RUTHFULLY YOURS

While Israelis were decking themselves out in suits and stilettos to prepare for his major speech at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon — and gala dinner at President Shimon Peres’ residence in the evening — Palestinians were in the streets of Ramallah and Bethlehem shouting “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is great”) and burning Obama’s effigy. This was their response to his assertion that a two-state solution has to include a Jewish state.

Such was the PLO’s welcome for the American leader. Hamas didn’t bother with all the rhetoric and ritual. Its operatives simply launched several missiles into southern Israel as soon as the sun came out. No muss, no fuss. Just a bunch of panicked Jewish families barely making it to their bomb shelters in time.

This did not constitute cause for presidential pause, however. On the contrary, Obama was on a mission to encourage everybody to get along. Any acts of violence aimed at the United States and Israel were the work of “extremists” bent on preventing the very peace he had come to promote.

Nor did the grim demeanor of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — who reiterated his unwillingness to negotiate with Israel until it meets a list of impossible preconditions — put a damper on Israeli enthusiasm. Anyone unfamiliar with the local scene — Iran about to get the bomb; Syria using chemical weapons against its people; Egypt in the throes of radical Islamization; Turkey lost to the West; and the rest of region in turmoil — could be forgiven for asking whether Elvis had been sighted in the Holy Land.

Indeed, since landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Obama has been treated like a rock star — one who was gracious enough not to cancel his concert tour, in spite of pressure from BDS groups. And it is this mixture of awe and gratitude that best characterizes the attitude of those lucky enough to be blessed with an invitation to the International Convention Center to see and hear the U.S. president in person.

The hand-picked audience of left-leaning Israeli students did not have to be coached to cheer every time Obama punctuated a phrase; they were truly moved by his words. And their boisterous laughter at his quip about stormy relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — “… any drama between me and my friend Bibi over the years was just a plot to create material for [the political satire TV show] Eretz Nehederet” — was genuine.

These kids are, after all, the cream of the “hope and change” crop. And they were basking in Obama’s aura, while appreciating his appeal to their sense of justice on the Palestinians.

“Put yourself in their shoes; look at the world through their eyes,” Obama said, with perfect pathos. “It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day.”

His use of the feminine pronoun was not accidental. Though invoking his own daughters, he was also sending a subliminal gender-equality message. He conveniently failed to mention the real root of women’s misery in “Palestine” and the rest of the Arab world: state-sanctioned subjugation and abuse at the hands of their men.

Buoyed by the crowd’s positive reaction, Obama went on without trepidation. “It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands, to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank, or to displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.”

This skewed depiction elicited a roar of approval. Never mind that “settler violence against Palestinians” does not go unpunished. Ignore the fact that Palestinians are not prevented “from farming their lands.” Leave aside the reason for limitations on freedom of movement — Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians. And let’s forget that the only people “displaced and expelled” have been Jews and Christians — the latter as a result of persecution from Palestinian Muslims, and the former as part of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza.

What mattered was not the truth, however, but rather reassurance from Obama that there was something they could do to alter the unsatisfactory situation on the ground.

“[F]or the moment, put aside the plans and process,” Obama requested. “I ask you, instead, to think about what can be done to build trust between people.”

That Obama may be unaware of the decades of “thinking” we Israelis have devoted to this question, and of the endless coexistence programs we have sponsored, is not surprising. But how any Israeli is capable of similar myopia is a mystery.

I remember my son coming home from kindergarten, proudly displaying the Palestinian flag he had been taught to draw and color, ahead of a workshop with a number of Arab 5-year-olds whose parents would allow them to spend a few hours with Jews. You can bet your bottom shekel that those children did not arrive, or leave, with Israeli flags in tow. But it didn’t matter anyway, because within weeks, the First Intifada had erupted and it became more urgent to teach our sons and daughters to be wary of suspicious packages that might contain explosives than to sing songs of peace with them in Arabic.

That was in 1987 — more than 25 years ago.

One night in 1989, as I was getting the kids ready for bed, there was a loud pounding on the door to my apartment. It turned out to be a policeman, covered from head to toe in protective gear, urging me to evacuate my family from the premises as soon as possible. As we exited to the street, we saw a large chalk etching of the Palestinian flag on the outer wall of the building — right next to the large gas tank, on top of which a live bomb had been placed.

“That is where peace begins,” announced Obama to his adoring audience. “Not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people … in the daily connections that take place among those who live together in this land … political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see.”

The ensuing ovation was deafening. It nearly drowned out the sound of Obama’s loud pounding on an open door, urging Israel to evacuate hundreds of thousands of families as soon as possible. But it won’t do him any good. The only negotiations Abbas is undertaking are with Hamas. And the Israeli electorate recently acknowledged this reality at the ballot box.

Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.'”