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.
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Read More
(35)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE