THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 157, July 21, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TOUGH LOVE IS NO LOVE AT ALL:
Why Obama's Approach to Israel Is Collapsing, Rapidly
By Dr. Steven J. Rosen
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD ISRAEL: OBAMA'S PLAN FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING
IN JERUSALEM -- HIS DEMAND THAT PARTS OF JERUSALEM BE PURGED OF JEWS & RESERVED FOR THE ARABS -- JUST HOW
FAR DO OBAMA & HIS FAR-LEFTIST HENCHMEN PLAN TO GO WITH THEIR PRO-ARAB & ANTI-SEMITIC HARDLINE POLICY
OF CONFRONTATION WITH ISRAEL, AS REGARDS ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN EAST JERUSALEM? SINCE IT IS HIGHLY
UNLIKELY THAT ANY MAJOR ISRAELI POLITICAL PARTY WOULD AGREE TO MAKING A PART OF JERUSALEM A JUDENREIN,
HOW SOON WILL OBAMA SUCCEED IN BREAKING UP THE AMERICAN-ISRAELI ALLIANCE?
FULL STORY:
"Obama is not 100 percent right to confront Bibi on settlements," a Clinton advisor blew back at me after my July 1,
2009, ForeignPolicy.com piece, "Cut Bibi Some Slack." "He is 200 percent right!" This from a guy who had
argued for years that public confrontation is not the right way to deal with Israel because it undermines the
confidence that is a prerequisite for progress in the peace process.
Barack Obama himself addressed the issue in a meeting with American Jewish leaders on July 13, 2009. Asked if it were
a mistake to let "sunlight" show between the United States and Israel, the U.S. President demurred, "We had no
sunlight for eight years, but no progress either."
Obama's conclusion that former U.S. President George W. Bush achieved nothing by working with Israel is amazing,
considering that Bush brought the father of the Israeli settler movement, Ariel Sharon, to withdraw every soldier and
every settler from every square inch of Gaza in August, 2005, in the largest test of the "land for peace" concept in
Israeli-Palestinian history. You would think the experience of the Bush years would have led the Obama team to an
opposite conclusion: If settlements had been the obstacle to peace, why did Sharon's removal of 8,000 settlers from 21
settlements lead to the rise of Hamas, thousands of Qassam rockets fired at Israel, and war instead of peace?
And they might reflect on the testimony of Elliott Abrams, who negotiated the Bush administration's compromises on
the natural growth of settlements that the Obama team now disavows. "There were indeed agreements between Israel
and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank," Abrams wrote in the Wall
Street Journal.
"The Prime Minister of Israel relied on them in
undertaking a wrenching political reorientation
... the removal of every single Israeli citizen,
settlement and military position in Gaza. ...
There was a bargained-for exchange. Mr.
Sharon was determined to ... confront his
former allies on Israel's right by abandoning
the 'Greater Israel' position. ... He asked for our
support and got it, including the agreement
that we would not demand a total settlement
freeze."
And they should heed the words of Sharon's negotiator in that bargain, Dov Weisglass:
"Final-status peace treaties ... will require many
American guarantees and obligations, especially
in respect to longterm security arrangements.
Without these, it is doubtful whether an
agreement can be reached. Yet, if decision-makers
in Israel ... discover, heaven forbid, that an
American pledge is only valid as long as the
President in question is in office, nobody will
want such pledges."
The theory of "tough love" toward Israel is also failing the test, if it is intended to win concessions from the
Palestinian side. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who just completed intensive negotiations with
an outgoing Ehud Olmert government that was continuing "natural growth" of settlements within the agreed Bush
limits, now says the incoming Benjamin Netanyahu government must "stop all settlement activities in order to
resume peace talks over final status issues." His chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, adds, "There can be no half-solutions
with regards to the settlements."
This is a hardening of the Palestinian position. Abbas did not cut off negotiations when Olmert said publicly to Israeli
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in April, 2008:
"It was clear from day one to Abbas ... that
construction would continue in population
concentrations -- the areas mentioned in Bush's
2004 letter. ... Beitar Illit will be built, Gush Etzion
will be built; there will be construction in Pisgat
Ze'ev and in the Jewish neighborhoods in
Jerusalem ... areas [that] will remain under Israeli
control in any future settlement."
Abbas continued meeting with the Olmert government. In fact, Erekat boasted to a Jordanian newspaper a few weeks
ago that he and Abbas achieved considerable progress with the Olmert government between the November, 2007,
Annapolis talks and the end of 2008 in as many as 288 negotiation sessions by 12 committees -- all while the limited
growth permitted by the Bush understandings continued.
Now, Obama has generated inflated and unsatisfiable expectations in the Arab world, a belief that the U.S. President
can and will force total Israeli capitulation and an absolute freeze. The Los Angeles Times reports: "President
Obama's public quarrel with Israel ... is developing into a test of the U.S. leader's international credibility, say foreign
diplomats and other observers." Anything less than a 100 percent halt "will not only disappoint the Arabs whom the
President has courted, but also will be read by adversaries around the globe as a signal that the President can be
forced to back down." Or, as Erekat himself put it on Voice of Palestine radio, "If settlement continues ...
Arabs and Palestinians [will] believe that the American administration is incapable of swaying Israel to halt its
settlement activities." A prominent Palestinian observer, Ghassan Khatib, states: "Should the U.S. government ... fail
to make Israel abide by its international commitments, especially regarding ending the expansion of settlements, it will
sabotage efforts to renew the political process."
The Obama people might actually learn something from Abrams, who warns that, when, eventually, there is a
compromise between the Obama and Netanyahu governments regarding settlements, the two sides will put
"contrasting spins" on the agreement for their respective audiences. It will be difficult for the Obama administration
to explain why there are what will be depicted by critics as loopholes. Maybe then they will ask themselves whether
they were wise to do it with a public fight?
For now, they are still on the wrong track. Days ago, Israel's new ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was
warned that the United States wants a halt to construction of 20 apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of
Jerusalem. Netanyahu responded: "There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the west of the city, and there is
no ban on Jews building or buying in the city's east." How could the administration believe that any major Israeli
political party could possibly agree to making any part of Jerusalem Judenrein? Just how far do they plan to go with
this policy of confrontation?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Steven J. Rosen served for 23 years as Foreign Policy Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and
was a defendant in the recently dismissed AIPAC case. He is now Director of the Washington Project at the Middle East
Forum. He earned his Ph.D. from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Diplomacy.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rosen was originally published in Foreign Policy.com, July 21, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2407/obama-israel-tough-love)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
July 21, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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