Posted By Stephen M. Walt Share

I was wrong.  I thought it made little sense for President Obama to deliver a speech to the AIPAC policy conference, because he'd lose points globally if all he did was pander, and he'd face a firestorm at home if he told the truth and offered up a little tough love. Plus, I thought it was a little demeaning for a sitting president to appear in front of any foreign policy lobbying group. 

But Obama was cleverer than that, which is one of the countless reasons why he is president and I am not. Instead of choosing between pandering and speaking truth to power, he did both.

Specifically, he offered up the usual bromides about shared values and ironclad commitments, and put down various markers about the U.N. vote and Hamas and security that were obviously intended to defuse suspicions. He also used the opportunity to expose how his critics-including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu-had deliberately mischaracterized what he had said in his speech at the State Department last Thursday, especially his reference to the 1967 borders as a baseline for negotiations.

But the important part of the speech was when he told AIPAC what everyone knows: Israel and its die-hard supporters here in the United States have a choice. Down one road is a viable two-state solution that will guarantee Israel's democratic and Jewish character, satisfy Palestinian national aspirations, remove the stigma of looming apartheid, turn the 2007 Arab Peace Plan into a reality and ensure Israel's acceptance in the region, facilitate efforts to contain Iran, and ultimately preserve the Zionist dream. Down another road lies the folly of a "greater Israel," in which a minority Jewish population tries to permanently subjugate an eventual Arab majority, thereby guaranteeing endless conflict, accelerating the gradual delegitimization of Israel in the eyes of the rest of the world, handing Iran a potent wedge issue, and making the United States look deeply hypocritical whenever it talks about self-determination and human rights.

The speech also tells you how much Obama has learned since taking office. After being repeatedly humiliated by Netanyahu and the lobby ever since the June 2009 Cairo speech, Obama has learned that he can't take them on directly. By necessity, therefore, he's now relying on the indirect approach. His strategy is to keep pointing out what is palpably obvious: the alternative that Netanyahu and AIPAC propose is simply not going to work, and the costs of trying to pursue it will only increase with time. And because this argument has the merit of being true, more and more people are going to be convinced by it.

It would be better, of course, if a great power like the United States could use its considerable leverage directly, in order to bring the parties to an agreement.  Indeed, it would have been far, far better had the U.S. done so during the Oslo peace process, instead of acting like "Israel's lawyer."  But given political realities in the region and the lobby's continued influence here in the United States, what Obama did yesterday was probably the best one could hope for.   I doubt it will be enough, but it was better than I expected.

 

BRENDA1183

5:58 PM ET

May 23, 2011

...if you don't expect too much

Professor Walt, I liked your last post, it resonated with me personally. I did not expect much at all from Obama. I didn't vote for him. I did what I've done since the second Clinton administration, gave my vote to Nader as a political statement of resistance.

But in spite of myself, I got all fired up over Obama's State Dept. speech! Hope came rushing back in. Obama did much more than what I expected him to do. Much more.

So let's see if he's got the balls to use the power of the purse. That really and truly is the only thing that this arrogant Israeli government will pay attention to. Your analysis of the AIPAC speech was in line with what I had hoped for. I hoped against hope that Obama had not resorted to pandering to AIPAC, and I thank you for that.

 

LAUR

10:39 AM ET

May 24, 2011

destruction of israel

ok. that certainly gives us the right to kill them all. what method should we use? should we look for history of that?

 

NEOLEFT

11:09 AM ET

May 24, 2011

Text book racism from USMARINE101

According to right wing Zionists like USMARINE101, Palestinian are incapable of havign legitimate national aspirations. All they obsess about 24/7 is how to destroy Israel.

After all, what else could they possibly want?

If citingfrom a member of the PLO Executive Committee to represent all Palestinians, then surely one can quote Yousef Falay, or Avigdor Liberman.

What Arafat asserted in his biography was clearly an exaple of a man with an inflated ego gloating about his sense of importance. Ben Gurion stated as early as 1914, that the Palestinians were a national movement.

 

SMEDLEY BUTLER

12:55 PM ET

May 24, 2011

They seem to let anyone into the Corps these days...

USMARINE101 has gotten hold of some erroneos information. The meme about "no such thing as a Palestinian" is a fraud. The Joan Peters book "From Time Immemorial" has been toroughly debunked.

Arabs coming into the 20th century were largely tribal and not fitted yet to the Western concept of Nation-State. This is part of the reason the Zionist have so easily toyed with them.

But the Arabs were most defintely in Palestine for thousands of years and have a valid claim on the land. The Biritsh Mandate was supposed to shepherd the Arab tribes into a Westpahalian style nation-state based on the ever popular "self-determination". But that was undermined by the desire of European Jews to get hold of the land first.

 

FRISBEETARIAN

4:17 PM ET

May 24, 2011

USMARINE please stop

USMARINE please stop embarrassing yourself. You know next to nothing regarding the peoples of this area in the Middle East. Believe it or not, and to the contrary of the brainwashing you underwent by reading the ramblings of Zionist Modern Historians, you can actually tell a Palestinian from a Syrian or Lebanese just by looking at him/her.

 

CAL

8:40 PM ET

May 24, 2011

He isn't

a US Marine.
He's a hasbara troll who visits all the blogs that have Israel as a subject.
Sometimes he calls himself Marine 703 or some other number.

 

CHARYBDIS

6:08 PM ET

May 23, 2011

Listening to Obama these days

Listening to the President's speeches these days, and reading different comments on them, is sometimes frustrating. Obviously, what the President says can be understood very differently.

