Obama’s Speech: The Home Court

Obama has silenced the argument that he is not committed to Israel. He did it through a direct speech that has crushed the Palestinian position and at the price of a rift with Europe.


A week of diplomatic rustle is scheduled to reach its climax today in the speeches of Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Mazen. In all likelihood, any cliché will serve the fans of this occurrence, from “the high noon battle” to “the speech of their lives” and “the decisive confrontation” and all the descriptions supplying the phony drama in New York.

But a lesson of the week — perhaps, the most important one — is that the political process is neither a box of surprises nor a Hollywood thriller. Miscellaneous actors play their roles, which are derived from the narrowest political interests. In other words: They are foreseeable.

Abu Mazen feels like the wind is blowing against him, and the wind is Hamas. He has to prove that there is a Palestinian modus operandi that is not violence and likely to yield results or, at least, national pride. The U.N. is an ideal course of action, and in view of Israel’s mistakes, the Palestinian Authority endeavored to use the international arena to its fullest.

Benjamin Netanyahu, from his side, feels intimidated from the rightist and expanding shadow of Avigdor Lieberman. Indeed, the foreign minister said yesterday, during a live broadcast, that he reprimanded his deputy Danny Ayalon, because the latter threatened to leave the coalition. But whoever is acquainted with Yisrael Beitenu* knows well that Lieberman — let’s say this as a hint — does not allow a broad freedom of action to Knesset members and to officials on his behalf. Usually, he knows what they are about to say, even before they think about it. The chairman of Yisrael Beitenu could call elections in the blink of an eye, or to put it more accurately — in the blink of Ayalon.

The prime minister is perfectly aware of it and also realizes that Lieberman is a real threat to his leadership of the right wing. Israel is becoming more flexible on its way to negotiations with the Palestinians as it passes Lieberman’s stamp of kashrut** [approval], and it’s easier to get a kashrut certification from the ultra-Orthodox community's religious court. Netanyahu can stride along the path of negotiation with Abu Mazen only to the point set by Lieberman. This is the reality, and everyone can assess what the chances for arriving at a compromise are like, considering this condition.

Not only are the Israelis and the Palestinians predictable but so are the Americans. Obama could not abandon Israel this week, nor did he want to either. He could not, for that would mean undermining the regional American power and a hard domestic political blow. And he didn’t want to for a far more prosaic reason. If Obama presents himself as a friend of Israel, acts as a friend of Israel in a series of matters, then maybe, just maybe, he is genuinely a friend of Israel.

Obama Has Proved That He Is Committed Enough to Israel

A little hard to argue after last week that the American president is not committed to Israel. The speech to the U.N. General Assembly was so one-sided that Avigdor Lieberman has told that he would sign under every word. Lieberman — yes. No doubt that Republicans’ assailing of the President and their aggressive assertion that he’s forsaken Israel have sharpened Obama’s messages in his speech.

Obama had to shut up once and for all the claim that he is not committed enough to Israel. He did this in a very direct monologue that has totally smashed the Palestinian stance and at the price of a split with Europe, when Nicolas Sarcozy boycotts (!) his address. It’s highly doubtful whether President Bush would agree to deliver a speech bringing up only the suffering of Israeli children and without mentioning the word “occupation.” This is not a speculation. Although Bush granted Ariel Sharon the recognition of “the changes on the ground” (the settlement blocks), he was also the first American president to introduce the Road Map to the Palestinian state.

And still, it’s a little hard to get excited from Obama’s text when we remember that all in all, it only included the terms of the past and the present and no word about the future. That was entirely a documented understanding that the administration has failed in the promotion of the peace process. “He played defense,” a Washington source said this week. “When you play defense, you may be able to prevent the opposing team from scoring. But what about your scores?”***

Obama plays basketball. In fact, he is the one who asked for and got a symbolic basketball court in the White House yard, so that he could shoot some hoops at night. The president understands very well the significance of his words — a lengthy rebuke to the Palestinians, support for the Israelis, a requirement to return to the negotiations without any clear outline leading to the agreement. That was a declaration of loyalty to Israel, no doubt, but that as well was giving up on the idea of achieving a permanent solution in the near future. There are some among us who will be very glad about this development. There are some who really won't be.

