Doc's Talk: What Obama Didn't Say: Peace Requires More than Israeli Willpower

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

What Obama Didn't Say: Peace Requires More than Israeli Willpower

I don’t have big problems with what President Barack Obama said in his lecture to Israeli students. He said that peace is good, that peace is good for Israel, that peace is possible, and that people should work for peace and conciliation.

All fine sentiments. The students applauded wildly because they didn't think he was attacking Israel but voicing the sentiments they already hold, indeed that most Israelis and their leaders have held for decades. The only problem is that Obama doesn't seem to understand this fact.

Young people tend to think that the world is completely changeable. They look at current reality and see foolishness and suffering and contradictions in it. They think it possible to re-imagine the world.

Of course, change is often desirable, as long as it is a change for the better, and possible. Many things have happened—the fall of the regime in Egypt; the Syrian civil war, etc.—that would be previously thought improbable. And yet there are reasons why things are as they are. What you want to see happen must be interrelated to realities. In 1979--I remember this vividly--the idea that a change involving Iran's shah had to be a good thing.

Obama said:

“But for the moment, put aside the plans and the process. I ask you, instead, to think about what can be done to build trust between people.”

This is not a new idea. It is something Israelis have been thinking about and working on for decades and especially during the last twenty years. Israel’s declaration of independence, May 14, 1948, declared:

"We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East."

During the “peace process” era of the 1990s, Israelis worked strenuously to build such bridges. I taught a course on political analysis at a Palestinian university (Yasir Arafat’s niece was one of my students) and knew that doing so was at some risk to my life. When the university's pubic report came out afterward, I was the only person on the teaching staff not identified by country. They could or would not admit that they had a professor from Israel. An Israeli doctor volunteering to help heal people in the Gaza Strip fared worse. He was axed to death.

Things, however, went beyond that. The Palestinian Authority decreed that there would be no “normalization” and people or institutions were ordered and threatened against such trust-building measures. One Israeli center invited 35 Palestinians to discuss conciliation. Two came to the first meeting and only one, a non-Arab, came to the second. The resistance to such bridge-building comes from the Palestinian side, even if people want to do so but are intimidated.

Obama continued:

“Four years ago, I stood in Cairo in front of an audience of young people -- politically, religiously, they must seem a world away. But the things they want, they’re not so different from what the young people here want. They want the ability to make their own decisions and to get an education, get a good job; to worship God in their own way; to get married; to raise a family.”

Perhaps. But the problem is how their wants are to be interpreted. It is a miracle of self-imposed ignorance that Obama makes no mention of what has happened in those four years. In country after country radical Islamists have been taking over who define what they want as genocide against the Jews and Israel being wiped off the map. The moderate young people Obama has described are being repressed. Some have fled Egypt. Obama has done nothing to help them.

“The same is true of those young Palestinians that I met with this morning. The same is true for young Palestinians who yearn for a better life in Gaza.”

Perhaps when those young people take over from that repressive, undemocratic state things will change. But won’t Israel have to wait until that change comes? And for each one of such people there are one thousand who support violence, believe in total victory, and want Israel dead.
Even within Israel itself, Obama was heckled by an Israeli Arab college student who was horrified by his "pro-Israel" statements and told interviewers later that he wanted Israel as a state to disappear. Guess he wasn't one of those young people. Would all Palestinians ready to live in their Arab Muslim state alongside Israel as a Jewish state please raise their hands?

“That's where peace begins," Obama continued, "not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people.” Yet what has happened in the hearts of people on the other side? That’s where the problem is. And if they have peace in their hearts they better keep it hidden there or else.

In his 1948 book about apartheid South Africa, Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton wrote: "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating."

But which side in this case can make that statement? Israel? The Palestinians and other Arabs? Both? Does a mirror image exist of equivalency? If Obama really did comprehend the situation he would press a lot harder on the Palestinian side. Every time he has asked for help, Israel has said “yes”; the Palestinian Authority and Hamas has said “no.”

Obama’s view, like that of many others, disregards these realities. Imagine that with a straight face, Obama could say:

“Political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see.”

