Obama’s Israel Dilemma

For 30 years, the Near East has kept U.S. presidents awake at night. In 1979, Jimmy Carter obtained, with great difficulty, a peace treaty from Egypt and Israel. True enough, it had almost no effect on relations between the two countries, except for the long quarantine imposed on the regime of Anouar Sadate, which led to the installation of the Arab league in Tunis.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama was, in turn, faced with the humiliation of failure, not having succeeded in obtaining the smallest concession from the latest protagonists in this “mother of all crises.” The answer from Benjamin Netanyahu is “no” to a halt in the development of new settlements and, from Mahmoud Abbas, “no” to a new series of negotiations.

That part is clear, shall we say. But did we expect some type of clearing in an ever darkening sky, to which Tel Aviv keeps adding more clouds? We have not forgotten the time when, not so long ago, Ehud Barak, then on uncertain terms with the justice system, was engaged in restituting 93.5 percent of the West Bank and even a part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Today, his successor has a rather strange choice of words as he promises “not to ignore” the standpoints of his predecessor but also insists that he is not bound to adopt them. Cabbalists, help! He complains that his counterparts in the negotiations require, for the first time in 15 years, that the matter of formation of settlements be addressed first. He claims “it is impossible to stop life’s natural path” and while after all, “the settlers are here to stay.” All of this, he concludes in a peremptory manner, is a waste of time.

This is reflected by the glowing report handed to his boss by the ineffable Avigdor Lieberman, foreign affairs minister and notorious falcon, in which he is “happy with the fact that this encounter took place, and that a dialogue can reopen without condition.” He also makes clear that “the important aspect is that this government respects its engagement with its electorate and does not give in to outside pressure.”

The next chapter is already clearly written, if we are to believe the Israeli chief of diplomacy: A peace accord in the coming years being unlikely, at the very best can we hope to reach a modus Vivendi. Isn’t it true that “dozens of conflicts in the world continue each year without any resolution being found?”

Such is not the opinion of Washington, who follows these developments with unease and insists on the need to halt the savage constructions where close to half a million Israelis are already settled. Tuesday, Obama did not hide his impatience. He announced to his two hosts that “we cannot indefinitely keep on talking about engaging in dialogue. The time has come to go ahead, despite all the obstacles, and all that happened in the past.” Hillary Rodham Clinton has been repeating this for the past four years, along with other members of the democratic administration, although George Mitchell is insisting on rounding off the edges.

This is perhaps to ensure a small chance of success in his mission (impossible), not hesitating in using a language that would make Alan Greenspan jealous. Greenspan would say, with his incomparable sense of humor: “If someone thinks he understood what I said, it must be because I didn’t express myself properly.” After the three-party meeting in New York, the U.S. emissary in the region told the journalists that “we never looked at the steps in this file as being an end in itself.”

More subtle in their approach to the problem, the White House strategists are about to move on to phase two of their offensive. Their speech to the Israeli cabinet could be summed up as such: Since you don’t want to talk about it, let’s leave the delicate issue of the colonies to the side and move on to the next step, which has to do with the final status of the territories. The mere mention of this part of the problem is bound to give Netanyahu hives, as he is stuck between the extremists of Israel, Beiteinou and the Shass, who are convinced that time plays in favor of Israel.

The big dilemma for America has traditionally been to want to rush, with the hope of achieving success, or to do nothing and see if things worsen. They should listen to the sage George Mitchell, former hero of the Irish marathon: “We knew from the start that it would not be easy.” This is what we call, in diplomatic language, a delicate euphemism.