On one side: Professor Walt's benign reading above; on the other side a couple of articles on Jazeera, i.e.:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011523115553473983.html, and
Mitchell Plitnick (formerly of U.S. B'Tselem):
http://mitchellplitnick.com/2011/05/21/bibi-tries-to-give-obama-his-marching-orders/#comment-2317

Who is right? Can the very same text be heard/read so differently?

 

NEOLEFT

11:47 AM ET

May 24, 2011

No we mean Palestinians from Palestine

Youre seriously rattle USMARINE. Not a single one fo your posts has been on topic.

The same Palestinians who were decscnedents of the Hebrews who later converted to Chritisnity and Islam.

The argument about who are and who are not a people is a philosophical one, but entirely meaningless. Jews consider themselves a people, and they are welcome to do so, but that doesn't designate them any legal status.

The Palestinians have a right to Palestine, becasue they have lived there for many centuries and held title to the land.

The PLO was a resitance movement and hence was never intended to represent a state, mush in the way that the Irgun, Stern or Haganah didn't. The PA was founded to do precisely that, represent the Palestinian nation.

>> Most leaders of the PLO were from the elsewhere in the region, Arafat for example was an Egyptian

So what? Most of Israel's leaders are from elsewhere. Ben-Gurion was Polish as was Menachem Begin. Shamir, Meir etc were born in Russia. Was it a mistake therefore, that these people were recognized as representatives of the local Jewish population?

 

SMEDLEY BUTLER

12:57 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Standards dropping for the Marine Corps...

The idea that Arabs were not in Palestine concurrent with and long before Zionist Jews is a proven fraud. Don't be so gullible.

But if you persist in buying into the propaganda, try this on for size: Arabia is still closer to Plaestine than Russia, the Ukraine and Europe, where the Jewish colonists came from.

 

FRISBEETARIAN

4:31 PM ET

May 24, 2011

No, you uncultured, unlearned

No, you uncultured, unlearned mouth piece. Here is a quick lesson that im sure you'll learn nothing from: the area, and contrary to your whimsically narrow belief, has had hundreds of civilizations that inhabited it. From the Canaanites, to the Babylonians, to the Assyrians, to the Hebraic tribes, Romans, Greeks, Phoenician, Achaeans or the people who lived in Anatolia aka Troy(recent archeological discoveries have showed that after the Greeks conquered Troy, the Achaens dispersed and settled in different regions. One of the regions that they possibly settled in is present day Palestine. And they called themselves "Philistines". How do we know this? Because the Philistines appear right after the invasion of Troy and their bronze works and pottery look almost identical to the ones found in many different Achaen pockets in Anatolia).

So the whole region isn't composed of just Arabs, as you try to proclaim. When the Arabs came into the region, it was already inhabited by many different peoples. They invaded and settled, and the melange diversified.

Read: the people in Palestine have been in Palestine for thousands of years. Some even before Jews. The people are a melange of civilizations. Its not as idiotically simple as you put it: a bunch of arabs came and invaded so we dont have palestinians but arabs blablalbla. ffs go read something.

 

FRISBEETARIAN

6:09 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Great, im being lectured from

Great, im being lectured from a USMARINE about the ancestry of my people.

 

FRISBEETARIAN

6:12 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Very simple question there

Very simple question there USMARINE, since you seem to be the expert on the origins of the people of the Levant(im guessing not more than 2 books read on the subject): do the Lebanese or Palestinians look like Khalijis?

 

FRISBEETARIAN

1:29 PM ET

May 25, 2011

Well since SOME of them look

Well since SOME of them look like Khalijis as you've just admitted, and since you explained that groups of them affiliate their ancestry to non-Arab peoples, why are you still contradicting yourself and saying that all of the Palestinians stem from the Arab peninsula?

 

FRISBEETARIAN

6:07 PM ET

May 25, 2011

Why are you pointing out that

Why are you pointing out that they look like the rest of the people of the region when i asked you whether they looked like Khalijis? Trying to shy away from answering the precise question are we? And of course they will bear some similarities to the rest of the region's people because of proximity, no need to state the obvious silly. BUT you can still differentiate between a Palestinian and a Lebanese when you're taking a walk in Beirut for instance.

Oh what a hypocrite :D, we both know that prior to 1946 there was nothing called Jordan and it was only fabricated to house the ousted Palestinians, silly. Why are still bringing the subject of Jordan up when it plays against you. Palestinians will look like Jordanians because Jordanians are original Palestinians ousted from their lands. Just like the Palestinians in the camps of Lebanon look like the Palestinians of Gaza :D. This is really too funny.

 

ELLERVEIRA

6:30 PM ET

May 23, 2011

Yes and no

He certainly did something his predecessor could never have done but I am not at all certain that Prof. Walt's assumptions are valid. I doubt for example that Palestinians will be satisfied enough with a state constructed on 1967 terms to accept it as final. Particularly without any right of return. I suspect most Palestinians want Israel to be gone eventually (and I don't blame them); thus a 1967 boundaries "state" would be merely an interim step. The Middle East will not be settled for a long time to come. Eventually the Arabs will want the Zionist out. I look back to the Middle Ages when Christian Crusaders established confessional states on Arab land. These states, reinforced periodically by new immigration from Europe, lasted for some time. From roughly 1100 to about the end of the 13th century when the last remnants were overrun and the area was rid of Christian interlopers. Whether it will take the Arabs two centuries to drive out the Zionists we don't know. I do believe they will manage to do this eventually.

 

CHARYBDIS

8:04 PM ET

May 23, 2011

Yes and No

I agree; you are probably right. Time will tell.

 

BKAPLOVITZ

12:31 AM ET

May 24, 2011

" . . . satisfy[ing] Palestinian national aspirations . . . "

National Review Online
May 21, 2011

Borderline Treachery

Obama proposes leaving Israel indefensible.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Would that the president of the United States were as worried about Arizona’s border as he is about “Palestine’s.”