Yet the people have been pushing Israeli leaders to take risks since the 1970s, the leaders have themselves initiated risk-taking for peace, and one of them even died in that quest. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Didn't Prime Minister Ariel Sharon take big risks by a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that was repaid by rockets from Hamas?
How has Israel been rewarded for the risks already taken? With even more risks and international criticism.
Who is pushing in Palestinian politics? The only force that counts is that which wants an even more radical and violent strategy. Can you imagine a peace group being formed on any Palestinian campus? The idea is ridiculous. Obama cannot deliver the other side for peace--he can't even get them to negotiate at all--the president puts the job on someone else.
Yes, we want a two state solution. Yes, we put ourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians and such empathy and reportage is daily in all the Israeli newspapers. It is the opposite that is never true.

It is a slander on Israel to talk about the situation as if old folks impose hatred on young people. In 1993, the nation was overwhelmingly united by hope. By around 1999 even my conservative friends were open to a two-state solution. Israeli textbooks do not contain hate and neither does the teaching, films, or television.

Obama says:

“Look at the young people who’ve not yet learned a reason to mistrust, or…[have] learned to overcome a legacy of mistrust that they inherited from their parents, because they simply recognize that we hold more hopes in common than fears that drive us apart.”

Where? A lone Egyptian blogger who speaks for peace with Israel after 30 years of a peace agreement and faces serious threats and harassment? Let's have the names of such young people. They are almost entirely, I'm sad to say, imaginary.

Why did the Israeli students cheer? Not because they were being stirred to revolt against their own government but because they understandably want to believe that they can bring peace by simply trying to do so, regardless of what any other nation does.

Who on the Palestinian side can be said to have done such a thing, at least publicly? Very few. How many on the Israeli side have done such a thing? Hundreds of thousands.

One should not drown out hope. My goal is to define the conditions that offer a way forward to a hope that can be realized, not a wishful thinking that would entail terrible costs. As one in the past who spoke loudly of hope, I have found in big things and small that the only times I was wrong was when I followed Obama’s advice.
On what basis does Obama suggest that things can change? Strength, the very factor he downplays in other circumstances.

“There will be many who say this change is not possible, but remember this -- Israel is the most powerful country in this region. Israel has the unshakable support of the most powerful country in the world. Israel is not going anywhere.”

But did Israeli strength turn a withdrawal from most of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip into peace? How is Israel’s power affected by Islamist regimes in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, and soon in Syria? How is that reduced if Iran gets nuclear weapons? I have no doubt Israel will win but at what costs? What additional risks can be justified in such a situation?

And how “unshakable” is U.S. support? Yes, the basic alliance is unshakable but that, of course, does not translate into support for all Israeli actions to use that strength, which therefore reduces the usefulness of that strength. Is there unshakable U.S. support, for example, to overthrow the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and turn that territory over to the "moderate" "partner for peace" Palestinian Authority?

To say “Israel is not going anywhere” means Israelis should not be afraid of a second Holocaust or being wiped off the map. Granted. But they only need not be afraid of that if the country follows proper strategies. And, again, the costs of survival can be higher or lower.

It is one thing to make optimism and hope for peace part of the equation—which is why I have no great problem with the things he said—but what about the rest?
Yet I see no risk in what Obama said. First, it is standard U.S. policy. Second, Israel is now immunized by experience against taking foolish risks and making unrequited concessions. Third, because it does reflect Israeli preferences. If Obama wants to be patronizing that's more acceptable if he is ready to be Israel's patron rather than distancing himself.

The vast majority of Israelis know or should know they cannot unilaterally bring peace, a step already tried several times. Been there; done that. They know or should know they cannot unilaterally change the other side’s attitude by proving themselves to the Palestinians and other Arab publics to be good people. Even much of the Western elites and mass media don’t believe Israel wants peace after decades of such efforts.

Here’s the truest thing Obama said:

“Israel has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but -- this is in your nature -- Israel also has the courage to see the world as it should be.”

Obama voiced the part about how the world should be. He forgot the part about Israel seeing the world as it really is.
This article was published in PJMedia.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org

Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk