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The good news is that the administration's Middle East rhetoric is getting better. The bad news is that its actions are getting worse.
Actually, its inaction is getting worse. It simply refuses to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has ignored repeated US requests for a settlement freeze (even rejecting an extra $3.5 billion in US aid as an inducement for a 90-day moratorium).
Instead, Netanyahu is madly expanding settlements, displacing more Palestinians in the process, with the goal of making the two-state solution impossible. Netanyahu has no intention of giving up any land where settlers want to live, although he may, if properly compensated, give up populated Palestinian areas where no settler wants to live anyway.
As the Associated Press reported yesterday:
...the utter lack of progress in peace talks and continued Jewish settlement in the West Bank has many people warning that Israel might...be headed toward a one-state reality, with a permanent occupation of the West Bank and a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority — unless perhaps the world forces it to give the Palestinians the right to vote.
But not even this prospect of Israeli apartheid moves the Obama administration to do very much other than wring its hands.
Of course, the administration's passivity pleases AIPAC and the donors associated with it, so it will probably continue until the November 2012 election (unless a war or serious crisis develops).
On the other hand, the administration's rhetoric is improving. On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech at Brookings that was a vast improvement over previous efforts.
In particular, Clinton's approach was a happy change from Vice President Biden's speeches which invariably include the AIPAC-crafted formulation that there must be "no daylight" between Israeli and American policies. Actually, Biden usually says it twice ("no daylight, no daylight") while Clinton did not come close to saying it at all. (That formulation should not be applied to any country, even close allies such as Canada and the United Kingdom.)
Clinton's speech was almost totally even-handed. It was free of "blame the Palestinians" rhetoric and also free of those saccharine and embarrassing declarations of love for Israel that alienate most of the world. It was an American speech, in which she looked at both Israel and Palestine from the outside. America is Israel's friend. It is also Palestine's friend. The "special relationship" is clearly not as exclusive as it once was, at least rhetorically.
Clinton's speech indicates that she aspires to be an "honest broker" between Israelis and Palestinians, a change Obama promised but has not yet delivered on. But it is not clear that she can carry the day, not with Dennis Ross — former head of AIPAC's Washington Institute for Near East Policy — handling the Middle East at the White House itself. Hopefully Clinton, even more powerful today than before the November election, will push back hard against Ross. Ross never wants to ruffle feathers in Jerusalem or at AIPAC. Clinton understands that standing up for American interests — and against Netanyahu's colonial schemes — is the best thing she can do for both countries.
The one weak spot in the Clinton speech was when she said (this has become almost boilerplate) that, although the United States will always promote peace, it cannot want it more than the people of the region do.
This is simply not true. The United States has vital interests in the region (including 130,000 men and women in uniform) and that means that our determination to avoid a conflagration is something we must do, first and foremost, in our own interest.
Of course, peace is in the interests of the parties as well (particularly Israel, whose position is weakening every day), but that should not be our main concern. Additionally, as Tom Friedman pointed out in his column yesterday, the US aid we provide gives us the right to insist on the resolution of a conflict that endangers us. Friedman addresses the Israeli government:
when America, a country that has lavished billions on you over the last 50 years and taken up your defense in countless international forums, asks you to halt settlements for three months to get peace talks going, there is only one right answer, and it is not "How much?" It is: "Yes, whatever you want, because you're our only true friend in the world."
This column is as significant as Clinton's speech because Friedman is — as he himself would be first to acknowledge — devoted to Israel. Nonetheless, he says that Israel should defer to the United States. He goes further. He points out that the United States is no longer in an economic position to hand out $3.5 billion a year to Israel without strings attached.
He suggests that Israelis might try a Google search on five words: budget cuts and fire departments.
Here's what they'll find: American city after city — Phoenix, Cincinnati, Austin, Washington, Jacksonville, Sacramento, Philadelphia — all having to cut their fire departments. Then put in these four words: "schools and budget cuts." One of the top stories listed is from The Christian Science Monitor: "As state and local governments slash spending and federal stimulus dries up, school budget cuts for the next academic year could be the worst in a generation."I guarantee you, if someone came to these cities and said, "We have $3 billion we'd like to give to your schools and fire departments if you'll just do what is manifestly in your own interest," their only answer would be: "Where do we sign?" And so it should have been with Israel.
Netanyahu made clear a few weeks ago that he has written off Tom Friedman, along with American Jews, especially the youth, who oppose the occupation. And he wrote off both Bill and Hillary Clinton as early as 1997 when he conspired with Newt Gingrich to bring them down. As for Obama? Bibi has no use for him.
And why should he? He believes that he doesn't need anyone so long as he has the lobby to keep the president and Congress in line.
But how long can that last? As John Lennon taught us, 'money can't buy you love.'
Click here to read this post at PoliticalCorrection.org
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