MAYBE OBAMA DESERVED THAT PRIZE AFTER ALL
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Maybe Obama Deserved That Nobel Peace Prize After All
Lots of people are saying Obama’s done nothing to promote global peace. Certainly, the refrain goes, he hadn’t done anything by day 12 of his Presidency, which is when he was nominated to share in the same glory as Yasser Arafat and Iranian stooge Mohamed ElBaradei. I think that’s just so unfair.
If you believe – as I do – that continued Israeli territorial concessions in the context of ongoing Palestinian intransigence are a recipe for war, you have to concede Obama’s got at least some case. Before he came along the Israeli electorate was inclined to support further peace gestures. Palestinian leaders were willing to sit across the table from Israeli negotiators and offer unenforceable intangible promises in exchange for tangible land – promises Israeli diplomats were loath to reject.
Just two years ago the Bush administration – by pushing on Israeli leaders slowly without alarming the Israeli public – managed to stage Annapolis. It was predicted by secular Israeli centrists to be a total disaster for the Jewish State. It turned out merely to be a substantial disaster. That’s the drip drip drip method you have to use if you want to get Israelis to buy into one bad diplomatic deal after another.
Instead last Spring the Obama White House decided to kind of sort of spectacularly detonate the US-Israel alliance. They leaked to everyone that they were going to kick Netanyahu’s ass and ordered Israel to come up with a peace plan by July. Somehow that managed to backfire. I’m not sure if it was because Obama telegraphed his sellout on Arab TV or because Mitchell announced that America would push for the “Israel has to commit suicide” Saudi Initiative or because pipsqueak State Department officials publicly reveled in slapping around a sitting Prime Minister. But somehow Israeli officials got the distinct impression that Obama really didn’t like them.
And just to keep things topical, yes Obama’s counterproductive anti-Israel moves began before that crucial twelfth Presidential day. On the eve of the inauguration he promised to make a point of investigating Cast Lead literally on Day 1. Because why would Israel get nervous about promises to “address” their self-defense against Hamas?
It was Obama’s weird demand for a total Israeli settlement freeze, though, that was really inspired. Netanyahu was willing to commit to offering the Palestinians statehood. So something else had to be found so Obama could pick a fight with Israel and build some anti-Israel cred in the Arab world. Settlements seemed like a good target since someone in Obama’s inner circle really thought they could be used as a wedge issue with the Israeli electorate.
Sure the utterly shameless bait and switch on Bush’s “settlement blocs” promises was particularly ill advised, given that Israel needs to believe in US security assurances to take “risks for peace.” Sure it turned Israelis against Obama, united them behind Netanyahu, and even brought Ehud Olmert out of retirement to support the Israeli right that defeated him. Sure average Israelis started urging their leaders to reject Obama’s demands, which Israel subsequently and loudly did on Jerusalem. And sure the situation became so grim that ostensibly pro-Israel liberal American Jews started openly whining that Israelis are spoiled (because that’s persuasive!)
But it was the dustup’s effect on the Palestinians that was really magical.
Abbas had never had problems negotiating while Israel built up settlement blocs. He had no motive for making that a red line, Everyone knows that those blocs will remain Israel under any eventual deal. More importantly, a total freeze is a non-starter from an Israeli perspective. The Palestinians floated a freeze as a trial balloon with Rabin and Peres at Oslo, were told to shove it, and never really looked back. It was just accepted that in a universe where the only two choices were a settlement bloc freeze or no negotiations, negotiations weren’t going to happen.
Except Abbas can’t afford to be less anti-Israel than the President of the United States. The US was calling for a year long Israeli settlement freeze. So he had to make that functionally irrelevant, totally symbolic, and wildly irrational demand a non-negotiable precondition for any future talks. So said the Palestinian leadership and so his Cabinet continues to say.
Then, just to make things better, the Obama administration took the unprecedented step of lumping Jerusalem into the settlement blocs and demanding a ban on building up parts of the Israeli capital. This time the entire Arab League, no doubt shocked at their good fortune but a bit confused, robotically took up the US stance as a precondition. Even Turkey got into the act.
That erased any chance the Palestinians had of extricating themselves form their well-painted corner. Can you imagine how silly they’d look? The US and the entire Middle East sides with them on a specific issue, only to have the Palestinians back off? The result being, up through last month, a total deadlock on negotiations. Israel couldn’t even get the Palestinians to cooperate on growing their own economy any more.
The punchline came when, having forced Abbas into shunning Israel because of settlements, Obama put enormous pressure on him to meet with Netanyahu so Obama could get a photo op. Only downside: the resulting Palestinian rage has triggered a full-fledged Palestinian leadership crisis and there’s a good chance Abbas will never recover enough to deal. Smart power!
So see? That Peace Prize wasn’t totally undeserved.
Of course Obama might still burn America’s bridges with our ally Israel and ignite the Middle East just to meet his own absurd and artificial two year deadline. Then things might get dicey. His insufferably condescending Rosh Hashana greeting wasn’t the best sign. And there’s even a newmid-October deadline on the table, again decreed from on high.
Repeated “harsh rebukes,” though, lose their sting when the other side just ignores them. Ditto for “fury.” The Palestinians learned that decades ago.
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