Israel Matzav

Obama's Middle East: The collapse of ambition

In the wee hours of this morning, I posted a blog post by Rick Richman in which he discussed a longer article by Benjamin Kerstein. I mentioned that I may go back and read the longer article at some point. I just did. It's dynamite. Here's a sample.

There are probably two main reasons for the early collapse of the Obama administration’s ambitions in the Middle East; one regarding Israel and one regarding Obama himself. In regard to Israel, Obama failed because of his inability to grasp Israel’s attitude toward the peace process in the post-Oslo era. The trauma that Oslo represents for Israel is difficult to fully convey to foreigners. It was both the first peace agreement that failed and the first time Israel gambled on peace and lost. For nearly a decade, Israel struggled through political division, assassination, terrorism, and potential civil war, only to see it all end with the most brutal terrorist war it had ever encountered. Even more traumatizing, perhaps, was the reaction of the rest of the world. Throughout the Oslo process, Israel believed that it was taking an enormous chance for peace, and that the world would acknowledge and understand this if the process failed. This faith was most fervently expressed at the 2000 Camp David negotiations, where Ehud Barak made an offer to Yasser Arafat that crossed many of Israel’s previous red lines in regard to Jerusalem, territorial concessions, and holy sites. When Arafat turned it down, and the second intifada began shortly afterward, most Israelis felt that their efforts for peace and the dangerous position they had put themselves in would at least be acknowledged by others. Precisely the opposite happened. Condemnation of Israel was more violent than it had ever been in the past, and a worldwide outbreak of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment followed. As a result of all this, Israelis looking back on Oslo feel, more than anything else, betrayed. They have lost their faith and trust in the Arabs, in the international community, and to a great extent in the peace process in general. While they are still willing to negotiate and make concessions, they feel that they should not be asked to take an Oslo-sized gamble again.

Obama’s opening gambit seemed, to many Israelis, like precisely that: Oslo resurrected as farce. Once again there were the dreamy, grandiose pronouncements about peace and change. Once again there seemed to be scant regard for Israel’s legitimate security concerns. One again Israel was being asked to make major concessions for what appeared to be little in return, and to an enemy Israelis did not trust. Once again Israel was being condemned for its supposed intransigence and obstructionism. Once again there were the assurances that the international community had Israel’s best interests at heart. Once again there were the admonitions that it was necessary to take risks for the sake of peace. And once again, there was the specter of an unfriendly American administration forcing Israel’s hand, just as George H.W. Bush forced Yitzhak Shamir into the Madrid conference in 1991, the first step toward the Oslo process. Whatever Obama’s personal and political charms may be, they could not possibly overcome Israel’s unwillingness to go back down that particular rabbit hole.

During the February 8, 2008 conversation mentioned above, Obama said, “If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.” In a way, Obama got his honest dialogue with the Israelis, but he didn’t want to hear what they had to say. This failure is entirely his own. Perhaps he thought that his closeness to aides like Rahm Emanuel gave him some special understanding of the Israeli mentality. Perhaps all those years hanging out with Rashid Khalidi and Jeremiah Wright blinded him to the possibility that Israel is not an all-powerful military juggernaut, but a small country deeply apprehensive about its future. Perhaps he thought that Israelis would be as enraptured with him as the 78% of American Jews who gave him their votes. Perhaps he simply wasn’t interested or didn’t care. In the end, this kind of speculation is irrelevant. Obama has lost the Israelis, possibly for good, and he has no one to blame but himself.

This speaks to the second reason for Obama’s failure in the Middle East. Ironically, it was illustrated quite well by Rahm Emanuel in a September 25 article in Haaretz, the day after the Obama-hosted Abbas-Netanyahu summit. “Both Israel and the Palestinians must ’seize an opportunity,’” Haaretz quoted Emanuel, “because they are faced with ‘a unique moment in time in the region.’” Obama’s chief of staff went on to claim that this was because of the strength of the Israeli and Palestinian governments, a claim that is somewhat untrue of the former and entirely of the latter; which simply emphasizes the fact that there is nothing particularly unique about this moment; and there is certainly nothing particularly auspicious about it. Abbas is weak and largely discredited among his own people. Hamas is still dedicated to Israel’s destruction and still firmly in control of Gaza. If free elections were held in the West Bank, Hamas would have a good chance of winning them. Hezbollah is gearing up for another war in the north. The reaction to the Gaza operation had solidified Israel’s total lack of faith in the goodwill of the international community. And over it all, the Iranian theocracy is still pursuing nuclear weapons, and has shown itself perfectly willing to do so over the dead bodies of its own people. It is a fool’s game to try and predict the future in the Middle East, and Obama may find a way to resurrect his failed policies, or events may suddenly turn in his favor; but at the moment, the situation here is largely as it has always been: dangerous, unstable, and unforgiving.

Kerstein does a great job of putting events and words into context. The above is only a small example. But the real reason Obama failed here is the two traits that Kerstein attributes to Obama in the very first sentence of his article: hubris (a word I have used to described Obama many times) and ineptitude. Really it's more hubris than ineptitude. After all, Obama is reputed to have a brilliant intellect and he didn't get where he got through incompetence. But Obama really believed that his word would be taken as gospel and that he could force Israel to comply with his wishes. He didn't understand that the first rule of survival in this country is "don't be a frier" (a sucker). If you tell an Israeli to do something, he won't do it except in the army (and maybe not even there). If you ask him to do something and explain to him why it's good for him, he might do it. Obama tried to order us around. That's usually a bad move - and it's always a bad move when you have no real leverage on us.

Obama approached this region and its problems with an arrogance that we had never seen before in an American President. Kerstein mentions George H. W. Bush forcing Yitzchak Shamir to go to Madrid. But there's no comparison. Bush did that before Oslo and he did it at a time when Israel was an emerging economy that very badly needed the loan guarantees of which Bush took advantage (our economy has changed drastically since 1991). Bush's actions were a pure power play against an uncharismatic and not very popular (although I liked Shamir a lot) leader. Netanyahu was elected by a consensus (although Kadima got more votes than Likud, the Right got far more than the Left - that's why Netanyahu is Prime Minister). Bush was not the model Obama should have been following.

And indeed Obama didn't follow it. He was far too conceited for that. He did his own thing.

Kerstein also understates the suspicion with which most Jewish Israelis viewed Obama. I could prove that to you with blog posts that I did in 2007 and 2008, but this post is too long already. We were on the lookout for Obama the day he took office. And it didn't take him long to blow it.

Read the whole thing. Kerstein does a good job of describing how Obama blew it and why it's highly unlikely he'll get another chance.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:34 PM