THE SPINE MARCH 11, 2010
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This is apropos my last Spine.
The editorial habits of the New York Times are to utter hortatory dicta about how this should happen and that.
In this morning’s lead editorial (“Diplomacy 102”), it heuristically explains what happened to the president’s ambitions to restart direct negotiations on a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians:
President Obama seriously miscalculated last year when he insisted that Israel impose a full stop on all new settlement building ... [O]ne of the basic rules of diplomacy is that American presidents never publicly insist on something they aren’t sure of getting — at least not without a backup plan.
I don’t quite understand the last clause in my citation. But the editorial is certainly the truth and, worse yet, a truism. Still, it’s no surprise that Obama didn’t seem to understand this first principle of diplomacy or, as the Times coyly concedes, maybe the second. The Palestinians reasoned that, if the president insists that Israel make a major concession even before talks begin, they can ask for more ... and more.
After some hemming and hawing, Israel agreed to a freeze (which I believe should not have been demanded of it), though it should not have conceded because settlements are central issues in the diplomacy itself. It exempted Jerusalem from the freeze, however. Still, as the Times put it, the president and his emissary “failed to persuade Arab leaders to agree to make any gestures to Israel in return for a settlement freeze.” Then the U.S. pulled out from way back in the history of the conflict--to the '20s, '30s, '40s--another tricky concession to the Arabs, that they need not parley directly with opponents but can engage in what Washington calls “indirect” negotiations. In this formula, the antagonists will not sit in one room, but the mediator, George Mitchell, poor man, will shuttle from Jerusalem to Ramallah and back.
The Times points out near the editorial’s end that “if Israel is to make real concessions, it will need more than gestures from the Arab states.” More importantly, I would say, it will need much more than gestures from the Palestinians. And everybody will have to grasp that Israel is now not negotiating with a united Palestinian polity, what with Gaza and the Gazans ruled by Hamas.
Alas, at the end of the editorial, the Times reverts to the habits from which it seemed to have broken at the start: “We also hope that if progress lags, the administration will be ready to put forward its own proposals on the central issues of borders, refugees, security and the future of Jerusalem.” Which would bring us back to what we have just been through.
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Read these next:
- The Relentless Facts Of Palestine: The Tribulations Of Biden And Obama’s Ironic Fate
- The Palestinian Authority Can Do No Wrong
- Eight Pieces, Really One: Iran, Israel's Military Doctrine, The President And One Dumb Jewish Woman, The Wages of Copenhagen, The Christmas Terrorist, We Should All Stop Talking About The Middle East
8 comments
"The Times points out near the editorial’s end that “if Israel is to make real concessions, it will need more than gestures from the Arab states.” More importantly, I would say, it will need much more than gestures from the Palestinians." The dictionary tells us that 'gesture" means "An act or a remark made as a formality or as a sign of intention or attitude: sent flowers as a gesture of sympathy." However, I'm not sure that "gesture" in the political sense, quite adheres to this meaning. I always get the feeling that there is some sort of separation between the appearance of a movement (which they call "gesture") and its substance (which is what they call "significance" or meaning). When Obama asked for a good will gesture towards Israel from Saudi Arabia before his Cairo speech he was rebuffed. I don't believe anyone made much of this rebuff, except maybe Marty here a few other dedicated pro-Israeli Americans. No one called it an insult, or a slap in the face to America. Even though what he asked for was only a 'gesture' in the sense of the APPEARANCE to be well-inclined towards Israel, without any request that the gesture be backed up with anything more substantive than words, there was not the slightest will to meet his plea. And this was deemed to be of such insignificance that no one dared criticize out loud Arab rejectionism. Consider this muted acceptance of Arab intransigence in comparison with this latest kerfuffle, in which Israel is being condemned without reserve for refusing to make a gesture of compliance with American demands. Israel takes gestures to be more than lip service. She takes them seriously. Israel's past gestures involved destroying prosperous settlements in Gaza, moving large groups of people from one place to another, taking risks for peace in the Oslo and Wye accords, following UN resolution as in the withdrawal from South Lebanon, removing hundreds of checkpoints from the WB, re-routing the security barrier in order to meet Palestinian grievances, allowing hundreds if not thousands of truckloads of humanitarian relief into Gaza, treating sick Palestinian kids and adults in its hospitals, etc etc. Th elist goes on, which no one, least of all President Obama, is ever bothered to recall when he decides on another round of bullying Israel into "compliance". Compliance with, what, exactly? What can israel do, or not do, that will make the slightest dent on Arab insatiable greed for dominance and exclusivity? In order to be able to accommodate American wishes, Israel needs, as Marty wisely point out, "more than gestures from the Arab states” and from Palestinians. So far it's been Israel taking steps towards the Arabs with the latter remain standing there, overflowing with contempt, rage and pathological denial, arms crossed, daring anyone to suggest that they need to move a finger towards getting what they pretend that they want (statehood).
