Why have we witnessed this retreat in President Obama’s positions? While he once strongly insisted upon a timely resolution to the Palestinian issue based upon a two state solution and demanding that Israel cease the settlements, he is now content with a verbal refusal from Israel. This comes from the same man who once surpassed his presidential predecessors in announcing that the lack of a solution to this issue harms his country’s national security.
Three presidents before Obama adopted policies punishing Israel, which forced the nation to accept whatever these presidents demanded of them. Three other presidents applied pressure to Israel without reaching the point of imposing sanctions. The first three were Eisenhower (1957), Gerald Ford (1975) and Bush Sr. (1991). The other three included Kennedy, who sent inspectors to investigate Israel’s nuclear research and denounced its nuclear armament program. Carter one day went to a conference of the major American Jewish organizations and clearly stated the necessity of finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict for both American and Israeli interests. Finally, there was Clinton who was stopped short. I was a witness to the internal war that Netanyahu led against Clinton within the U.S. itself, calling on the Jewish organizations and the conservative Christian coalition or Christian Zionists.
It should be remembered that I visited James Baker, secretary of state for Bush Sr., in March 1997 at his office in Houston, Texas for an interview with al-Ahram. That day he told me in detail how Bush Sr. announced his decision to sanction Israel by stopping a loan valued at tens of millions of dollars in response to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s refusal to halt settlement activity as he had promised in the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. Shamir then resorted to the tactic of mobilizing the Jewish forces within the U.S. to pressure President Bush. At that point, Baker went to Congress to give a statement in the name of the president, in which he announced that he would refuse any attempt to pressure his administration and insisted upon his position, which represented the best interest of the United States. Then Baker announced his surprise, saying “This is the number to the White House, and when the Israeli prime minister reconsiders his position, he can contact us here.”* Baker then left Congress, and Shamir ultimately backed down.
The reason for the difficult position that Obama now finds himself in is that he did not reach the point that his presidential predecessors had. They made it clear to the people that they were refusing an Israeli challenge and adopted policies to sanction Israel in defense of the vital interests of the American people. Obama, however, wavers in his position, opposing the settlements and mentioning that their continuation is against U.S. national security interests, but then what?
Though we do not accept them, in order to understand the current state of affairs from a political standpoint we must look at them through the political reality, which is reflected in Obama’s decisions. This is a situation with two sides. The first is the nature of the American political system and its internal workings. The second is the nature of the circumstances surrounding Obama himself and their influence on his decisions.
First, foreign policy decision making in the U.S. is still controlled by a power base. The political system concedes to these power bases the ability to play a role in influencing the final product of a foreign policy decision.
Second, Obama and his supporters know that his ascendency to the White House came as an exceptional event, not only for his being the first black president, but also because he does not represent the traditionally accepted traits of a president. Even in the voting within the two parties to decide their presidential candidate, it would be difficult for a non-traditional candidate to win. In the Democratic Party, for instance, there were 800 votes for those dubbed “superdelegates,” who ultimately give greater importance to those to whom the traditional traits apply. But what happened was that the party discovered that a popular social movement carried Obama and that this movement was the true competition for any other candidate. Further, if they did not select him, then the stream of popular support would turn towards the Republican candidate and they would lose the presidency. Thus, the Democrats selected Obama.
This exceptional decision remains suspended before Obama’s eyes, who still hopes for a second term in office. And add to that the various pressures from every side, including opinion polls that reveal a slip in the section of society that supported him during the elections.
There is another important element looming on the American political map. The movement of social change, which was the base that brought Obama to the White House, lost the opportunity to transform itself into an organized movement that enjoys continuity of direction. Obama himself bears an important part of the responsibility for the lack of this transformation. He was swept up in the circumstances of this historical movement and the considerable problems that he has faced since entering the White House including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the economic crisis and rising employment.
Obama is the only one now who can prove that he is a historical president and not an exceptional case in American history. To begin this, he must act on the power of his words and start deterring this Israeli challenge towards him and the national security interests of his country.
*Editor’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.
One doesn’t have to go through the whole story from al-Ahram. Egypt is governed by an autocratic dictator and Egypt is a square peg in a round whole. al_Ahram’s approach to the issue is naive. What plausible solution does it have to present to President Obama? It needs to motivate Egyptians to throw the yoke of Mubarak and dump him in obscurity and oblivion. A democratic Egypt only can talk to a democratic America. A look at the Palestinians is sufficient to convince that in a separate state, should it ever materializes; Palestinians would at daggers drawn with each other. The whole Arab world is slumbering with its ostrich like neck buried deep in the desert sand. Can one expects from Obama, or for that matters from any American Administration to come and pull the necks of Arabs out and transform Middle East into vibrant and palpable democracy practiced by the playing rules. That would solve the Israel’s conundrum in a jiffy. Arab media is blind to the geopolitical change that has made its approach and voice worthless. A deep analysis of Israel, on the other hand would reveal that the Jews have never had a bigger fraud and an iniquity before in their four thousand years history. Israel, instead of becoming a Jewish state, has invoked Hebrew God’s wrath to such a degree that one might expect a scourge on the Zionists at any moment. It boggles ones mind to find the Americans befooled by the dominant Jewish media in wooing and supporting Israel at its own peril. Should a misfortune strikes Israel, America might be caught in is fallout for its share in the death and destruction in Palestine. The orthodox religious Jews look helplessly at the desecration of Jerusalem at the hands of a stubborn and stiff necked Netanyahu. How come that the American evangelists overlooked the creation of Israel? It is no secret that the founding father Ben-Gurion outright rejected God’s name at the swearing in ceremony and replaced it with a symbolic “Rock of Israel.” “God,” he snapped to the Rabbis, “had done too little to deserve this credit.” How come the whole world has overlooked Jewish history that is a saga of unending misfortunes? Please, don’t mislead President Obama in continuing peace parleys that is no more than a mirage. Palestine would revert to its status as it was throughout Muslim rule beginning with the Umayyad ruler Abdul Malik bin Marwan. The Golden Dome would stand where it is and the Jews who might escape the divine chastisement would assimilate in the resurgent Middle East. This is the scenario that would please president Obama and level the field for him in his outreach to the Muslim world. The Muslim masses need awareness that in a modern democracy that is played by the rules people are the sovereign rulers.