There was less fanfare about this latest Obama oration on the future of the Middle East, staged at Foggy Bottom, than there was about his 2009 Cairo speech. It was, however, every bit as delusional, and twice as treacherous.

As for the delusional, “Arab Spring” devotees are thrilled that the president has morphed into his predecessor on the Democracy Project — the enterprise in which future generations of American taxpayers go deeper into hock as our tapped-out government borrows more Chinese billions in order to stimulate the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the few shovel-ready projects President Obama has managed to find (and as a union, the Brothers make the SEIU look like the Jaycees). There is cruel irony in the Arab Spring hallucination, though, evidenced by this bit of rhetorical flourish: “Through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in six years.”

As the president utters his paeans to nonviolence, Egyptians and Iraqis continue slaughtering their religious minorities, and Bashar Assad, the “reformer,” murders his Syrian subjects in the street with the help of his friends at Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization whose day job is running the Lebanese government. The democracy fetish that gave Hezbollah and Hamas thugs the patina of political legitimacy is about to place Egypt under the thumb of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is itching to deep-six the treaty that has kept peace with Israel for 30 years. Speaking of Israel, it is recovering from a weekend in which thousands of “peaceful protesters” stormed four of its borders. Meanwhile, Iraq, which is touted by Arab Spring enthusiasts — and now even the Obama Left — as a Democracy Project success story, just announced that it will show its gratitude to American soldiers and taxpayers by expanding military ties with Iran, the world’s leading facilitator of Islamist terror. Pakistan, when not holding memorial services for Osama bin Laden, is exploding in bloodshed. The Obama administration is pleading with the Taliban to come to the negotiating table; you may recall that the Taliban is the reason our troops are still in Afghanistan preventing the collapse of its fragile “democracy” and the reopening of a safe haven for al-Qaeda. And al-Qaeda’s current safe haven, Yemen, is the site of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. So much for nonviolence.

The president stumbled into a bracing truth when he compared the change achieved by the people in the region, on the one hand, and by terrorists on the other. The change both are seeking is the same: the creation of sharia societies. Obama and Democracy Project promoters like to frame the Arab Spring as the ultimate rejection of al-Qaeda. But it is, at most, a discovery that there are better tactical routes to the promised land than al-Qaeda’s crude brutality. That promised land is not Western liberalism; it is Islam in all its repression of free speech, religious liberty, and equality — American principles the president spoke of his boundless determination to promote, while avoiding a single mention of Islam or sharia, which make achieving those principles a pipedream in this region.

Speaking of the promised land, the real one, Israel, is apparently getting smaller. This was Obama’s news-making treachery, and its ramifications are impossible to predict, other than that they bode ill.

For the first time in history, an American president explicitly called for a settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict premised on the 1967 borders — i.e., the 1949 armistice line, the tenuous state of play before Israel captured the West Bank (actually, Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights in the Arab war of aggression to destroy the Jewish state. To be sure, Obama said that there would also have to be territorial “swaps” to satisfy security concerns. This caveat, though, is cold comfort for Israel, America’s only true ally in the region.

To begin with, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to point out, the 1967 borders are “indefensible.” That is why they have never been the starting point of U.S. policy, even though they always hover over negotiations. In its implacable hostility to Israel, the “international community” chooses to forget how and why the Arab side first grabbed, then lost, the territory in question. For nearly a half century since the adoption of U.N. Security Council resolution 242, the Washington Institute’s Robert Satloff explains, American administrations of both parties have called for eventual Israeli withdrawal to “secure and recognized” borders, a phrase interpreted as “not synonymous with the pre-1967 boundaries.”

By his new articulation, President Obama would deny Israel crucial negotiating leverage. If there is to be a peace settlement (which there cannot be until there are two parties that want peace), Israel must have the latitude to make territorial concessions in exchange for reliable concessions on security and other matters. It cannot be coerced into accepting an Obama-imposed fait accompli that leaves it fatally vulnerable to enemies whose ferocity is only encouraged by this bullying.

Bear in mind that what are called the “1967 borders” were never agreed-upon national boundaries. The Jewish claim on Judea and Samaria has roots in antiquity. This fact was intentionally obfuscated by Obama’s earlier suggestion in Cairo that Israel’s creation was an ill-conceived payback for the Holocaust, as it is by the convention of referring to Judea and Samaria as “the West Bank,” the name Jordan gave them when it seized and occupied them at the conclusion of Israel’s war of independence. The Arabs, of course, never created a Palestinian state when it was within their power to do so. Thus, the final disposition of this territory has never been resolved. It is a subject for negotiations, not predetermined Palestinian sovereignty.

When, in the decades after the 1967 war, Israelis built homes in Judea and Samaria, they were building on ancient Jewish land. Hundreds of thousands of them now live in the thriving communities that the world, in its glossary of delegitimization, calls “settlements.” But recognizing how dramatically conditions on the ground had changed since 1967, President Bush declared in 2004 that that there could not realistically be “a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” As the Washington Times’ Eli Lake reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu — who was sandbagged by Obama’s newly announced policy only a day before his scheduled meeting with the president — will now press for a reaffirmation of this U.S. commitment, reminding Obama that Bush’s conclusion was overwhelmingly supported by Congress.

Not only is Obama’s new position on the borders a sellout of this American commitment to Israel; it is an adoption of Hamas’s position. This is palpably alarming for several reasons. The first involves rewarding terrorism, the Islamic practice of which Obama purports to be eradicating. Hamas (i.e., the Palestinian branch of the same Muslim Brotherhood that is poised to take the reins in neighboring Egypt) remains pledged to Israel’s destruction. In his speech, Obama paid lip service to the pie-in-the-sky assumption that Hamas will ultimately come to see terrorism as futile (even as the jihadists reap the benefits of practicing terror). But he did not demand that Palestinians convincingly renounce terror and accept without reservation Israel’s permanent existence as a Jewish state. This president’s demands are made only on Israel; Hamas gets hopey-changey cajoling.