- noga1
March 13, 2010 at 11:23am
Your point, noga, about Arab contempt and general intransigence can't be denied, but equally undeniable is the very apparent contempt the Israeli rightwing has displayed over the years. And right now in Israel, the rightwing is in charge. "The peace process" -- whatever that means -- is the last thing the leadership on both sides, Palestinian and Israeli, want to engage in right now. Each, for their own reasons, don't want to get on board with the White House agenda.
- scrubby
March 14, 2010 at 6:53am
Isn't it the easy way out, to just create a false crisis so that then you can claim a moral equivalence between Israel and Palestinians, and thus turn away with a shrug and say "a pox on both of them" and be done with it? Your president has gestured to Palestinians that their maximalist demands are not outlandish. Abbas responds very willingly to these signals: "Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but announced that it would keep building in east Jerusalem. The United States accepted that arrangement and even highly praised Israel's policy as a major concession. But the PA refused to return to negotiations. Why, because the construction offended it? No, because the PA's radical forces don't want to make a peace deal because they believe they can win total victory and destroy Israel. The more moderate forces are too weak to make a deal because of Hamas and their own radicals, though they also have some problems with mutual compromise. In September 2009, Obama announced that within two months there would be full and final peace negotiations in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "yes": PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said "no." No Western media outlet said that the PA refusal to negotiate for--as of today--about 15 months shows that the PA doesn't want peace. Yet they had no hesitation about saying that Israel doesn't want peace (or at least maybe doesn't) because Israel announced the building of apartments on the basis of a policy it has followed for 16 years, without serious complaint for most of that time. Abbas seized on the opportunity to declare that he wasn't going to negotiate. Is he indignant? Upset? Does he feel betrayed? No, he's delighted to have an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: Not negotiate with Israel!" http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/03/barry-rubin-the-palestinian-authority-wa/index.shtml#comments It comes down to this: Obama is upset that those uppity Jews dare to build in their own capital even when he insists it is not their capital. And he unleashes a wave of general condemnation against the Jewish state that reverberates loudly in a very responsive media. I don't remember such wrath, such "incandescent" vehemence on his part when qassams were raining down hourly on Jewish kids. It is said that Obama is slow to anger. With this in mind, it becomes very interesting to observe what kind of events and contexts trigger his rare anger.
- noga1
March 14, 2010 at 9:40am
More about selective insultability: "Hillary Clinton has a selective way of getting insulted. When Assad received Ahmadinejad in Damascus after the US had sent a new ambassador there, Clinton asked for an explanation and was told to mind her own business. But when the Israeli Housing Ministry announced the construction of additional homes in an existing Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, Clinton could not take it." "The third and last issue is the ignorance of historical facts. The Economist recently ran an article on Jerusalem (“A city that should be shared,” March 6th, 2010) that completely ignores the desecration of non-Muslim sites by Jordan and by the PA and that fails to mention why no agreement was reached on Jerusalem during the 2000 Camp David Summit. When East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control between 1949 and 1967, Jews were not allowed to pray at the Western Wall; fifty-eight synagogues and Jewish schools were destroyed in the Old City; and the Jewish cemetery of the Mount of Olives was systematically desecrated. After the PA gained control over the Wakf from Jordan in 1996, it engaged in acts of archeological vandalism under the Temple Mount, trying to erase any remnants of the two Jerusalem Temples. The PA built two huge mosques under the Temple Mount: one in 1996 (the “Solomon’s Stables” mosque), and one in 1999 (the “Al-Aqsa Al-Qadim” mosque). In both cases, the PA-controlled Wakf removed tens of thousands of tons of archeological rubble containing artifacts dating back to the First Temple period. The PA has also desecrated and partially destroyed the Tomb of Joseph in Shekhem (Nablus) and the ancient Jericho synagogue. By contrast, Israel is on record for preserving the integrity of all the Muslim sites that came under its jurisdiction in 1967 and for guaranteeing freedom of access to Muslim worshipers. In the 1970s and 1980s there was this ceremonial at UNESCO, where Muslim countries would ask the organization to look into Israel’s alleged “desecrations” of Muslim sites; but those allegations were systematically rebuffed by UNESCO’s own archeological expert (Prof. Raymond Lemaire) who actually praised Israel for its treatment of Muslim religious sites." http://navonsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/jerusalem-syndrome.html
- noga1
March 14, 2010 at 10:41am
Noga, you forget one little inconvenient fact: 3 billion dollars.
- MOLLYSIMON
March 14, 2010 at 2:37pm
"Noga, you forget one little inconvenient fact: 3 billion dollars." You would have to spell out the connection if you want your comment to be taken seriously.
- noga1
March 14, 2010 at 2:45pm
Oh, that's right--because Aspie's have trouble making inferences. It's a language deficit.
- MOLLYSIMON
March 14, 2010 at 3:46pm
Gee I hope ironyroad reads this comment. He may then understand what I meant by "mollysimonitis" the other day.
- noga1
March 14, 2010 at 3:52pm