Obama and the Israel Lobby

Yesterday Israel approved the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. The White House said it was "dismayed," declared that "these actions make it more difficult to our efforts to succeed" (duhhh, that's the idea!) and reiterated its belief that the status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiation.

Needless to say, the alleged "dismay" was not accompanied by concrete action to encourage the Netanyahu government to reconsider its position. Instead, the White House underscored its de facto capitulation by altering the title of its own press release. As Spencer Ackerman reports here, the original press release was entitled ""Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the Approval of Settlement Expansion in Jerusalem" (my emphasis). That rather bland expression was apparently too hot, however, so the words "approval of settlement expansion" were stripped from the title of online version that appeared later. If you access it now, it is merely a "Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Jerusalem."

But if you really want to see the contortions that our brain-dead policy imposes on long-suffering press secretaries, read the following excerpt from State Department spokesman Ian Kelly's press briefing yesterday, and ask yourself if this how a representative of the world's most powerful country ought to sound. (It's not Kelly's fault, by the way, insofar as his job is to defend the indefensible).

QUESTION: On the peace process, Israel has approved today the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. How do you view this approval at this specific time?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think, Michel, you've heard us say many times that we believe that neither party should engage in any kind of actions that could unilaterally preempt or appear to preempt negotiations. And I think that we find the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval of the -- approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem as dismaying. This is at a time when we're working to re-launch negotiations, and we believe that these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. So we object to this, and we object to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. And -- just to repeat what we've said all along, our position on Jerusalem is clear. We believe that the - that Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the two parties.

QUESTION: Can you tell us, did this come up in Ambassador Mitchell's meetings in London yesterday? Apparently, we were told that he met an advisor to Netanyahu, asked them to not permit these new buildings, and then that request was flatly turned down.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Andy, I just don't want to get into the substance of these negotiations. They're sensitive. I think you've seen the Israeli -- some Israeli press reports that did report that this was raised in the meetings. ... But I don't want to get into the substance of the discussions yesterday in London. ...

QUESTION: How long is the U.S. going to continue to tolerate Israel's violation of international law? I mean, soon it's not even going to be possible -- there's not going to be any land left for the Palestinians to establish an independent state.

MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is a -- we understand the Israeli point of view about Jerusalem. But we think that all sides right now, at this time when we're expending such intense efforts to try and get the two sides to sit down, that we should refrain from these actions, like this decision to move forward on an approval process for more housing units in East Jerusalem.

QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel's actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy - the President turning his back on the promises he's made to the Palestinians?

MR. KELLY: You're -- okay, you're using language that I wouldn't use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We're calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from - and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It's a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what's important here, and that's --

QUESTION: Well, what actions (inaudible) the Palestinians taken recently that would impede progress?

MR. KELLY: Well, as I say, we would discourage all unilateral actions, and I think --

QUESTION: Fair enough. But the Palestinians --

MR. KELLY: We talked yesterday --

QUESTION: -- don't appear to be taking any unilateral actions. It seems to be (inaudible).

MR. KELLY: Well, we did talk yesterday about the - and I want to make sure I get my language right here - about the - discouraging any kind of unilateral appeal for United Nations Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That would fall in that category of unilateral actions.

QUESTION: Okay. So the Palestinian call for this, which was rejected by both the EU and yourself yesterday, you're putting that on the same level as them building -- as the Israelis building --

MR. KELLY: No, I'm not saying that. You just said that, Matt. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that --

QUESTION: Well, you're saying you're calling on both sides to stop doing these things.

MR. KELLY: We are.

QUESTION: Yeah. But the rhetoric from the --

MR. KELLY: I'm not saying they're equivalent.

QUESTION: -- Palestinians is not actually constructed in a --

MR. KELLY: I'm not saying they're equivalent. I'm just saying that we -- they -- we have to treat these things as sensitive issues.

QUESTION: You said a little bit earlier that we understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem. Can you explain what you mean by that?

MR. KELLY: Well, you have to ask -- I'm not going to stand up here and characterize the Israeli point of view on --

QUESTION: No. I'm just asking you, if you understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem, why are you saying that this is not a good thing?

MR. KELLY: I'm not saying we support the Israeli point of view. We understand it.

QUESTION: Right. And then, last one on this, you characterized this decision by the planning commission as dismaying.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: You can't come up with anything stronger than "dismaying"? I mean, this flies in the face of everything you've been talking about for months and months and months.

MR. KELLY: It's dismaying.

