Israel Matzav

Another American liberal who doesn't get it

The New Yorker's David Remnick is rehashing old arguments regarding what President Obama ought to do about Israel. I won't respond point by point, but to summarize what Remnick can't - or won't - understand, Israelis genuinely mistrust Obama, and by consensus are unwilling to stake their future on the 'Palestinian Authority' maintaining the peace.

Here is a refresher course for those who are new to this blog:

The President has made mistakes on this issue: it was a mistake not to follow his historic speech in Cairo, in 2009, with a trip to Jerusalem. When it comes to domestic politics in Israel, he is in a complicated spot. For some Israelis on the right, his race and, more, his middle name make him a source of everlasting suspicion.

Yes, Obama made a mistake by not coming here in 2009. But that mistake cannot be corrected now. It has been followed by so many mistakes that Obama's polling numbers here are the lowest of any American President evah.

Contrary to the libel of the Left, it has nothing to do with Obama's race (we have Jews who have black mothers and fathers) nor even to do with his middle name. It's the substance of his policies. It's his attempt to disavow promises made to us by previous administrations because they were lead by people named Bush. It's his attempt to act more 'Palestinian' than the 'Palestinians' by insisting on a 'settlement freeze' in Jerusalem that no administration had ever asked for. No Mr. Remnick, it's not his race and it's not his middle name. There are many good reasons why the vast majority of Israelis mistrust Obama. He's blown it with us, and all the fancy oratory in the world will not help him to recover.

Yet he is also a communicator of enormous gifts, capable both of assuring Israeli progressives and of reaching out to the anxious center. A visit to Israel, coupled with the presentation of a peace plan, would also help structure international support and clarify American interests. The Palestinian question is not an internal matter for Israel; it is an international matter.

The 'Palestinian question' is first and foremost an Israeli internal matter and not an 'international matter.' Is Obama going to be sitting on buses here when they start blowing up again (God forbid)? Is Hillary going to be on a plane when the 'Palestinians' fire a strella missile at it when it approaches Ben Gurion Airport? Is Catherine Ashton going to be sitting in a Jerusalem cafe when a 'Palestinian' suicide bomber walks in and blows himself up? Are you Mr. Remnick?

No, none of you are. It is only we who are being asked to take the risk of returning to indefensible borders based on the 'goodwill' of a 'people' (and I have said many times that I do not accept that the 'Palestinians' are a separate ethnic group deserving of either being called a 'people' or being granted a 'state') that continues to this very day to incite their population to murder us because we are Jews. How can that be an 'international matter' and not an internal Israeli matter Mr. Remnick? To be very blunt, is your butt in the sling? Surely not. But mine is, and so are those of each and every Israeli who lives here. As we saw this past weekend, we cannot even be assured of our safety in our own homes, God forbid.

The importance of an Obama plan is not that Netanyahu accept it right away; the Palestinian leadership, which is weak and suffers from its own issues of legitimacy, might not embrace it immediately, either, particularly the limits on refugees. Rather, it is important as a way for the United States to assert that it stands not with the supporters of Greater Israel but with what the writer Bernard Avishai calls “Global Israel,” the constituencies that accept the moral necessity of a Palestinian state and understand the dire cost of Israeli isolation.

And what, pray tell, would be in such an 'Obama plan'? Well, earlier in his screed Remnick writes,

If the Administration has been reluctant to put forward a comprehensive peace plan, it’s not because it has any difficulty imagining such a plan. Inevitably, the parameters of a two-state solution would be like those established at Taba, in 2001, and by Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, in 2008.

That would be the same plan that Arafat rejected at Taba, the same Clinton parameters that Arafat rejected in December 2000. Or it would be a modified version - the same plan that Abu Bluff decided did not even merit a response between October 2008 and May 2009 until he realized that the 'international community' wouldn't look kindly on a non-response, and so he and his cohorts started telling the lie that he had in fact given a counteroffer. In other words, it would be the solution that "everyone knows" is the solution. But everyone doesn't know.

Perhaps Remnick missed it, but somewhere between the Wikileaks bombshells and the Tunisian uprising, we had a little story here called Palileaks. If Remnick were right that 'everyone knows' what the solution is, the types of disclosures made by Palileaks would not have forced the resignation of the 'Palestinians' chief negotiator and the disbandment of its negotiations support unit. You see the big story of Palileaks wasn't what was in the documents, but the 'Palestinian' reaction to them, which showed a 'people' that is unwilling to make any compromises to reach peace.

Why should Israelis be open to any initiative from Mr. Obama, Mr. Remnick? Maybe you've got it all wrong.

Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Clinton parameters, David Remnick, Ehud Barak, Ehud K. Olmert, Obama's middle name, Palileaks, Yasser Arafat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:31 AM