Because it will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, Hamas’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders does not translate into support for the dreamy two-state solution. It is a way station to Hamas’s goal of a one-state solution. This is to be reached by an inside/outside strategy: The newly formed “Palestine” would continue to pressure Israel with terror attacks from without, while within Israel, Islamists would exploit democracy, assembling the critical mass of Israeli Arabs, leftists, and returned Palestinian “refugees” needed to destroy Israel’s character as a Jewish state.

Then there is the matter of timing. The president chose to announce his new position on the 1967 borders only days after the Palestinian Authority — run by Fatah, the “moderates” who maintain their own terrorist wing, the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades — formed a unity government with Hamas. Again, while from one side of his mouth the president claims the Arab Spring is a rejection of terror, from the other he tells the terrorists that their methods work.

In the course of insisting that the Palestinians must have their own sovereign state, Obama also slipped in the stipulation that it must be a contiguous state. Oughtn’t it to go without saying that Gaza does not abut Judea and Samaria? You can’t make them “contiguous” without ceding to the Palestinians the swath of Israel that would be needed to connect them.

To be fair, Obama is not the first to use this disturbing formulation. Bush State Department officials, who often seemed every bit as eager to placate the Palestinians, used to say “contiguous,” too. Still, hearing this word from a U.S. president who has already called for a territorial contraction that would make their country indefensible, and who seems decidedly blasé about its contiguity, Israelis cannot be blamed for wondering whether the land “swaps” Obama has in mind will carve Israel into separate slices.

For all the appalling things Obama did say, however, the worst was what he didn’t. In the greater scheme of things, borders are a subordinate issue, and they’d be a trivial one were it not for Israel’s existential security problems. Many rival countries have territorial disputes, but they either live with them or settle them because they do not question each other’s right to exist as sovereign nations. The Palestinians, by contrast, do not accept Israel’s existence. They do not want peace and they will not renounce terror. And why would they? Terror is serving them quite well, the “international community” having embraced the terrorists while making pariahs of the region’s only true democracy and beacon of human rights.

An American president who really wanted to outline the only worthy settlement of this intractable conflict could have given a very short speech. The Palestinians must accept Israel, they must convincingly renounce terrorism (none of this “resistance” legerdemain), and they must drop the ludicrous demand for a right of return that would effectively overrun Israel. If they did those three things, the territorial boundaries would take care of themselves, and Obama could go back to not worrying about America’s borders.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

© National Review Online 2011. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/267796/borderline-treachery-andrew-c-mccarthy

 

ELLERVEIRA

5:32 AM ET

May 24, 2011

Zionist paranoia

A lot of Zionist paranoia in that article. Typical. Expected. It shows pretty well why the Palestinians won't get much until they get some power. And that will be long in the future. Only the US could do anything for the Palestinians. And that would mean violently twisting Israel's arm until it cried "uncle" and no US President dares do that given the balance of forces in Washington. So forget it. Nothing much will happen. It will take decades, perhaps a century, before Israel fades away or whatever. Demography is not on its side, long term.

 

NMACE

5:59 AM ET

May 24, 2011

Water

Beyond the Palestinian issue, returning to the 1967 borders would include returning the Golan Heights to Syria and Shebaa Farms to Lebanon(?). It is often ignored how much of this issue also revolved around water rights, which is why Israel will not return those regions. That issue must also be addressed in order for a compromise to be reached.

 

NEOLEFT

11:49 AM ET

May 24, 2011

Wow, from Commentary cut and paste efforts to

cut and paste articels from the NRO.

It appears BKAPLOVITZ isn't even trying anymore to make an argument.

BTW BKAPLOVITZ, no one is reasing these, so youre wasting your time.

 

SMEDLEY BUTLER

1:00 PM ET

May 24, 2011

You take that seriously????

"Indefensible" is an indefensible intellectual fraud.

It's really simple: How many times have there been shooting wars between Israel and the Arabs?

Answer please.

And of those instances how many times did Israel successfully defend its borders?

I think you will find that the answer is 100%. EVERY TIME.

Thus, Israel is proven to be defensible.

 

BKAPLOVITZ

4:24 PM ET

May 24, 2011

In Spite Of Obama’s Ambush, Netanyahu Still Goes Home A Winner

From Commentary Magazine's "Contentions" Weblog
May 24, 2011

In Spite of Obama’s Ambush, Netanyahu Still Goes Home a Winner

By Jonathan S. Tobin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress today will illustrate a fact that was largely obscured by the controversy over President Obama’s Middle East policy speech. The Jewish state enjoys overwhelming and bipartisan support in this country.

Cynics will ascribe the support to the “Israel Lobby”—a.k.a. AIPAC—which has been holding its annual conference in the capital the last couple of days — or some other pro-Zionist force. But what conspiracy theorists like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (authors of The Israel Lobby) and their media ilk never seem to understand is that the cabal they believe manipulates U.S. policy is so large it encompasses both major political parties and an overwhelming majority of the American people.

As some have noted, the Republican Party seems to be trending more pro-Israel and the Democrats less in recent years. Yet as Alana reported earlier this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer both implicitly rebuked the president in their speeches to AIPAC. The reservoir of support for Israel and even for Netanyahu, who has again become something of a lightening rod for those who dislike his country, is strong both in Congress and the country. In spite of the fact that Obama specifically chose to ambush Netanyahu by lobbing his bombshell about the 1967 lines a day before the Israeli arrived in Washington for a visit, then—an almost unprecedented discourtesy for an ally—the prime minister will be loudly cheered today when he explains why Israel will not and cannot be forced back to those insecure borders.