QUESTION: Yeah, you can't offer a condemnation of it or anything like that? (Laughter.) I mean, who is in charge of the language here.

MR. KELLY: I have said what I have said, Mr. Lee. . .

QUESTION: Would you say, though, that your own envoy has - does he have any leverage at this point, given the fact that the Israelis not only refuse, but blatantly have ignored his wishes on this?

MR. KELLY: Well, let's take a step back and let's also recognize that both sides agree on the goal, and that goal is a comprehensive peace. That goal is two states living side by side in peace and security and cooperation. So that is why we continue to be committed to this. That is why Special Envoy Mitchell meets with both sides at every opportunity, and why we are continuing to expend such efforts on this. So let's remember that, that we do share a common goal.

QUESTION: Well, where's Senator Mitchell today?

MR. KELLY: I believe Senator Mitchell is on his way back today.

QUESTION: Could you give us just a brief synopsis of the progress that Senator Mitchell has made in his months on the job?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have - we've gotten --

QUESTION: Yeah, maybe if the --

MR. KELLY: -- both sides to agree on this goal. We have gotten both sides --

QUESTION: Ian, they agreed on the goal years ago. I mean, that's not --

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we - this government --

QUESTION: You mean you got the Israel Government to say, yes, we're willing to accept a Palestinian state? You got Netanyahu to say that, and that's his big accomplishment?

MR. KELLY: That is an accomplishment.

QUESTION: But previous Israeli administration - previous Israeli governments had agreed to that already.

MR. KELLY: Okay, all right.

QUESTION: So in other words, the bottom line is that, in the list of accomplishments that Mitchell has come up with or established since he started, is zero.

MR. KELLY: I wouldn't say zero.

QUESTION: Well, then what would you say it is?

MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we've gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have - we have - we've had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven't had any intense --

MR. KELLY: Obviously --

QUESTION: There haven't been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we're not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we're not -- but it's -- we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we've accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years.

QUESTION: Well, I - really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can't even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right ... Give us a chance ...

QUESTION: It seems Senator Mitchell is focusing in his meetings on the Israeli side. Is he -- does he have any plans to talk with the Palestinians, or there is no need now for that?

MR. KELLY: Well, he, as I say, he had meetings yesterday with the Israelis. He's coming back to the U.S. now. He always stands ready to talk to both sides. There are no plans at this moment to meet with the Palestinian side."

One comment: Can you imagine what most neoconservatives would say if the United States acted this way towards any other country? Cries of "appeasement" and "cowardice" would ring from the rafters, and Obama and his team would be dismissed as feckless lightweights who simply weren't up to the job of serious, hard-nosed diplomacy. For some reason, neocons insist that America show firmness and resolve when dealing with every other country in the world, but they are happy when Uncle Sam rolls over and plays dead whenever there's a disagreement with Israel. To repeat a point I've made before: this situation is not good for either country, and that reality will become increasingly clear in the months and years ahead.

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Back in 2007, we wrote that AIPAC has an "almost unchallenged hold on Congress." Little has happened since then to alter that conclusion, and we will probably get another demonstration of Congressional spinelessness this week. On Tuesday, the House is scheduled to vote on H.R. 867, an AIPAC-sponsored resolution denouncing the recent Goldstone Report on possible war crimes by Hamas and Israel during the Gaza War last year. You can read the resolution here. You should then read Judge Goldstone's response here, which points out the errors in the House resolution. And then read historian Tony Judt's eloquent statement here. If you're convinced that the resolution makes a mockery of America's professed commitment to justice and human rights, then you might express that sentiment here or here. Or just call your Congressman's office and tell him/her to grow a backbone and vote against it.

Meanwhile, over in Israel itself, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is completing the Obama administration's humiliating retreat from the principles set forth in the president's Cairo speech of less than five months ago. In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Clinton did not criticize continued Israeli home demolitions in East Jerusalem (a practice she had previously denounced), and praised Netanyahu for making "unprecedented concessions" on settlement expansion. Huh? This is Clintonian double-talk worthy of her husband. Netanyahu's "concession" was to insist that Israel would keep building whatever and wherever it wished in East Jerusalem, and would also continue the "natural growth" of settlements in the West Bank, but would not start any completely new settlements for awhile. Bear in mind that virtually every country in the world regards all of the settlements -- both the unauthorized outposts and the vast neighborhoods built by the Israeli government -- as illegal under international law, and the United States used to say this too. And for this "concession" the Palestinians are supposed to enter into another meaningless round of discussions, while the bulldozers and construction crews continue to eat away at the land on which they hope to establish a state of their own. To praise Netanyahu's position as an "unprecedented concession" is like discovering someone is robbing your house, and then expressing gratitude when they offer to do it a bit more slowly.

