-peoples-solution and that therefore they prevent the talks from taking place by uttering stupid preconditions?...
As countless UNSC resolutions have enunciated - the Israelis have no right to settle occupied land. But by some sort of contorted logic that only Israelis subscribe to, the Palestinians are in the wrong for demanding that the illegal occupation stop.
I am also an American. I am on the side of the Israeli People who long for peace and who think that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the present government is meeting. Yes, Obama should make clear that Arabs also have obligations to work for peace. The Torah calls on all people to pursue justice.
fact is: netanyahu offered talks without preconditions. this means: without preconditions also on the israeli side. this means: talk also about jerusalem, the so-called refugees etc. etc. so, why are you not honest with yourself but repeat the mantra of alleged israeli preconditions? by the way: when the palestinians are so much against settlement construction - why didn't they start talks already in the past as offered to them? talks -not ongoing preconditions for talks- are the only possibility to stop the construction. can it be that the palestinians don't want to have the two-state-for-two-peoples-solution and that therefore they prevent the talks from taking place by uttering stupid preconditions?...
instead of being busy with nullities like palestinian preconditions everybody should work towards a peace agreement. the fact that neither americans nor palestinians seem to work towards this direction makes me wonder whether they want at all a peace agreement.
Bibi betrayed Israel when he agreed to a 2-state proposal - unless he means, as I hope he does, the 2 states that already exist: Israel and Jordan, which is the only Palestinian state. We do not have to justify ourselves for building any place in Eretz Yisrael, least of all in our sovereign capital! How dare these racist pigs in Washington try to tell us where we can build. And how stupid and evil Bibi was to agree to any building freeze any place in our nation. When the hell are we going to have an actual Jewish prime minister here?!
Marcus conveniently forgets that the Palestinians refued to restart the negotiations because of the on-going settlement activitiy. What dothe Palestinians really have to offer Israel beyond recognizing it, which they did and acceding to the land robbery over which they have no control. Israel refused to negotiate final status, Jerusalem and right of return- Israel refuses to have East Jerusalem become their capital, refuses to return to 1967 borders +/- adjustments- Netanyahu already promised to retain the Jordan valley, and it refuses to absorb even a token # of refugees. Otherwise Israel has no preconditions... I wish Marcus were honest with himself.
I am an American and am ashamed of how this Administration is treating Israel. Believe me when I say that their opinion does not represent the US as a whole. There are those of us who do not want to be associated with Obama unfortunately. So please do not judge us all the way you might him for his actions. As Jesus said, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" and I ask that of the Israeli people..Peace and God Bless...
end...not at all...and you are right they dont want peace!! they love having the IDF at their front door and back door with machine guns pointed at them!! it is they who are stalling the peace...you convinced me!!
Netanyahu "is basically lost," because he blew it.
After all of the on the one hand and on the hand, it all boils down to the same old it isn't us. It's the fault of the others. Get serious. This is no way forward. This is not the way to open a new chapter. BTW: Netanyahu was not the first to announce a commitment to the two state solution. At least get your facts right Yoel Marcus.
Communication between Netanyahu and Obama govt is thin, thanks to the absence of Lieberman from all things diplomatic. That coupled with the decreasing influence of AIPAC, and the US troubles at home and in ME, means that Netanyahu is basically lost!