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Obama's Road Map
by Ron Ben-Yishai
- September
2009 will apparently see a major shake-up in the Middle East. All the players active in this arena will formulate a simultaneous
“all-inclusive process." The
official launch will take place ahead of, during, and after the United
Nations General Assembly, scheduled for September 23rd.
- The
American administration will finally present a plan for a permanent
resolution of the conflict. This will be “Obama’s road map,” which
aside from the implementation of the two-state vision is also supposed
to prompt the normalization of ties between Israel and moderate Arab
states.
- As a confidence-building measure to launch the move, Israel will
have to provide an obligation to freeze settlement construction. Meanwhile, the Palestinian
“dowry” is supposed to be provided by Arab states, which are supposed
to express their conditioned willingness for normalization. (Ynetnews
Obama's Evenhanded Mideast Policy
by Editorial
- Evenhandedness usually is considered to be a positive attribute in
diplomacy, but when it comes to the Middle East, many Israelis and
their supporters see it as code for a pro-Arab policy. In that view,
President Obama's insistence that Israel freeze Jewish settlement
construction is anti-Israeli and a sop to the Arab street. That's
wrong.
- Obama has committed himself to a comprehensive peace that would
give Palestinians a state of their own and provide Israel with security
and recognition from the wider Arab world. This is the right goal, but
it cannot be achieved if Israel continues to expand settlements.
- At the same time the administration is applying pressure to Israel on
settlements, it is pushing Arab states for confidence-building measures
to demonstrate that freezing settlements has benefits. Arab states have been as resistant as Israel and just as wrongheaded.
- The hurdles ahead are enormous, starting with the fact that the
Palestinian Authority controls only the West Bank, while the Gaza Strip
is ruled by the radical Islamic movement Hamas. (Los Angeles
Mideast Peace Starts with Respect
by Ronald S. Lauder
- Rule No. 1: Respect the sovereignty of
democratic allies. When free people in a democracy express their
preferences, the United States should respect their opinions.
- The administration would also do well to take heed of the Palestinian Authority’s continued refusal to recognize Israel
as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Denial of the Jewish homeland is a widespread belief across the spectrum of Palestinian opinion.
- The administration must also be wary of
letting Israel’s opponents use the settlement issue as a convenient
excuse for failing to make moves of their own. The settlements matter,
but they do not go to the core of this decades-old conflict. The writer is president of the World Jewish Congress. (Ynetnews)
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Suspicions
by Leon Wieseltier
- The continued appeasement of the settlers, and the continued alienation
of the Palestinians, and the continued cartographic distortion of the
West Bank, are in no way good for Israel.
- So the administration's policy toward Israel is the correct one? Alas,
not. It is, in fact, inexplicably obtuse. For the settlements are not
what now stand between the peoples and peace.
- And the continued
alienation of the Israelis is also not such a smart idea.
- The
demographics of Palestine may lead to one conclusion, but the politics
of Palestine may lead to another. It is characterized chiefly by chaos
and hatred and violence. Economic progress on the West Bank has not
been accompanied by political progress; and the quiet along the Gazan
border indicates not so much that Hamas has experienced a change of
heart as that the Israelis have achieved the objective of their nasty
war.
- So Israelis cannot help but look upon the Palestinian situation
with dread. A dove, too, should be able to grasp this. But Obama so far
refuses to do so. A policy of
tough love must show love as well as toughness.
- Obama's stringency about "natural growth" in Israeli settlements was
more than a tactical error. In its fervor to move things forward it set
things back, by undoing previous understandings that were designed to
make this diplomacy a little less excruciating. (The New Republic)
Charisma Won't Win over Israelis
by Shira Herzog
- Along
the way to a new American peace plan due next month, U.S.
President Barack Obama lost the hearts of many Israelis. If Israel's
mistrust isn't addressed, the U.S. peacemaking effort will founder.
- According to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project, Israel is the
only country among 25 surveyed where America's image is worsening
rather than improving. Aaron David Miller, a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, describes
Mr. Obama as “tone-deaf” to Israeli sensibilities on this emotional
level.
- Mr. Obama's charisma notwithstanding, he has failed to reassure
Israelis that he understands and cares – something that with all their
differences, his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,
successfully conveyed.
- Both the United States and Israel know that a solid relationship is critical. (Globe and Mail - Canada)
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