Morton A. Klein
Special to the Jewish Times
Israel’s new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that he wants Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to fulfill their obligations under Olso and the Road Map. He told the Knesset, “In order for there to be peace, the Palestinian partner must fight terror, educate its children towards peace, and prepare its people for recognizing Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” otherwise Israel can’t even consider any more land concessions. The Prime Minister has also called for Abbas to abrogate the clauses in his political party’s (Fatah) Constitution which calls for Israel’s destruction. The Road Map also requires the PA to imprison terrorists. The PA has done none of this since Oslo required them to 16 years ago.
America’s new President Barack Obama wants a Palestinian Arab state established as soon as possible, but doesn’t mention any Palestinian obligations, and he apparently wants this state established in all of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
That’s indicated by his meetings with Saudi King Abdullah this week, where Obama again endorsed the Saudi Arabia Peace Initiative. This Saudi Initiative demands that Israel be reduced to its indefensible 1967 border and that Israel recognize the so-called Palestinian “right of return.” The Saudis say Israel must allow millions of so-called Palestinian refugees and their descendants from the 1948 War to be allowed to move into Israel proper.
Of course, this would destroy Israel as a Jewish state. In return for this the Initiative calls for “normalizing” relations with Israel. Nothing specific is required of the Arabs, no ending incitement or fighting terrorism or outlawing terrorist groups, nothing. There is no mention of what is to become of the 600,000 Jews who now live beyond the 1967 border in eastern Jerusalem, Efrat, Ariel, and elsewhere. Likely, they would be required to leave.
By the way, Saudi Arabs and the other Arab countries have repeatedly made it clear that not a letter of this Initiative can be changed; no compromise will be considered!
The different views by Obama and Netanyahu on how Israel and the Palestinian Arabs should proceed forecasts a rocky road ahead.
But there’s more. Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that Israel must stop building Israeli/Jewish homes in eastern Jerusalem and must allow illegally built Palestinian Arab homes to remain, and new ones to be constructed. She called Jewish construction “unhelpful” to peace.
Suddenly parts of the ancient Jewish city of Jerusalem are places where Jews may not move or build. What a radical transformation of Clinton’s position from what it was when, as the U.S. Senator from New York, she stated repeatedly, “I believe that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital must never be questioned.”
President Obama has also reversed his own pro-Israel position on Jerusalem, although with Obama it took less than a day. He told the AIPAC Policy Conference last spring that he supports an “undivided Jerusalem,” and the very next day said he misspoke and that it was up to the parties.
More evidence of a rocky road ahead: On the most existential threat to Israel, Obama is also at loggerheads with Israel. As the Atlantic Monthly journalist Jeffrey Goldberg succinctly stated in the headline of his recent interview with Israel’s new Prime Minister: “Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran or I Will.” Obama is apparently not willing to use any means necessary to prevent Iran’s nuclear buildup – but instead prefers diplomacy that has thus far failed to prevent the Iranians from developing these weapons, despite their repeated proclamations of “Death to Israel.”
Even George Mitchell, whom he has chosen as his Mideast envoy, may cause friction between the U.S. and Israel. Mitchell has falsely stated that Israel and the PA are equally at fault for the lack of progress; that Israeli settlement construction must stop, even for natural growth and within already existing communities, and is part of what causes Palestinian terrorism; that a Palestinian state would solve everything. He believed that, even when Arafat headed the PA. And, Mitchell and Obama ignore many Palestinian anti-peace actions, including the fact that Abbas has been fighting normalization with Israel by boycotting Israeli products and banning Palestinian teenagers from participating in joint Jewish-Arab events aimed at promoting tolerance and coexistence.
It is an extraordinary juxtaposition to see President Obama apologize to the Europeans for America acting in an “arrogant and dismissive” way toward them and yet Obama is already dismissing and ignoring Israeli concerns and Israeli policy positions, and virtually dictating to Israel what they must do.
US-Israel relations will inevitably clash unless, or until, the Obama Administration recognizes that an Arab-Israeli peace is only possible when Palestinians transform their society into one that genuinely support peace with the Jewish State of Israel.
Morton A. Klein is National President, Zionist Organization of America,
1 comment:
It is clar that whatever Obama's official stance will be...and I am sure that it will be "nuanced" beyond recognition...He will ultimately declare a two state solution as the only acceptable goal.
At this point in history a two state solution is a ficton. The Palestinians are involved in their own civil war. Who exactly would this Palestinian state be given to?
What Netayahu is saying, is that the peace process, if it is to be an honest effort, must now focus on getting Palestinian society to progress to a point in which they can be actual legitame care takers of their own nation.
This unfortunately could take decades. In the mean time Israel must act in its own interests, in order to preserve the security of its people.
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