The two-state solution was on life-support when Obama took office, and at first it appeared he might make a serious effort to nurse it back to health and make it a reality. At least, that's what he said he was going to do.  Instead, he and his Secretary of State are in the process of pulling out the plug. But what will they do when "two states for two peoples" isn't an option and everybody finally admits it, and the Palestinians begin to demand equal rights in "greater Israel?" Will the United States support their claims for equality, democracy, and individual rights, or will it continue to defend and subsidize what will then be an apartheid state? Well, if it's up to our courageous reps in Congress, you know what the answer will be.

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Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative Eliot Cohen says we have only two options: an American or Israeli military strike "which would probably cause a substantial war," or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, "which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear."  Echoing the neocons' earlier campaign for the invasion of Iraq (a decision he enthusiastically endorsed),  Cohen recommends that we "actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic."  He does not call for a U.S. invasion (for which there are no forces available and scant public support), but instead calls for employing "every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard" to bring down the clerical regime.  And he warns darkly that if Obama allows Iran to get a nuclear weapon, he will face a firestorm at home that "will makes the squawks of protest against his health care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day."  Hmmm....I wonder what he's talking about here?

If anyone doubted that the neoconservatives were still pushing for a U.S.-led effort to remake the Middle East-despite the disaster they've already created in Iraq-this piece (and a similar oped by Paul Wolfowitz in yesterday's Financial Times-should correct that assumption.  Of course, Cohen trots out the usual bogeymen about Iran's "fanatical, ruthless, and unprincipled regime" (an obvious hint that these are irrational criminals who could not be deterred), and flatly declares that no "real negotiation or understanding" is possible with such people.  He says that allowing Iran to have the bomb "may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945," even though he also believes the mullahs are "willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power."  (Newsflash: if "staying in power" is the Iranian leadership's  primary goal, starting a nuclear war and thus inviting overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. or Israel isn't something they're going to do.)

But what is most revealing about Cohen's piece-apart from the worst-case alarmism that pervades it-is his own awareness that the forceful line he favors won't work.

First, he recognizes that air strikes by Israel or the United States can delay but not stop the nuclear program and could easily unleash a wider, highly destructive war.  Second, he understands the economic sanctions haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to convince Tehran to change course now.  He cannot imagine trying a more accommodating route, so all that is left is "regime change."  But we've tried that too, beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing up to the present day, and Cohen doesn't argue that this will work either.

Cohen's proposed approach thus offers us the worst of all possible worlds: we continue to confront Iran with various ineffective threats, thereby ensuring that relations remain bitterly contentious, making ourselves look ineffectual, and giving them more reason to want a deterrent capability.  It is an approach that will only strengthen hardliners and undercut the moderates who still hope for change there, and convince a new generation of Iranians (70 percent of the population is under 30) that America is the "Great Satan" after all. 

Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran.  His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.

The alternative to Cohen's ineffectual pessimism is laid out clearly by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's New York Times.  They also recognize that military force, covert action and economic sanctions aren't going to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Given the dearth of attractive alternatives, they recognize that the only way to convince Iran not to weaponize is to engage in a broad and patient effort to transform the whole U.S.-Iranian relationship.  Obama has made rhetorical gestures in that direction, but his administration has also continued covert action programs aimed at Iran, repeatedly threatened tougher sanctions, and never embraced the need for a broader "strategic understanding" with Iran.

The Leveretts remind us that Richard Nixon achieved his opening to China by taking concrete steps to reduce U.S. pressure on Beijing, even at a moment when China was helping North Vietnam kill U.S. soldiers.  (And this was Mao's China, remember, which U.S. officials had long seen as fanatical, ruthless, irrational, etc.).  Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.

The strategy they outline might not work with Iran, but it would hardly leave the United States worse off than the strategy Cohen recommends, which by his own admission is likely to fail.   The problem, of course, is that it is the neoconservative forces that Cohen represents are now working overtime to prevent the United States from pursuing the one course of action that might-repeat, might-actually convince Iran it is better off with an enrichment capacity but not an actual bomb.  

Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the events surrounding the UN General Assembly, and especially President Obama's ultimately inconsequential meetings with Israeli Prime MInister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas, followed by his statements on these issues during his speech to the General Assembly.

From a short-term, tactical perspective, Netanyahu has clearly won the first round. Obama had demanded a complete halt to settlement building and had told his audience in Cairo last June that "the settlements must stop." Netanyahu refused, hung tough through the summer and Obama eventually backed down. Indeed, the United States is now helping bury the Goldstone Report on Gaza and making it abundantly clear that Israeli intransigence won't affect the "special relationship."

Yet Obama also reiterated his commitment to two states in forceful terms, and said it was time for the parties to commence permanent status negotiations (something Netanyahu has resisted in the past). This development has led shrewd observers like Daniel Levy, M.J. Rosenberg, and FP's Marc Lynch to offer a guardedly optimistic interpretation of the events in New York, suggesting that Netanyahu may have won a tactical victory but suffered a strategic setback. Phil Weiss offers a similar appraisal on the Gaza report, suggesting that Obama and his team decided to let the Gaza report fall by the wayside in order to win over the center of the American Jewish community and put themselves in a better position to broker a two-state solution down the road. In essence, the optimists see Obama as playing a longer game, refusing to get bogged down by what are ultimately tactical issues and focused on the ultimate objective.

By contrast, Israeli observers like Uri Avnery and Gideon Levy offered far more pessimistic appraisals. Their early hopes that Obama and Mitchell would use U.S. leverage to halt the settlements and force Israel to disgorge the territories have been disappointed -- at least for now -- and they are clearly worried that Obama will prove to be all talk and no action. They believe that a two-state solution will simply not occur absent strong U.S. pressure, and they are beginning to doubt that Obama is up to the task.

None of us knows what Obama and his team will do in the future, or how subsequent events may alter the calculations and strategies of the key players. I lean toward the pessimistic side, however, for several reasons. First, Obama has yet to go beyond lofty rhetoric in his approach to this problem, and he has yet to display any serious backbone when it comes to dealing with the Israel lobby. He tossed advisor Rob Malley over the side during the campaign, distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, remained studiously silent about Gaza during the fighting, and allowed hardliners to torpedo the appointment of Charles Freeman to the National Intelligence Council during his first month in office. It is entirely possible that he'll get tough when the crunch comes; but there's no sign of it so far.

Second, if Obama couldn't even convince Netanyahu to agree to a temporary settlement freeze (and remember, virtually every country in the world regards all settlement building as illegal under international law), then how is he going to persuade him to agree to the terms that everyone knows are the building blocks of a deal? Specifically, how will he get Netanyahu to agree to: 1) borders that provide for a viable Palestinian state, 2) a Palestinian capital in a substantial portion of East Jerusalem, 3) a mutually acceptable arrangement over the holy sites in the Old City, 4) some sort of agreement on the refugee issue (aka "right of return") and 5) the removal of a substantial number of the 300,000 Israelis who are now living outside the 1967 borders?  Maybe there's a rabbit that Obama will pull out of his hat, but it's hard to see where it will come from right now.

Third, as Matt Duss noted yesterday on his own blog, Obama is likely to face something of a credibility problem going forward.  The next time he tries to press Netanyahu, Bibi's hardline advisors are bound to tell him "relax, stick to your guns, just drag things out and eventually the President will blink." In other words, having lost Round 1, Obama and Mitchell will have to work twice as hard to convince Jerusalem that they mean business next time around.

I'd be delighted to be proven wrong about all this, of course, and I did find some of the President's words encouraging (I usually do). I suggested in the Washington Post last week that he needs to use his bully pulpit more effectively, and start explaining to the American people why a two-state solution is in everyone's interest, and the sooner the better. Some of his remarks pointed in that direction, but he's going to have to do a lot more to win enough of the right people over.

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Former (future?) GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been on a visit to Israel this week, sponsored by a pro-settler organization. According to the Associated Press, Huckabee said "'there is no room for a Palestinian state' in the middle of the Jewish homeland, and Israel should be able to build settlements wherever it wants." He also said "The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic."

Given that current demographic trends suggest that Arabs will be a majority in the lands currently controlled by Israel in the not-too-distant future, Huckabee is either endorsing ethnic cleansing or calling for the permanent denial of democratic rights to the Arab residents of the Occupied Territories, which is a form of apartheid. Either way, he is no friend of Israel, and the policies he's endorsing will do great damage to US interests throughout the region.