Obama’s policy shift has made Israel’s diplomatic position more difficult and has presented an undeserved gift to the Palestinian Authority, which is determined in any event to torpedo negotiations by going to the United Nations to acquire a state without recognizing Israel’s legitimacy or promising an end to the conflict. But the alliance, based on both common values and a level of security cooperation that is so entrenched that it is almost beyond the capacity of any president now to destroy it, is still solid.

It is important to keep things in perspective. Last week, over at Jewish Ideas Daily, Elliot Jager wrote about the difficulties that David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister encountered on a trip to the United States in 1962 to meet President Kennedy. Kennedy wouldn’t even receive Ben Gurion at the White House, insisting instead on a “private” meeting at a New York hotel. Ben Gurion did not walk away with much from the summit. JFK prevaricated about selling—not giving—Israel anti-aircraft missiles (he would later agree to the sale) and demanded that the tiny Jewish state consider admitting Arab refugees. Kennedy and the State Department hoped that such a gesture would mollify Israel’s hostile Arab neighbors who were not prepared to accept it even within the borders that are now associated with the date 1967.

In spite of the criticism he has taken for having the chutzpah to talk back to Obama, Netanyahu will return home with the cheers of Congress still echoing in his ears secure in the knowledge that there is only so far that the president can go in his campaign to pressure Israel. That is a feeling that David Ben Gurion would have loved to experience.

--Posted By By Jonathan S. Tobin 05.24.2011 - 10:24 AM

Copyright Commentary Magazine 1997-2011 All Rights Reserved

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/24/in-spite-of-obama's-ambush-netanyahu-still-goes-home-a-winner/

 

ORKSTER

6:46 PM ET

May 23, 2011

...in other words nothing was

...in other words nothing was promised, nothing happened, nothing was going to happen.

 

COURTNEYME109

8:56 PM ET

May 23, 2011

The Money Shot

"...Down another road lies the folly of a "greater Little Satan" in which a minority j'ish population tries to permanently subjugate an eventual Arab majority, thereby guaranteeing endless conflict, accelerating the gradual delegitimization of Little Satan in the eyes of the rest of the world, handing Iran a potent wedge issue, and making Great Satan look deeply hypocritical whenever it talks about self-determination and human rights..."

Au contraire mon professor!

1. Creating Palestine via 1967 borders practically guarantees a Nakbahlicious Redux of risible proportions and a Greater Little Satan. And if that happens - forget about Palestine as new terms like "Annexation" and "Right Of Relocation" enter the forever quest.

2. A Persian wedge issue is quite a joke - until warfare broke out betwixt East Palestine and Little Satan - it would actually embolden Tehran's Preacher Command simply because - in their view - it could be interpreted to validate the narrative that the shias are the only force on earth that can consistently stymie Little Satan on - and off - the battlefield.

3. 44's Bystander in Chief mode while the Beseejies killed Iranian protestors on city streets is most likely the multi platinum cd of diplopolititary '...deeply hypocritical about self-determination and human rights" meme (Syria may be a close 2nd). Totally jank to argue Palestine could ever come close!

Failing to hold Arab League accountable for the 3 No's of Khartoum, failure to soft power Palestine into renouncing the destruction of a democratic member of UN, failure to renounce choice bits of official OBL loving terrorists like HAMAS' intolerant charter, and the weirdly uncool bit about refusing to Officially Recog Little Satan and swap ambassadors all ensure Palestinian Sympathy Fatigue will continue

 

NEOLEFT

11:19 PM ET

May 23, 2011

@ COURTNEYME109

1. Are you suggesting that even after comming to an agreement, Israel will continmue to steal Palestinian land?

2. There was nver a war between East Palestine and Little Satan.

3. How many Iranian protesters do believe have been killed on the streets?

>> Failing to hold Arab League accountable for the 3 No's of Khartoum

3 No's of Khartoum have been replaced by the Arab Peace Initiative, which Israel has said no to.

>> failure to soft power Palestine into renouncing the destruction of a democratic member of UN

The Quartet has judged that the PA have succeeded in every aspect of denouncing violence against Israel.

>> failure to renounce choice bits of official OBL loving terrorists like HAMAS' intolerant charter

 

ELLERVEIRA

4:26 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Saudi joke

Yes but the joke is that although Arab, the Saudi tyranny does effectively nothing for the Palestinians and is quite content to see Israel lord it over them. Arabia is the US's prime "house Arab", a Muslim nation under our thumb, but completely. One that has supported all the Arab dictators in the area, particularly Mubarak, its great friend. Money to al-Qaeda, not much in fact, is simply payoff money, the sort a nightclub would pay the Mafia to stay in business. Israel like Arabia a lot and so does Washington. The Muslim nation they don't like is Iran, since it isn't under their thumb.

 

COURTNEYME109

4:45 PM ET

May 24, 2011

@Neoleft

YAWN. Please re read the original commentary again. The points are valid, fully crunk and - this is the hot part - simply undeniable.

Unlike a certain follow up in the heated moment of yet another underwhelming emo heavy fact free involuntary response to stimuli

 

COURTNEYME109

7:23 PM ET

May 24, 2011

@USMARINE

True. Always tho't that was one of his more endearing charms! LOL

 

BRENDA1183

9:22 PM ET

May 23, 2011

the view from inside Israel...

it's a matter of perception, it depends on where you are coming from how you will analyse the Obama speeches. this is how a prominent Israeli liberal sees it --

-- Obama fed Netanyahu a heaping portion of Passover bitter herbs garnished with sweet apple haroset. He did not try to make nice. After long deliberations, the die was cast at the White House. Plans would no longer be tailor-made for the government of hour in Israel, as America's perennial Middle East adviser Dennis Ross was known to do.

Yesterday came the turn of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has learned a thing or two about Netanyahu's maneuvers. Precisely in the run-up to a tough election year, Obama decided to adopt the approach of the secretary of state, to take off the kid gloves and show the true face of the head of the Jewish state on his guest's home court.

Obama's AIPAC speech is the bill the president is submitting to Netanyahu for the dinners that the Israeli prime minister thought he had gotten for free. The time has come to pay for American opposition to the Goldstone commission report on the Israeli incursion in Gaza and the veto of the UN Security Council's condemnation of construction in West Bank settlements. Obama denied Netanyahu the opportunity to exercise a veto on the terms for negotiations with the Palestinians. The U.S. president said that negotiations could not be conducted with Hamas as long as the organization does not recognize Israel's right to exist, refuses to accept existing international obligations and engages in terrorism. The Palestinian party to the negotiations was and remains the Palestine Liberation Organization and not Hamas.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/obama-the-first-u-s-president-to-tell-aipac-the-truth-1.363403

it's important to energize the Israeli peace camp. and if Obama would see to it that those American aide checks to Israel were slow in arriving ...

 

DIANA RELKE

9:53 PM ET

May 23, 2011

who was listening?

"His strategy is to keep pointing out what is palpably obvious: the alternative that Netanyahu and AIPAC propose is simply not going to work, and the costs of trying to pursue it will only increase with time. And because this argument has the merit of being true, more and more people are going to be convinced by it."

Almost certainly Bibi heard this message but doesn't believe it -- or can't take the chance of believing it because he's more interested in preserving his coalition than preserving Israel.

But did AIPAC members hear it? And if they did, what action can they take? Or are they, too, more interested in preserving Bibi's coalition than they are in preserving Israel?

In sum, who knows what the rank-and-file AIPAC members think about this truth?

 

AARON11

10:55 PM ET

May 23, 2011

If the Palestinians were

If the Palestinians were smart, they would give in to the Greater Israel folly: That would become the One State solution.

And they will eventually own that state since the zionists dont make enough babies.

 

ELLERVEIRA

4:34 PM ET

May 24, 2011

But

Israel would never accept a one state solution. If it would, I have no doubt Palestinians would jump at it. It isn't their lack of smarts, it is Israel's fear, knowing a one state solution would bring Israel to an end rather soon. It is Israel that won't allow a one state solution.

 

AARON11

11:11 PM ET

May 23, 2011

Seen This!??

http://www.theonion.com/articles/government-official-who-makes-perfectly-valid-well,20499/

Government Official Who Makes Perfectly Valid, Well-Reasoned Point Against Israel Forced To Resign

May 20, 2011 | ISSUE 47•20

WASHINGTON—State Department diplomat Nelson Milstrand, who appeared on CNN last week and offered an informed, thoughtful analysis implying that Israel could perhaps exercise more restraint toward Palestinian moderates in disputed territories, was asked to resign Tuesday. “The United States deeply regrets any harm Mr. Milstrand’s careful, even-tempered, and factually accurate remarks may have caused our democratic partner in the Middle East,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an unequivocal condemnation of the veteran foreign-service officer’s perfectly reasonable statements. “U.S. policy toward Israel continues to be one of unconditional support and fawning sycophancy.” Milstrand, 63, will reportedly appear at an AIPAC conference to offer a full apology as soon as his trial concludes and his divorce is finalized.

 

RFJK

1:32 AM ET

May 24, 2011

'It will be all this or all that.'

When Lincoln was fiercely attacked by friend and foe regarding the purpose and desired outcome of the US Civil war he retorted, and I paraphrase:

'It will be all this or all that.' His meaning being all free or all slave.

Obama's also framing a stark choice Israelis are going to make consciously or by default, wanted or not.

 

MUSE

7:06 AM ET

May 24, 2011

Netanyahu and the one-state solution

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US legislators on Tuesday. He will, no doubt, tell members of Congress that he supports a two-state solution, but his support will be predicated on four negative principles: no to Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 borders; no to the division of Jerusalem; no to the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and no to a Palestinian military presence in the new state.

The problem with Netanyahu's approach is not so much that it is informed by a rejectionist worldview. The problem is not even Netanyahu's distorted conception of Palestine's future sovereignty, which Meron Benvenisti aptly described as "scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world, and limited to the height of its residential buildings and the depth of its graves. The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control..."

Rather, the real problem is that Netanyahu's outlook is totally detached from current political developments, particularly the changing power relations both in the Middle East and around the world. Indeed, his approach is totally anachronistic.

Netanyahu's not-so-implicit threat that Israel will continue its colonial project if the Palestinians do not accept some kind of "Bantustan solution" no longer carries any weight. The two peoples have already passed this juncture.

The Palestinians have clearly declared that they will not bow down to such intimidations, and it is now clear that the conflict has reached an entirely new intersection.

At this new intersection, there are two signs. The first points towards the west and reads "viable and just two-state solution", while the second one points eastward and reads "power sharing".

The first sign is informed by years of political negotiations (from the Madrid conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis) alongside the publication of different initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi Plan to the Nussaiba and Ayalon Plan), all of which have clarified what it would take to reach a peace settlement based on the two-state solution. It entails three central components:

1. Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 border, with possible one-for-one land swaps so that ultimately the total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.

2. Jerusalem's division according to the 1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods. Both these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.

3. The acknowledgement of the right of return of all Palestinians, but with the following stipulation: while all Palestinians will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or, alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.

Israel's continued unwillingness to fully support these three components is rapidly leading to the annulment of the two-state option and, as a result, is leaving open only one possible future direction: power sharing.

