I honestly believe that if any
Israeli parent sat down with those [Palestinian] kids, they'd
say I want these kids to succeed.
- Barack Obama, Jerusalem,
March 21
I hope you will walk the same path
we took and God willing, we will see some of you as
martyrs.
- Wafa al-Biss, young female
terrorist, to dozens of Palestinian schoolchildren who came to
welcome her home after her release from
prison
Because I love my son, I
encouraged him to die a martyr's death for the sake of
Allah...
Allah be praised, my son has attained this
happiness.
- Maryam Farahat a.k.a. Umm
Nidal a.k.a. Mother of Martyrs, rejoicing at her son's death
in a terrorist attack in which he murdered five Israeli
teenagers
Now that the dust is beginning to settle, the spin subside
and the fanfare fade, it is perhaps easier to make a more
sober assessment of Barack Obama's visit to Israel and to
evaluate the impact it is liable to have on regional
developments.
Improved
acoustics and aesthetics
Even the most
vehement critics of the US president's policy toward Israel
have to concede that, prime facie, the visit did appear to
produce a number of encouraging rhetorical elements. It is
difficult to deny that from a pro-Israel standpoint, things
were certainly made to look and sound far better than
before.
As Commentary's Jonathan Tobin,
who has often expressed acerbic disapproval of Obama's
attitude to Israel, remarked, "... one thing has undoubtedly
changed in the aftermath of the presidential visit to Israel:
Barack Obama's image as an antagonist of the Jewish
state."
Obama appeared to firmly endorse the notion of
the Jewish people's aboriginal rights and historic ties to the
Land of Israel, and that the State of Israel should be a
Jewish, declaring: "Palestinians must recognize that Israel
will be a Jewish state."
Moreover, he seemed to have
backpedaled on the issue of settlements.
Although he
designated their ongoing construction "counterproductive to
the cause of peace," he rebuffed the Palestinian demand that
further negotiations be contingent on a renewed settlement
freeze. In an apparent reversal of US policy, characterized
by The Washington Post as a "stinging
rebuttal" of Mahmoud Abbas, Obama sided with Israel's
position, declaring that talks toward a "broad agreement"
should resume without preconditions.
Premature diagnosis?
Of course,
none of this should be dismissed as inconsequential. However,
I would counsel caution before breaking out the
champagne.
For despite an apparent pro-Israel
metamorphosis in his approach to the Jewish state, it is
premature to adopt the upbeat assessment of some conservative
columnists who feel that Obama's "defenders have been...
vindicated and his critics chastened, if not
silenced."
Israel and its supporters would do well to
recall that in the past, strong statements of support from
Obama have had staggeringly short shelf-lives.
For
example, his rousing pledge at the 2008 AIPAC conference that
"Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must
remain undivided," endured barely 24 hours before backpedaling
began, and "clarifications" were issued that the word
"undivided" was poorly chosen, leaving us to puzzle over what
would have constituted a judicious choice. "Re-divided"?
Four years
later, at the 2012 AIPAC conference he boldly reassured the
audience: "There should not be a shred of doubt by now... I
have Israel's back."
But here, too, almost immediately,
another "clarification" was forthcoming, which effectively
stripped this declaration of any operational value, stating:
"It [having Israel's back] was not a military doctrine that we
were laying out for any particular military action.... What it
means is that, historically, we have always cooperated with
Israel... just like we do with Great Britain, just like we do
with Japan."
Clearly, given the great divergence of
existential threat-levels faced by Israel, on the one hand,
and by Great Britain and Japan, on the other, the
clarification, and the alacrity with which it was made, can
hardly have been a source of comfort to Israeli policy-makers
or the Israeli public.
Ominous undertones
But
putting past disappointments aside, sober analysis of what was
said and done on this visit - and of what was not - provides
reason for skepticism.
For despite discernibly more
attractive wrapping and a more appealing style of delivery,
the substantive content of Obama's policy prescriptions
remained essentially the same. The tactics to attain them may
have shifted, but the strategic objectives are still unchanged
- and just as perilous for Israel.
Below the
sugar-coated surface of benign tones and beguiling gestures,
there lurk ominous undertones; and once the spin is set aside
and we focus on the substance, a disturbing picture emerges,
comprised of elements distinctly reminiscent of the acrimony
in the not-to-distant past.
But, perhaps even more
troubling, the sentiments and predilections conveyed in his
public appearances - particularly his address to students at
Jerusalem's International Convention Center - seemed to
portray a man so out-of-touch with Mideast realities one can
only wonder if the positions he articulated reflect appalling
ignorance or artful ill-will.
Sequence of non
sequiturs
In essence,
Obama's address comprised an alarming sequence of non
sequiturs. It is possible to dispute - even dismiss - the
factual veracity, the logical consistency and the contextual
relevance of virtually every line of the policy prescriptions
he laid out. However, given the limits of space, I can focus
on but a few.
He enumerated the dangers and threats
that Israel had faced in the past and still faces today: "I
know that these issues of security are rooted in an experience
that is even more fundamental than the pressing threat of the
day... You live in a neighborhood where many of your neighbors
have rejected your right to exist. Your children grow up
knowing that people they have never met hate them because of
who they are..."
But he then proceeded to prescribe
that the best way to contend with them was to ignore their
existence and make perilous concessions to the very neighbors
who reject Israel's right to exist and hate Israelis merely
because of who they are.