I thought about writing at length about Huckabee's trip, but Glenn Greenwald, Richard Silverstein, and Spencer Ackerman already did, and I doubt I could improve on their insights. So I suggest you read them instead.

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This past Monday, President Obama met with the heads of a number of prominent Jewish groups, to talk about the state of U.S.-Israeli relations and the future direction of U.S. Middle East policy. Virtually all the news reports I've seen suggest that the attendees had a cordial and candid discussion. After reading through various accounts, I have three comments.

First, although a few individuals in the Israel lobby continue to downplay its influence, the very fact that this meeting was held is additional testimony to its important role in shaping U.S. Middle East policy. Why was Barack Obama taking time from his busy schedule to meet with the heads of groups like AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, J Street, Hadassah, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (among others)? Simple: he knows that these groups have a lot of political power. He also knows that the success of his Middle East policy depends in large part on getting significant support from them. In a political system like ours, where well-organized interest groups routinely wield disproportionate influence over the issues they care about, holding a White House sit-down with these key leaders was smart politics.

Second, the meeting also makes it clear that there have been significant changes within the lobby over the past several years, and that there is an evident rift between those who think the United States should continue to the same "special relationship" with Israel, and those who believe that it would be in Israel and America’s interest if Washington adopted a more candid and nuanced policy toward the Jewish state. It is noteworthy that the invitees included representatives from both J Street and Americans for Peace Now -- groups that openly favor a two-state solution and have been backing Obama's campaign to halt all construction in the settlements. Maybe even more noteworthy, the more hard-line groups were remarkably restrained in defending the settlement enterprise.

What’s going on here? Some of these developments reflect the more open discourse that has begun to emerge on Israeli policy and the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Thankfully, it is no longer taboo to discuss these subjects, as it once was. This shift is occurring in good part because a growing number of American Jews are worried that Israel is on a path to become an apartheid state, and that the United States has been enabling that development by giving Israel generous and unconditional support.

The failed Lebanon war of 2006 and the brutal onslaught against Gaza earlier this year have also raised concerns that Israel has lost its moral and strategic compass. You know a country is in trouble when it routinely attacks respected human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, or when a group of its own soldiers releases damning personal testimony about their own misconduct in Gaza. (The courage and candor of these Israeli dissidents remains a redeeming feature of Israel’s otherwise troubled democracy). And you know the hardliners in the lobby are getting desperate when they have to hire a professional spinmeister to come up with Orwellian talking points defending the occupation, such as the bizarre claim that removing illegal settlers from the West Bank would be a form of "ethnic cleansing." (For more on the latter shenanigans, see Richard Silverstein's valuable commentary here, here, and here.)

Third, it is also clear that the hard-line leadership remains trapped in old-think on a lot of these issues. For example, ADL head Abraham Foxman complained before the meeting that "What troubles me most is a lack of consultation and the need [for the administration] to do things publicly. There's a [U.S.-Israel] relationship of 60 years and all of a sudden they’re treating Israel like everyone else. I find that disturbing." In the same vein, Malcolm Hoenlein of the President's Conference reportedly told Obama at the meeting that differences between the U.S. and Israel should be kept private, and that progress toward peace had only occurred when there was "no daylight" between American and Israeli leaders.

To his credit, Obama immediately pointed out the flaw in that line of argument, saying "For eight years, there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished." He might have added that there was precious little daylight during the Clinton years either, which is one of the many reasons why the Oslo process came to naught.

What Foxman and Hoenlein still don't understand is that the special relationship is in fact harmful to the United States and Israel alike. It has allowed Israel to pursue foolish policies -- like building settlements -- and implicated the United States in them. Israel would be much better off if the United States did "treat it like everyone else," or at least like other democracies. If it did, the U.S. would back Israel when it acts in ways we deem desirable, but U.S. leaders would criticize and oppose Israel's actions when they are contrary to U.S. interests or values. In the end, a normal relationship between the two countries would be far healthier than the "special relationship" that Hoenlein and Foxman have long defended.

On this point, Obama could have quoted former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who notes in his excellent book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace that the two presidents who made "meaningful breakthroughs on the way to an Arab-Israeli peace" (Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush) succeeded because they were "ready to confront Israel head on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America." Obama is actually employing a smarter approach than these two predecessors. Like Carter and Bush, he appears to be willing "to confront Israel head on," but instead of "overlooking" the sensibilities of pro-Israel groups, as they did, he is doing his best to bring them along. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street put the point well after the White House meeting: Obama "knows how to push while he’s hugging."