The notion of power sharing would entail the preservation of the existing borders, from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and an agreed upon form of a power sharing government led by Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and based on the liberal democracy model of the separation of powers. It also entails a parity of esteem - namely, the idea that each side respects the other side's identity and ethos, including language, culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the bi-national one-state solution.

Many Palestinians have come to realise that even though they are currently under occupation, Israel's rejectionist stance will unwittingly lead to the bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is still miles behind the current juncture, it is high time for a Jewish Israeli and Jewish American Awakening, one that will force their respective leaders to support a viable democratic future for the Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. One that will bring an end to the violent conflict.

 

NEOLEFT

12:38 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Youre the one missing he point GILADG

The Dome of the Rock might stand on the site of the First and Second Jewish Temple, but it was the Romans that destroyed those temples. The ruins are not of any Jewish Temples but of Roman structures that were built there. There have been no remnants of the Temples discovered. There simply is no archaeological evidence yet discovered. Archaeologists have come up with a few false alarms, insisting they’ve found something, only to discover that the findings are Roman, not Jewish.

The Western Wall was also a Roman structure that Jews began praying at relatively recently.

Even in the City of David excavation, the director of the project admitted they have found no evidence that David or Abraham ever existed. They don’t even know what David’s name really was.

 

NEOLEFT

10:54 PM ET

May 24, 2011

I have read Josephus Flavius, GILADG

Although his credentials and a historian are highly suspect, seeing as he also wrote about Jesus, without any evince of his existence.
And yes, he did write about the Jewish War and the destruction of the Second Temple, but again, he produced no evidence and none of that evidence exists today.
Maybe the Vatican does something deep in its vaults, but that's a big maybe.

 

NEOLEFT

11:05 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Jewish Temples

GILADG you are repeating the same lie on 2 occasions,. The Palestinians are descendants fo the Hebrews, so that are a great deal older that 150 years.

>> All that Israel wants regarding the Temple Mount and the remnants of the First and Second Temples is to leave things alone. Don't dig, don't destroy anything, just leave it alone.

On the contrary. Israel has been aching to dig underneath the Dome of the Rock and excavate.

The Palestinians are no terrified as to what might be found in the ground, they are terrified of seeing as scared religious site desecrated by Israel. After al, Israel have been digging in East Jerusalem at the City of David project site for year and come up with nothing. In fact, archaeologists have been digging for close to a century and come up with nothing.

There is no evidence that any archaeological evidence that ties the site to Jews has been removed. That is simply paranoid conspiracy.

AS with Abraham and David, no dependence has yet been produced that Solomon even existed, so whatever it is they call the Solomon Stable area is pure speculation.

So on one hand you claimed that there is archaeological evidence to support your thesis, but when challenged, the best you can came up with is that it might be there, but we haven't fond it...which is a common theme.

The world is supporting the historic nationalist aspirations of an indigenous population based on justice, morality and law. Judaism isn't going anywhere and the creation of a Palestinian state is no threat to either Judaisn or Israel.

After all, Israel was created in 1948, and it's creation had nothing to do with what migh have taken place 3,500 years ago.

Between the year 100 AD and 1800 AD, the land was controlled by about a dozen different nations and empires. So, by your twisted rationale, they too have a claim to the land including Iran (Persian), Italy, (Roman), Greece, Syria (Assyrian), Iraq (Babylonian), Saudi Arabia (Muslim) etc. etc…

 

CHARYBDIS

10:50 AM ET

May 24, 2011

PM Netanyahu making speech in U.S. Congress

Professor Walt, could you please inform us: How often/rare is a Prime Minister (or similar person) allowed to speak in a foreign country's Parliament, ever? Surely, this happens only on special occasions, no?

And, especially, if the President/King of the hosting country is not present in the Parliament? At the time, he may even be engaged in some trip abroad.

I think I remember that Winston Churchill once spoke in the U.S. Congress. Maybe president Reagan spoke in the British Parliament.

President Obama made a speaking tour in Europe and in Egypt in 2009, but was he really speaking in the Parliaments?

What other examples can be found?

 

WILLIAM BONNEY

1:39 PM ET

May 24, 2011

What's it all about

I wonder why Professor Walt thinks it's so difficult for the Palestinians to say that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, as this would go a long way to negotiating a peace.

I mean what would it cost them.

At most it would be the assassination of the Arab who uttered the words.

Oh, but I forgot this is strictly about Palestinian independence

 

IAN

3:39 PM ET

May 24, 2011

I stand hopeful

after that speech. It was another good speech from a great orator. And once again, like post-Cairo, we stand hopeful that things will change for the better. He's said what's wrong, he's said what he thinks would be a good platform for beginning to fix it. At least to bringing the groups together for negotiations. Now, all we wait for is for the actions to follow the words.

I stand hopeful again that something tangible will happen... again. Obama is digging himself in deep. If he doesn't follow through very well, there's going to be a lot of angry people on one side and a bunch of dissilusioned people on the other.

Unless he uses this as his reelection campaign promise, that if he gets reelected, the Middle East could be changed. <-- This is where he's going with it, I think.