Urging his audience to
disregard the disastrous failures of the past, he insisted
that the only way forward was to make peace via the
establishment of a Palestinian state. Blithely dismissing the
ascendant Palestinian extremists with little more than a
cursory mention, Obama pressed Israel to engage the soon-to-be
octogenarian president Abbas, now in his seventh year of his
four-year term and his unpopular, unelected prime minister
Salam Fayyad as "true partners" for peace - seemingly
unmindful, or uncaring, of the fact that even in the
improbable event that some agreement might be reached with
them, there is little chance that they could ensure its
implementation.
Only
fixed star in firmament?
Obama
acknowledges "the changes sweeping the Arab world. the
uncertainty in the region - people in the streets, changes in
leadership, the rise of non-secular parties in
politics...."
Yet, inexplicably, rather than counsel
caution, to pause and take stock of the long-term impact of
these sea-changes taking place on Israel's borders, he invokes
them as a reason to push with even greater vigor the very same
two-state policy that he promoted before they
occurred.
He claims that, today, "This truth is more
pronounced... As more governments respond to popular will, the
days when Israel could seek peace with a handful of autocratic
leaders are over.
Peace must be made among peoples, not
just governments."
Could it have been absentmindedness
that caused Obama to forget that it is precisely those new
"non-secular" governments and those "people in the streets" to
whose "popular will" they respond to, that are the source of
the hate he himself referred to just a little earlier - a hate
of Israel and Israelis, not because of what they do, but
"because of who they are"? So despite all the conditions which
apparently made a two-state approach previously
desirable/feasible being been washed away, it is now presented
as being even more desirable/feasible precisely because they
have been washed away.
Really?? It is as if the
two-state proposal has become the only fixed star in the
constantly changing firmament of Mideast politics. Indeed, one
might be excused for questioning whether support for a
Palestinian state is really reasoned US foreign policy
doctrine, or a dogmatic ideological obsession, that betrays a
sinister subtext and a hidden hostility that - despite the
beguiling benignity of his recent visit - still imbue the
Obama-administration's attitude to Israel.
Confounding cause and
consequence
Obama
decries the lot of the Palestinians. Jettisoning context and
inverting causality, he pontificates: "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 home," somehow implying that
these unfortunate outcomes are the result of some malicious,
and totally unnecessary, Israeli initiative.
This of
course is a dramatic distortion of reality. For the mentioned
tribulations the Palestinians are enduring, are the exclusive
consequence of the Palestinian leadership's unflagging efforts
to harm Jews.
Were it not for the Palestinians'
persistent Judeocidal endeavors, their farmers would not be
prevented from cultivating their lands, nor their students'
movements restricted.
(As for displacement of people
from their homes, one has the impression that this is
something Obama would warmly endorse, as long as those
displaced were Jewish.) But how are we to construe his censure
of the Palestinian plight? How else are we to interpret this -
other than as disapproval of any coercive measure - military
or administrative, reactive or proactive, preemptive or
punitive - that Israel may be compelled to undertake to
protect its citizens from violence against them "simply
because of who they are"? Sinister subtext, anyone?
False symmetry
Obama
was at pains to persuade Israeli youth that their Palestinian
counterparts - and their parents - are very much like them.
While this might have some truth to it on the individual
level, it is totally misleading at the societal
level.
The two introductory excerpts - one from a young
Palestinian woman and the other from a Palestinian parent - do
not reflect marginal sentiments in Palestinian society. Quite
the contrary, both figures are lionized by it.
Wafa
al-Bass, who was arrested attempting to blow up her doctors at
Beersheba's Soroka University Medical Center after receiving
life-saving treatment from them, is now a popular motivational
speaker for Palestinian schoolchildren.
Moreover, the
(recently deceased) Maryam Farahat a.k.a. Umm Nidal, who
publicly wished martyrdom for all her sons, was elected to the
Palestinian Legislative Council and according to ABC (January
26, 2006) was one of the most popular public figures in Gaza.
Indeed, The Christian Science
Monitor (March 14, 2006)
reported that the head of the Gaza Community Mental Health
Center, an expert in children's health, depicted her as
follows "... with a Palestinian pedigree such as hers...
Farhat is somewhat unassailable: For a Palestinian to
criticize her would be like attacking mom and apple
pie."
I kid you not!
Need to brush up
So it
seems that Obama urgently needs to brush up on his knowledge
of Palestinian sociology. He might then discover that the
problem is not the lack of familiarity of Israeli parents with
the predicament of Palestinian youth, but the priorities of
Palestinian parents... and Palestinian youth.
Indeed,
he might find it worthwhile to peruse the words of his former
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who, as US senator, had
this this to say about the formative influences Palestinian
youth are subjected to: "These textbooks do not give
Palestinian children an education; they give them an
indoctrination. When we viewed this report in combination with
other [Palestinian Authority] media that these children are
exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing. It is
disturbing on a human level, it is disturbing to me as a
mother, it is disturbing to me as a United States senator,
because it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these
children."
"You are not
alone"
There
is still much I have left unaddressed with regard to Obama's
visit: His refusal to let Ariel University students attend his
Jerusalem address (contrast with his insistence that the
Muslim Brotherhood attend his Cairo one) and what this
(subtext) really means for US attitudes regarding the
retention of the major settlement blocs; his disdain for
Israeli democracy by refusing to address the Knesset and by
urging his audience to press its duly elected members to adopt
policies they were elected to oppose...
But I can sense
my editor scowling. So let me conclude with the following
caveat.
When Obama declares "You are not alone," let's
not forget that last year he proclaimed "I have Israel's back"
only later to add, "just like Great Britain and
Japan."
So when he assures Israelis they are not alone,
does that include the folks in London and Tokyo as well?
Martin Sherman
(www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive director
of the Israel Institute for Strategic
Studies. |
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