Obama also made it clear that the Palestinians and the Arab states also need to do more (a point that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underscored in a major speech yesterday), and that Washington will have to put pressure on all sides. But the United States has lots of experience putting pressure on the Palestinians and the Arabs -- in fact, one attendee at the meeting quoted Obama as saying that U.S. pressure on the Arabs is a "dog bites man" story -- so that will not be hard to do. Pressuring Israel, on the other hand, has been a much rarer occurrence, but it is now necessary if Obama hopes to move toward a two-state solution and foster lasting peace between Israel and the Arab states around it. If he sticks to the positions he's already outlined and follows through -- and if the leaders he met with on Monday have the good sense to back him -- Obama just might succeed.

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Our FP colleague Marc Lynch notes that Obama’s principled stand on Israeli settlement expansion and a two-state solution may be paying off in other ways, most notably in an easing in checkpoints, etc., on the West Bank. This is encouraging news and I don’t want to sound like a killjoy, but it is important to keep the big picture in mind.

After all, as Marc notes, at the same time that Israel is easing restrictions on the West Bank, they've apparently approved the construction of another 240 homes at an outpost near the Palestinian city of Ramallah. One hand giveth, the other hand taketh away.

At this point, freezing settlement expansion, lifting checkpoints, building up more effective and professional Palestinian security forces, reforming Fatah, trying to get Hamas to recognize Israel, etc., are all just means to an end; they are not ends in themselves. As Obama appears to understand, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be put to rest until there are two states for two peoples, and the Palestinian state cannot be some sort of permanently crippled Bantustan akin to the open-air prison that now exists in Gaza. Until Israelis, Palestinians, and their supporters elsewhere get to that finish line, in short, we haven’t really solved anything. 

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There's been a blizzard of commentary on Obama's speech in Cairo, and a couple of pieces caught my eye. Daniel Levy at the New America Foundation has a thoughtful analysis up on his blog, and David Ignatius at the Washington Post hits the nail on the head regarding Obama's task going forward: Money quote:

Obama has a rare gift for seeking the middle ground -- on race, on national security, even on abortion. But it will be hard to stay in the middle on this one. Obama will have to articulate U.S. policy more clearly and emphatically than have any of his predecessors, and he will have to demonstrate that he means what he says. To make peace, he will first have to make some enemies."

We know who some of those enemies are: terrorists and other extremists whose political agendas are advanced by prolonging the conflict in the region, and whose visions are fueled by a dogmatic conviction that their particular God is on their side and that their opponents deserve nothing.  It’s no surprise that Osama bin Laden issued a video message trying to pre-empt the speech, or that the Hamas spokesman said it was no different from George W. Bush. The good news is that this doesn’t seem to have been the reaction of most of his intended audience in the Muslim world (for a good rundown, see Juan Cole here). And I'm betting it played even better with broad populations than it did with various elite commentators.

Obama faces some real enemies on the other side too. Courtesy of Mondoweiss, check out this video by Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana from Jerusalem, documenting the hatred, contempt and yes, racism of a bunch of young, drunk and rowdy Israeli-Americans in Jerusalem. I don't think one should read too much into a single video, insofar as lots of people say stupid and hateful things when they are plastered. (Remember Mel Gibson?) But words can have consequences, and we've seen too often where such sentiments can lead. Obama is looking to unite moderates in search of just and workable solutions to the region's many problems, but as Ignatius notes, rejectionists on both sides aren't going to just fold their tents. 

After a day's reflection, my biggest concern is that the Cairo speech has really raised the stakes. If Obama is unable or unwilling to move beyond speechifying and make some genuine shifts in U.S. policy, he will have unintentionally reinforced Arab and Muslim beliefs that the problem is intrinsic to the United States itself, and not just to a particular period in history (e.g., the Cold War, or the post-9/11 era), or a particular president (George W. Bush). If America's first black president -- a man with a Muslim name, a cosmopolitan background, and a remarkable capacity to express his awareness of the concerns of those with whom he disagrees--cannot get beyond rhetoric, then many of the people who applauded yesterday are going to be profoundly disillusioned. Some of them will conclude that the United States is in fact at war with Islam -- no matter what Obama might say -- and extremists on both sides will be quick to say "I told you so." 

Obama quoted the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran in his speech yesterday. I'm not religious, but I think the scriptural passage that applies now is James 2:24: "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."

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