[R-G] Obama's Ridiculous Mid-East Summit

[Romi Elnagar]

Obama's Ridiculous Mid-East Summit 
   By ALEXANDER COCKBURN 

   
   It 
has been impossible to read the agenda for the Oval Office summit 
between Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas without laughing out loud at the 
absurdity of its pretensions.  The American plan was that President 
Obama would inform Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, 
representing the  Palestinian Authority, that this is make-or -break 
time for a peaceful settlement. The US wants an agreement within a year,
 with the stipulations in this agreement to be phased in over a decade. 


   At issue: the  illegal Jewish  settlements, the 
status of East Jerusalem, the treatment of Palestinian refugees and 
final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

   The man greeting Netanyahu and Abbas was no longer 
the icon of change who aroused the world with his address to Muslims in 
Cairo and who tasked former US Senator George Mitchell with setting the 
stage for a just settlement of issues that have remained unsettled for 
more than half a century.

   Obama is now in poor political shape. The economy 
is spiraling  down. The midterm elections loom as a possible bloodbath 
for Democrats  in which they may lose at least one,  if not both, houses
 in Congress.  As the Israel lobby knows well, the Democrats crave 
Jewish money and Jewish votes. When it comes to Israel ‘s interests the 
US Congress jumps to the Lobby’s commands. Secretary of State Hillary 
Clinton’s speech, laden with honorifics for Netanyahu, could be 
construed as a fund-raising appeal for her next lunge at the Democratic 
presidential nomination. 


   Gone was any notion of twisting Netanyahu’s arm, or
 trying to, as when the Administration criticized one illegal Jewish 
settlement four months ago and when vice president Biden relayed in Tel 
Aviv  Gen. Petraeus’ concerns that Israel’s obduracy was imperiling US 
security interests in the region. 


   The lobby struck back, with political threats. By 
July, Dana Milbanke of the Washington Post described with unusual 
frankness  Netanyahu’s next visit to Washington: 
   
     “A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair 
House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its 
usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance 
of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White
 House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender.” 
   
   And with the September summit  Israeli delightedly 
 pointed to  Obama's withdrawal of a demand that Israel freeze Jewish 
colonies on Palestinian land. Instead he urged "restraint". 

"The prime 
minister is satisfied because his main position that negotiations should
 be without preconditions was accepted," Netanyahu's spokesman Nir 
Hefetz told Army Radio from New York. Netanyahu himself, who has 
rejected demands for a settlement freeze, was quoted telling a 
newspaper: "I understand English -- 'restraint' and 'freeze' are two 
different words." As for the status of Jerusalem, and the issue of 
Palestiniamn refugees, Netanyahu adamantly refuses to discuss them.  


   Simultaneously, hours before the handshakes, Jewish
 settlers said they were forthwith starting work on buildings in at 
least 80 settlements, breaking the partial government freeze that ends 
on September 26.

   The tenor of Israeli politics today is one of 
fanatic rejectionism of any halt to settlements, any serious concession 
on borders, beyond a Palestinian “state” in small chunks, hemmed in by 
Israel’s highways and fences, with water diverted and communication 
between the various fragments of Palestinian territory under rigorous 
Israeli control and constant harassment. East Jerusalem as the proposed 
capital of a Palestinisan state  is under incessant invasion of new 
Jewish housing projects. 


   The Israeli press reports that Netanyahu has yet to
 evolve a negotiating position. His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman 
 refused to attend the summit and thinks Netanyahu should have simply 
told  Obama that construction will continue without any restrictions at 
all after the present official moratorium ends on September 26.

   For his part, Abbas is no longer president of the 
Palestinian Authority, which has no democratic mandate among the vast 
majority of Palestinians. They voted for Hamas and  regard Abbas as a 
quisling, who exists solely by the favor of US money, Pentagon security 
advisors and Israeli support. Hamas expressed its opinion of the meeting
 by killing four Israeli settlers. (Half a million illegal Jewish 
settlers  have been the most conspicuous consequence of the “peace 
process.”)

   Tactically, Netanyahu has an easy hand to play. He 
can proclaim Israel’s hopes for peace, yet warn that Israel’s security 
interests are paramount. He can lecture Obama on Israel’s primal fears 
of obliteration, yet not be too reticent in indicating that Israel can 
obliterate  its enemies and is quite prepared to do so. Israel’s nuclear
 arsenal hover spectrally over the proceedings. 


   When the moratorium expires in three weeks he will 
allow settlements to go forward, which in turn will prompt Abbas to  
threaten to act upon his commitment to abandon the talks if this occurs,
 a scheduled duty, as Jeffrey Blankfort predicted here on our site  last
 week. Israel will continue its rightward lunge,  with dissent 
increasingly  purged in an increasingly vicious political environment.  
The Obama Plan will join all the other diplomatic ruins in the desert of
 dry bones --  the most conspicuous feature of all maps attempting to 
depict the search for a “just solution” in the Middle East. 


   Why is Obama even making the effort? As  Blankfort says, 
   
     “Every US president since Nixon has made an 
effort to end Israel's occupation for US strategic reasons, and every 
one of them has run up against the Lobby and, in the end, proved unable 
or unwilling to spend the political capital that would be required to 
enforce their will on Israel. In every instance Congress has stood on 
Israel's side and never more so than during the Obama administration. 
The three presidents that did challenge Israel, Ford, Carter, and Bush 
Sr., were eventually forced to retreat and were turned out at the 
polls.”
   
   Now why, given this history, did Obama try his 
hand? Blankfort suspects that there was pressure from the US's European 
allies to do so because
   
     “the continuance of the I-P conflict jeopardizes 
their security and society far more than it does that of the US and 
there have long been calls for the EU to activate its own ‘peace 
initiative’ and it would be likely to do so if the US withdrew from the 
field. This is the last thing that either Israel or the Lobby wants so 
that is why we see the Lobby  elements in every administration, 
currently Ross, Emanuel, et al, making the push for Obama's involvement 
even though they know it is bound to fail.” 
   
   Obama’s recent remodel of the Oval Office features a
 very cheesy carpet featuring uplifting quotations  around its edge : 
F.D.R.’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; Martin Luther 
King Jr.’s “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards 
justice”; Lincoln’s “Government of the people, by the people, for the 
people” and so forth.  When Palestinians are scheduled for a rare visit,
 they should roll the carpet up, and bring out  one with the Star of 
David right in the middle, and stitched round the edge, “Attention 
Palestinians! Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
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