Obama, Israel’s Lawyer

In his meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Barack Obama shrugged off advice from someone who has vast experience in negotiations among Palestinians, Israelis and Americans.

In an article published on Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times, Aaron David Miller suggested the following: “Stand for the agreement, not just with one side or the other.”

David Miller was adviser to secretaries of state — both Democrat and Republican — in negotiations between Arabs and Israelis. In this position, he took part in the famous meeting at Camp David 10 years ago that included Presidents Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is now with the Ministry of Defense.

Today, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, David Miller quotes Henry Kissinger, one of the best-known American secretaries of state, as saying that, too often, the United States acted as Israel’s lawyer instead of understanding that his client was the agreement and should therefore advocate for both sides. Bingo.

Upon meeting Netanyahu, Obama completely dodged the issue that is the biggest impediment at the moment for peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis: the illegal construction of homes for Jewish settlers in Palestinian territories.

Not coincidentally, on the same day of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting B’tselem, a respected Israeli institution (attention, Israeli, not Palestinian), publicized information that the Jewish settlements control 42 percent of the occupied West Bank, although the building area accounts for only one percent of the total.

It turns out that the municipal boundaries of settlements are 10 times larger than the inhabited area. According to B’tselem, the settler population almost tripled since 1993, from 110,000 to 301,200.

The organization accuses the Israeli government of not complying with the commitment agreed upon with the U.S. government under President George W. Bush in 2003 to freeze all construction.

Obama did not mention, at least in public, three of the four points that would define any peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians: Jerusalem, whose eastern part the Palestinians claim as their capital; the borders; and the refugees. He only cited the one that matters specifically to Israel, with reason: security, i.e., the law of the Jewish state to exist in safety.

Since Israel is the occupying power, the entire dossier of the peace agreement depends on the initiatives of its government. But all that Netanyahu has pledged to do was to eventually transfer responsibility for more areas of the West Bank to Palestinian security forces. None goes to the heart of the matter.

While covering up any points that Israel should consider, if you really want peace, Obama should cover the cost for the Palestinians on what the Israeli jargon calls “incitement.” Netanyahu wants the Palestinian Authority — the one that is willing to negotiate peace, since Hamas, which rules Gaza, wants to annihilate Israel — “to prepare their people for peace, in schools, textbooks and so on.”

It is an allusion to the supposed or real preaching of hatred in textbooks and, by extension, in Palestinian schools. Obama has bought the argument, saying, “It’s very important that the Palestinians not look for excuses for incitement, that they are not engaging in provocative language.”

There would hardly be a more convincing demonstration of advocacy on one side — exactly the opposite of what was suggested by the experienced Aaron David Miller — who is Jewish, as the name indicates, but not dogmatic.