Barack Obama’s False Start in the Middle East

It seems like eons have gone by since Barack Obama delivered his speech at Cairo extending his hand to the Muslim world. The American president had precisely described the Palestinians’ “pain of dislocation.” Less than five months later, his work to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has failed to achieve any breakthroughs. The lack of a result would not be anything exceptional in light of the many peace “agreements” and vain “processes” if a triple reversal hadn’t been imposed on the Palestinian movement.

Poorly advised or overconfident in his personal charisma, Mr. Obama tackled the continuation of negotiations by requiring that the Israelis accept from the outset a total freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Emboldened by having such a patron, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, made this a condition sine qua non regarding the restart of talks with the Israeli government.

This strategy was unaware of a double reality: even if a number of Israelis are not in favor of the unauthorized colonization of the Palestinian territories, its legitimacy, which is the historic basis of the state of Israel, strongly permeates their mentality. The hardline government of the Israeli prime minister is in favor of pursuing the settlements. Benyamin Netanyahu will not make the same mistake of alienating the parties whose support make up his majority, something that cost him power in 1999.

Thus he held firm, and Washington, understanding that the goal of a total freeze on colonization was unattainable, returned to the idea that it must be “contained.” For Mr. Abbas, this turnaround was equivalent to an affront. This wasn’t the only one. Subject to strong American pressure. the leader of the Palestinian Authority had to accept returning to New York to shake Mr. Netanyahu’s hand. This photo, so desired by Mr. Obama, did not seal any rapprochement in their positions.

There was a third humiliation with the report of judge Richard Goldstone, which stigmatizes the “war crimes” committed, notably by Israel, during the war in Gaza. At the beginning of October, the Americans made Mr. Abbas withdraw his support for this report, which deemed him worthy of being called a “traitor” by Hamas. Understanding that he was gambling his political future, Mr. Abbas attained a vote in the UN Human Rights Council, which ratified the report.

All of this has left some scars: a memorandum from Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, shows that the hopes of the Palestinians in the Obama administration “have evaporated.” In Israel, the popularity of “Bibi” Netanyahu has never been so strong, while that of Mr. Abbas in Palestine has dropped to a favorable opinion of 12%. Regarding the freeze of colonization as mentioned in the Goldstone report, Mr. Netanyahu engaged in a clever blackmail: insisting on these points, he stressed, is running the risk of nipping the relaunch of the peace process in the bud.

During all of this time, the bulldozers of colonization have not stopped their work in the West Bank as well as in East Jerusalem. It goes without saying that the new American administration erred in believing in Jerusalem’s support. After the New York “summit,” some people close to Mr. Netanyahu even prided themselves on making the Obama administration fold. This was more than an imprudence, a fault: the power struggle cannot be in favor of Israel because there is no American alternative.

Besides the fact that American aid to the Hebrew state exceeds 3 billion dollars per year, Washington has at its disposal, in theory, the means to pressure Israel, notably on the strategic level. In practice, the strength of the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States is no longer in question, and the adoption of sanctions by Congress – perhaps the only means for obtaining concessions from Israel– is very uncertain. Which leaves the peace process in the state that Mr. Obama found it on January 20th, 2009.

The Americans know that they cannot wish for peace more than the two protagonists. In the short-term, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis seem to have any genuine interest in negotiating. Weakened, Mr. Abbas can no longer leave himself open to accusations of “collaboration with the Zionist enemy” from Hamas, especially in view of the Palestinian legislative and presidential elections. In Washington and in Tel Aviv, they are considering ways to “save the solider Abbas.”

The intent is paradoxical on the part of the Israeli government, which seems to take a malicious pleasure in humiliating the man who remains its only partner for peace. Everything occurs as if the Israelis were satisfied with the status quo: the economic situation in the West Bank is slowly improving, and this “economic peace” avoids any political concession. The war in Gaza was truly a setback, but Israel is banking on the growing interdependence of the Gazan and Egyptian economies to feed its dream of seeing Egypt absorb “Hamastan.” And one hopes in Jerusalem that the “American friend” will help make the Goldstone report fall down the bottomless pit of UN criticism.