There's something tasteless about headlining a "news analysis" Keeping score on Obama vs. Netanyahu (via memeorandum), but I suppose there will be a lot of this over the next three or four years as the media try to score points against Netanyahu. Bashing Bibi is a popular journalistic and diplomatic sport.
But Mr. Obama did not get his settlement freeze. In fact, Mr. Netanyahu told him it would be politically difficult for him to halt the construction of settlements. That is a hurdle to the administration's broader peace objectives because Israel's Arab neighbors have characterized a freeze as a precondition for them to establish normal relations.Nor did Mr. Obama get much from Mr. Netanyahu on a peace plan beyond his promise to make good on a few commitments that Israel had already agreed to on the "road map," an outline of peace steps that has not gotten either Palestinians or Israelis any closer to peace since President George W. Bush first announced it in 2003.
Mr. Netanyahu did agree to resume talks with Palestinians without preconditions. But he would not explicitly endorse the notion of an eventual Palestinian state, something his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, had already done.
"This is why I'm asking the question, did our president get suckered?" said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and director of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. "We don't know the answer yet, but unless he got something more from Bibi in that meeting than they're telling us, that question can be asked."
Indyk, of course, as Ambassador to Israel was very much into scoring points against Netanyahu when he served in that post, and it got the Clinton administration Ehud Barak, Camp David and the Aqsa Intifada.
But if the President didn't get his "settlement freeze, why is that possibly a loss for President Oama? Despite its being touted as a necessary precondition for the Arab world to drop their official antisemitism, there's no guarantee it would work.
Still Secretary of State Clinton announced that a "settlement freeze" is an American demand to terror TV channel Al Jazeera.
Still no amount of pressure will create a Palestinian State if that isn't the goal of the Palestinians (via memeorandum).
Over and over, the pattern has been repeated. Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking - a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tens of billions of dollars in "compensation" for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel's history.
To this day, the charters of Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, call for Israel's liquidation. "The whole world" may want peace and a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want something very different. Until that changes, there is no two-state solution.
And as long as the Palestinians remain uncommitted to peaceful coexistence no amount of pressure on Israel will bring peace to the Middle East.
So after President Obama meets with Abu Mazen will we see scorecards about who "won" the encounter? Or whether Abu Mazen will endorse the concept of a Jewish state enthusiastically?
Crossposted on Yourish.
Posted by SoccerDad at May 21, 2009 6:30 AMwhat type of peace does israel expect when it still builds illegal settlements and still drives arabs from their homes.if thats what you call 'committed to peace' the palestinians should pack up now and go home. thats right ,they can't go home- so it looks like many arab and jews will die for everyones so called commitment to peace.
Posted by: sass at May 21, 2009 9:03 AMThey can go home to the already existing Arab state in Palestine, Jordan, or any of the other 22 Arab states.
Posted by: Laura at May 21, 2009 11:56 AMWhat keeps American pressure a perennially unfulfilled exercise is G-d. Never lose sight of it - when the Jew believes in Hashem, nothing America says can ever harm the Jew.
Posted by: NormanF at May 21, 2009 2:56 PMlaura, i see your a advocate of ethnic cleansing or in zionist terms 'population transfer'.
your logic goes as follows: israel has the right to occupy palestinian land, lay siege to palestinian populations in bantustans surrounded by an apartheid wall, starve the population, cut them off from fuel and electricity, uproot their trees and crops, and launch periodic raids and targeted assassinations against them and their elected leadership, and if this population resists these massive israeli attacks against their lives and the fabric of their society and israel responds by slaughtering them en masse, israel would simply be "defending" itself as it must and should. after all , the palestinians should leave their homeland and take up residence in jordan which will now become a palestinian state.
you would have made a wonderful nazi
you better hope america doesn't declare itself a christian state, using your logic
Israel is not an occupier since there was never any such sovereign state of palestine.
Population transfer was done with the ethnic Germans of Czechlovakia after WW2 and between muslims and Hindus upon the creation of Pakistan. Jews were ethnically cleansed from Gaza and the "palestinians" demand that their state be free of Jews. None of these were seen as evil. Somehow though the idea of transfering the Arab population of Judea and Samaria to Arab countries is considered especially evil and racist. Again we see the display of hypocrisy from Israel haters. Explain why its perfectly acceptable for the Arab states, including a potential state of palestine, to be free of Jews but racist if any Jews dare suggest the so-called palestinians should be the ones transfered?
You sass are the nazi since you support the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state.
Posted by: Laura at May 21, 2009 7:19 PMit isn't acceptable that the jewish citizens be transfered from their homeland in arab states. it was a practice the zionist started and in response some arabs followed. the zionist even encouraged anti semitism to help the jews of arab countries feel insecure and then migrate to the new jewish state. the ingathering of iraqi jews is a perfect example, in which zionist agents set off bombs to scare the iraqi jew to israel.
i am not a fan of a two state solution and would prefer to see a single secular state. not a jewish state or a muslim state but a state of the people- you know western style democracy
the zionist even encouraged anti semitism to help the jews of arab countries feel insecure and then migrate to the new jewish state. the ingathering of iraqi jews is a perfect example, in which zionist agents set off bombs to scare the iraqi jew to israel.
There is some disagreement among historians about the incident in Iraq you are referring to. And in any event, you are ignoring 99 percent of what happened. Read Norman Stillman's "The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times" or "The Forgotten Millions" anthology or "Locked Doors" by Levin and Neiman or "Jews of Arab and Islamic Countries" by Heskel Haddad. I see Haddad also has a book called "Born in Baghdad," which I haven't looked at it, but which is probably worthwhile.
Posted by: Yitzchak Goodman at May 22, 2009 11:07 AMA secular western style democracy would not be the outcome upon the creation of a single state, but rather it would eventually place the arab muslim population in the majority, which would mean this state would then become an islamic state where Jews would face persecution. There are no arab states which are western style democracies. However Israel already is a western style democracy.
Posted by: Laura at May 22, 2009 11:57 AMisrael must be the only 'western style' democracy which persecutes muslims and christians.
please,do not insult secular democracies by comparing it to the racist 'national' policies of israel. as i said before, israel is more like iran.tell me whats the difference between a islamic republic and a jewish state.
if the zionist needed to bomb the iraqi jews to migrate to israel that proves they were quite happy and not a persecuted people like the palestinians of today. all you have to do is look at what happening in israel and the occup[ied territories and you can see who is persecuting who over religion. in the end the jews were no different that any past oppressor.
Posted by: sass at May 22, 2009 7:46 PMsass, the zionists did NOT bomb the iraqi jews, that "theory" has been debunked.
try getting some new falsified "evidence."
it has not been debunked at all. your theory is just that ,a theory ,a zionist propoganda theory. next you'll be saying that the bombs set of in eygpt were not zionist bombs which lead to the lavon affair. its pretty obvious what was happening during those years.
Posted by: sass at May 23, 2009 4:09 AM