Obama’s Israel Miscalculation

Barack Obama fails to win over Israeli public opinion not because he did not deign to come to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem to speak directly to the people. He fails because his message is muffled, and Israelis cannot make out what steps he is planning, when and how exactly the light at the end of the tunnel will start flashing.

Obama was elected president mainly because he knew how to conjure up for Americans what they craved most: hope. But when it comes to the denizens in the Middle east, Obama does not manage to generate hope. He fails principally because he has not managed to offer a coherent and articulate plan, within a time frame. Obama said: two states for two peoples. Bush had said this before him and for eight years, nothing happened.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Stuff, likes to brag that he used to spend his summers on Tel Aviv’s beaches. But he seems incapable of explaining to his boss the essence of Israeliness: when you paint Israelis into a corner, their collective and constitutive respond can be summed up in two observations they make. On the one hand, “I’m not going to be duped by anyone”; on the other hand. “I’ll show you what’s what”.

When Obama raised a hammer over Israel and demanded a total settlement freeze, without signaling what is the onus on the other party and when, he failed to get Israelis to see things his way, even those Israelis who basically agree with his policies and habitually raise an automatic cheer to any peace plan.

The greater the pressure exerted upon Israelis, the more they will resist “being duped” and will insist on showing you “what’s what”. They know their neighborhood. Israeli abrasiveness can easily be transformed into a sweeping willingness to deal with any challenge even if it comes with a steep price. But they want to know there is something to work for.

Concurrently, Obama has not succeeded in offering much hope to Palestinians and other Middle Eastern Arabs. He did not create a message around which they could easily rally, such as what kind of Palestinian state he has in mind, what relationship it will have with the Jewish state, what security guarantees will be put in place and how they will benefit if they follow his lead. More than six months into his presidency, his message to the region remains foggy and diffuse, intangible.

Obama is a gifted Poker player. During his adolescence in Hawaii he used to playing poker with street dwellers. He honed his skills by inviting his fellow students to play with him during his college days. His contemporary friends claim he had a winning hand. But playing poker in the Middle East is a dangerous ploy. If Obama keeps playing with his cards too close to his chest he will not succeed in mobilizing a popular movement in a region well-studied in disappointments, mirages and false promises.

It’s not too late, yet. If the American president soon presents a clear program accompanied by a proposed time table, he will succeed in sweeping along a train of Middle Eastern people who are tired of war and are longing to follow someone who could point the way. Without winning the hearts and minds of Israelis and Arabs, by proposing to them a plan that merges reality with vision, he will make no progress. Obama needs to delineate his ideas for a solution in more concrete terms, like borders, Jerusalem, refugees – not an imposed rigid solution but an outline.

One more speech can not effect a change in Israel’s alerted consciousness. There are moments in life when words alone cannot speak, even when these are sublimely noble and articulated in a rich baritone tone.