 

BRENDA1183

5:32 PM ET

May 24, 2011

good for you, Ian

to give in to despair, which is what seems to be happening to the left/liberal voice these days, is to bolster the Israeli right wing.

it's not all up to the US. there is a political opposition in Israel, and there is the potential for the Israeli peace camp to vote the Likud coalition out of office, especially if the perception in Israel becomes that Netanyahu's tactics are backfiring. Israel seems convinced that it needs US aide to survive, so let Obama rattle that cage and see what happens.

if Obama has set this up to draw the full public arrogance of Netanyahu, and I think maybe he has -- his aides mentioned "off the record" that he thinks Netanyahu is unable to give concessions leading to peace -- then this is a game still in progress. I wish Obama the best. And it bothers me a lot that not only is he reaping a whirlwind of criticism from the right, from the status-quo Israeli supporters, he is also coming in for a lot of criticism from the left.

by-the-by, I love the great reception he is getting in Britain! It's not every visiting head of state that gets to take tea with the Queen and then stay on for a couple of days with her and Philip at their place. That vulgarian Netanyahu could only dream of being received with such honor :>)

 

NEOLEFT

12:48 AM ET

May 25, 2011

Netanyahu is lucky he doesn't have to deal with such archaic b.s

Just a bunch of religious extremists in his coalition who want to take Israel back to the 17th century.

Nothing archaic about that right UNMARINE?

 

NEOLEFT

6:10 AM ET

May 25, 2011

Yes, Jews do suport the US

As do any other American citizens.

Hamas and Fatah. Hamas are not American citizens and have no reason or oblgation to support the US, especialyl seeing as the US has worked for decades to undermine the both of them.

No one is jealous of you being a marine, because you were never a marine.

 

PUPIL

7:31 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Textbook racism

NEOLEFT and others can blame only Walt on the strong but necessary ripost delivered by USMARINE101. Walt's passage

"Instead of choosing between pandering and speaking truth to power, he did both"

clearly reiterates the policy of the Aryan Lobby (unofficially lead by Walt) that intends to split this country on the racist basis and drive Jewish Americans termed by the Aryans as Jewish, or Israel Lobby from from the position of any influence. That would make the Aryan Lobby with its barely hidden neo-National-Socialist agenda the dominant force in US.

The Lobby systematically portrays the Jewish Americans as an evil force desperately confronted by the American Aryans, who in their convictions are the only legitimate power destined to rule the world.

He portrays the President, whom he evidently considers somewhat sympathetic to the Lobby, as the lone knight fighting Jewish money that support centuries old Jewish onslaught on "white man" destiny to "make peace" and rule the world. According to their supremacist views Israel must be destroyed or mutilated so the Jews could not resist anymore any assaults on their life and rights. Islamists and Arabs are considered by the Lobby as ideologically strong, pure people, and the natural allies.

Walt is nothing more than a part of "intellectual" branch of the "Aryan Nation" group, planted in academic circles.

 

NEOLEFT

11:23 PM ET

May 24, 2011

Textbook deception

Walt stated the obivious and the fact that the diatribes posted by USMARINE101 are off topic and nothing more and a desperate effort to muddy the waters by spamming a discussion with copious cut and paste efforts.

Of course, there is no Aryan Lobby, though the Israeli Lobby would be the closest we have to one, seeing as Zionism is such a blatantly racist and supremacist ideology.
It is interesting that you should accuse Walt of harboring a barely hidden neo-National-Socialist agenda, when the best definition of fascism I've come across (in 'the Nature of Fascism') is the belief in an organic community which must achieve a certain state of being it previously held.
Doesn't sound like Zionism at all!
You clearly have never read the “The Lobby”, or you would know how false it is to suggest that it portrays the Jewish Americans as an evil force. In fact, Walt and Meareshimer point out repeatedly throughout the thesis that the Lobby us entirely legitimate.

Needless to say, it is a blatant lie to suggest that Walt and Meareshimer have ever suggest that Israel must be destroyed. That's why you hasbaratats have failed so miserably over the five years, in spite of your best efforts to demonize and assassinate W&M's reputations and standing in the community. Becaue your attacks are not based on anything they have ever said or written.

And five years from now, you'll still be trying.

 

PUPIL

9:04 PM ET

May 24, 2011

One state solution

Aaron writes:

"By definition, this rules out possibility of Palestinian return except to the tiny, segmented West Bank territory that Israeli colonization has created, and to an overcrowded Gaza, which cannot accommodate the returnees."

The Palestinian "refugees" inside Gaza and the West Bank are already there, so nobody is to be "accommodated".

Majority of them, are, however, kept forcibly in the concentration camps by the Abbas and Hamas regimes. They must be liberated from the camps as we liberated concentration camps in Europe before May 1945. The concentration camps in Lebanon and Syria must be dismantled as well. The prisoners should be set free and allowed to resettle and build homes.

That apartheid perpetrated by Arabs against their fellow Arabs must end. By force, if necessary. The camps exist only on the European money. The Europeans also provide personnel for Palestinian "education", which is just a euphemism for intoxicating the inmates in hatred against this country.

This is the one-state solution for Gaza and the West Bank.

 

NEOLEFT

11:27 PM ET

May 24, 2011

One state solution

>> Majority of them, are, however, kept forcibly in the concentration camps by the Abbas and Hamas regimes.

No, they are kept in concentration camps, the largest one being Gaza, by Israel.

>> The concentration camps in Lebanon and Syria must be dismantled as well.

They will be soon, and the refugees will return to their homes. Patience young master.
The prisoners should be set free and allowed to resettle and build homes, on the land that belongs to them.

That apartheid perpetrated by Israelis against their Arabs must end and it will, by non violent resistance. Israel exist only on the European and American money.

This is the one-state solution for Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Israel. One binational state and a democracy for all.

 

NEOLEFT

12:26 AM ET

May 25, 2011

USMARINE101 has taken off the gloves

He's not even trying to mask his repugnant and vile racism. In his mind, they are the world's biggest losers, all eight million of them.

USMARINE101's fascism is alive and well, and yet people wonder why there is no peace in the region?

 

ELLERVEIRA

1:53 AM ET

May 25, 2011

Oh me oh my

"Pandering to the Palestinians." Should one laugh or cry at such a statement? I think this poor, pathetically confused Marine needs to read his Finkelstein, if he has the guts to do so.

 

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

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