Does Obama Support the European Initiative?

Quite a few raised a brow at reading the news about the meeting of President Shimon Peres with U.S. President Barack Obama — for it is not the duty of the Israeli president to engage in state negotiations, they said to themselves. But in this case, the eyebrows can actually lower back down, since the visit is taking place with the knowledge of Prime Minister Netanyahu and with his blessing.

Europe, or to be precise, its three leading countries — Britain, France and Germany — are going to present a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the coming weeks and to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the ‘67 lines. The meaning of this maneuver is equivalent to giving a gift to the Palestinian Authority for its stubborn and continuing refusal to negotiate seriously with the government of Israel.

The “wet dream” of the Palestinians from time immemorial was that some international factor would propose an arrangement which will allow them to avoid negotiations with Israel and the need to compromise. During the time of Yasser Arafat, this trend was accompanied by terror and violence, yet in the epoch of Abu Mazen and Fayad, the preferable way is diplomacy — but the goal is identical. According to the Palestinian blueprints, the Europeans will propose their plan sometime in April, while in September, when the U.N. General Assembly convenes, the Palestinians will bring in their “improved” formulation, including an immediate recognition of the Palestinian state along the ‘67 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, for a guaranteed majority vote in the U.N. General Assembly. A resolution of the U.N. General Assembly is not binding, as all know, but nonetheless the situation that will be created, where a large majority of the nations of the world support a certain move, is a fact.

The attitude of the U.S. to the European initiative is unclear at this point. There is hearsay that Washington stands behind this, and one newspaper even divulged that it is coordinating positions in this respect with British Prime Minister David Cameron. We don’t know whether these rumors are substantiated or not. However, we can guess that among President Obama’s advisers there are some who would prefer that Israel’s anger at such a stratagem will be directed toward the Europeans, and not toward the Obama administration.

President Peres might have learned about the intentions of the U.S. in his meeting with the American president, but nevertheless his mission hasn’t been confined to that. The meeting is primarily an effort to convince his interlocutor that not only will the pre-planned Palestinian-European course be unacceptable for Israel, but that any outcome not based on negotiations and agreements is an open door for violence and won’t last anyway.

“Give us a political initiative,” is what’s shouted from the opposition benches and written in some commentators’ columns, as if all this is about an “egg of Columbus” and not about an issue regarding the very future and security of Israel. The previous government conducted virtual negotiations with Abu Mazen and Abu Ala — but hasn’t arrived any place in spite of its super-generous propositions.

An “initiative” of that kind won’t take place now — however, there will be constructive proposals and ideas instead. We should hope that their practicality and potential benefits, contrary to the diplomatic “putsch” contrived by the Europeans and Palestinians, will tip the scales from Obama’s standpoint. The United States is a senior member in the international quartet, along with Russia, the U.N. and the EU. Washington’s stance would carry a lot of weight, and if it so desires, it will be able to foil the poisoned concoction.