Sarkozy Is Riding His Initiative

And where the diplomatic uproar is, there always breaks in the cavalier, Monsieur Sarkozy. Always determined to take an elaborate situation and make it more difficult. The President of the Republic is a genius in that respect. He’s got a keen sense for weakness and for vacuum, and he’ll always be happy to fill in the gaps with ideas ranging between political creativity and Napoleonic megalomania. Sometimes it works well — let’s say, in the Libyan story, where Sarkozy led the West in shaking off Gadhafi and building the coalition. And sometimes, it looks a bit problematic, like this week in the U.N.

Sarkozy’s proposition to bring the Palestinian issue to the General Assembly of the United Nations and skip the Security Council in the mean time has complicated the already quite complex situation. The Americans have been toiling for weeks already in order to make sure the mise-en-scène will be the Security Council. Over there, they at least have control of the outcome. They don’t want to cast the veto, but they can. The Palestinians have agreed to the rules of this game, also out of the understanding that in any case, the General Assembly can render a very small cookie — solely a recognition of the observer country status.

And then, minutes after the American president’s speech was supposed to corner the Palestinians and make them accept the Quartet's undertaking of the renewal of political negotiations, here comes the French president and sends Obama to hell. Let’s go straight to the General Assembly of the United Nations, offers the seducer Sarkozy, and decide on an observer state. And then he adds a bombshell: Wouldn't that veto in the Security Council bring about violence in the area? After hearing this stuff, even the Palestinians got terrified. The last thing that the Palestinian Authority is currently interested in is the third intifada.

Sarkozy doesn’t mind it; he already rides his initiative, and his office briefs La Monde that the republic president bothered to be deliberately absent from the speech of the American president. A boycott. And who knows what that means as to the position of Gabon, the former French colony. In one address, the French president managed to completely thwart the American gambit.

There’s No Way To Predict Where the Internationalization Ends

At the early millennium, Ariel Sharon used to warn of the internationalization of the conflict. The internationalization of the conflict had been the ultimate threat. Behind it, there posed horrifying images. NATO soldiers coming and imposing on Israel forced political arrangement, the framework of which would be the compulsion to strip off all its territorial and strategic assets.

Sharon truly believed that the internationalization of the conflict is a fundamental threat to Israeli security. It had to do not only with the essence of internationalization but also and primarily with the feeling that Israel would turn from a leader to a follower, lose the initiative and finally get stuck in a narrow corridor of the solution dictated to it. This corridor, in Sharon’s language, is of course the “corrals,” the last track by which the cattle in being funneled to slaughter.

The Palestinians may not be successful this week, but what we’re watching is undoubtedly the internationalization of the conflict. The Israeli passivity has left the international arena open to the Palestinian campaign, which is inhibited only by the muscles of the world greatest [super]power. The U.N. has never played a more central role in the relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and to be blunt, the conflict got internationalized.

Yes, maybe it’s under control. Maybe, the Palestinians are losing as of the moment. But now, the scene is drifting from the direct meetings with them to the tiresome sessions Hillary Clinton has to run with Nigerian president in order to prevent us and the Americans from very negative developments.

In the meantime, to speak the truth, the internationalization of the conflict doesn't feel so bad. This is better than another intifada, and either way, the Americans put the brakes on the Palestinians, who remain bitter and disappointed. The problem is that transferring power to the international community and its institutions is a volatile story. You know where the internationalization starts, but there’s no way to prophesy where it will end up. A veto or delay of the vote in the Security Council is just the beginning. There’ll be many more fateful confrontations here and fights at noon. Hopefully, it’ll take place only at the U.N.



Translator's Notes:

*Yisrael Beitenu is the nationalist political party in Israel, third largest one in the government coalition.

**Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary rules in accordance with the Jewish religious law [Halakha].

***This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.