Israel has a played a role in U.S. domestic politics ever since 1948 when Harry Truman, against the advice of the State Department, decided to vote for the Palestine Partition Plan in the U.N. General Assembly, because of the importance of the Jewish vote to his re-election in a few months. However, never before has Israel been used as an offensive weapon in such a direct and obscene manner as it was this week.
In last Thursday’s speech on Middle East policy, Obama publicly supported a formula that has played a central role in all the U.S.-sponsored peace talks that have taken place over the last two decades: the utilization of the pre-1967 borders, modified with mutually-agreed territorial exchanges, as a basis of a peace accord.
That is, Israel could annex the principal settlements in the West Bank, including those located in the suburbs of Jerusalem, in exchange for allocating to the future Palestinian State an area of similar size in the existing state of Israel. This is definitely nothing that should alarm friends of Israel in the United States.
Obama’s strategy for re-launching the peace process begins by attempting to agree on the borders of the two future states, thus creating trust among the two parties, before taking on thornier emotional issues such as the refugees’ right of return, or the division of Jerusalem. Thus the need to publicly lay out the framework in which the talks will take place.
In all of the other elements of contention between Palestinians and Israelis, Obama aligned his speech with the Israeli position: he denied Hamas’ ability to participate even indirectly in peace negotiations unless they recognize Israel; he warned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the U.S. will not support his attempt to have the U.N. recognize the Palestinian state in September; and he said that Israeli withdrawal from the territories will be conditioned on the capacity and will of the new Palestinian state to avoid terrorist activities.
In spite of all this, various Republican Party heavyweights did not hesitate to accuse Obama of being anti-Israel. According to former Governor Mitt Romney, the president “threw Israel under the bus,” and had been “disrespectful” to Israel. For Representative Michele Bachmann, Obama “betrayed Israel.” Former Governor Tim Pawlenty described the call for a return to the 1967 borders as a “disaster waiting to happen” and promised that he would “stand strong for Israel.”
Their words are so coarse and removed from reality that it is obvious that they are the result of cheap political maneuvering, and that their only purpose is to try to scratch up a few votes among the most pro-Israel members of the Jewish community.
These presumptive champions of Israel seem to ignore that by converting her defense into a partisan issue they may be doing more harm than good. The U.S. pro-Israel lobby has always tried to garner support from both parties, thus insulating support for Israel from the heated bickering between Democrats and Republicans.
In fact, in his speech this weekend to the annual conference of AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobbying group, Alan Solow — president of the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations — publicly denounced the attempts to use Israel as an election issue.
At the same time, the comments of Romney and company do little to advance the peace process, since in order to function as a minimally credible mediator between Israelis and Palestinians, the U.S. cannot automatically support every single position the Israeli government ever takes.
On the other hand, all of these considerations tend to take a back seat when one is dreaming of the White House.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.