A Possible Path to Peace: The Israeli Peace Initiative isn't perfect, but it's a true start, by Gershom Gorenberg, American Prospect

In a better world, the Israeli Peace Initiative, launched yesterday, would have been written not by a group of ex-generals and other public figures but by the Israeli government itself. In an even better world, Israel would have issued the proposal nine years ago, immediately after the Arab League ratified its own Arab Peace Initiative.

If that better world had included a U.S. administration able to mediate muscularly in 2002, the narrow gaps between the two outlines for peace might have been quickly closed and an agreement signed. Back then, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza -- not counting East Jerusalem -- was 216,000, compared with more than 300,000 today. The Palestinian Authority had not yet split into separate West Bank and Gaza governments. The barriers to implementing an accord were considerably lower. Many graves had yet to be dug for the Israelis and Palestinians who have since died at each others' hands.

Alas, we do not live in that alternative universe. In our world, the Israeli Peace Initiative was launched belatedly, in 2011. (The Hebrew text is here and an English translation here.) The signatories included Yuval Rabin, son of the assassinated prime minister and peacemaker, former military chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, ex-Gen. Amram Mitzna, two former chiefs of the Shin Bet security agency, and an ex-head of the Mossad, along with onetime deputy foreign minister Yehudah Ben-Meir (a recovered rightist) and, most surprisingly, Adina Bar-Shalom -- daughter of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox, hawkish Shas Party.

Utterly unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's name does not appear on the list. The Israeli Peace Initiative can be read as a carefully compiled list of the diplomatic steps that Netanyahu desperately seeks to avoid: accepting the 2002 Arab plan as a framework for negotiation, using the pre-1967 borders as the basis for peace with the Palestinians and Syria, recognizing East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and more.

Pessimists quickly argued that another peace proposal by out-of-power figures has virtually no chance of breaking the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. But pessimism doesn't mean realism. It translates into something between inertia and unwarranted despair. The initiative could roil Israeli politics and feed a chain reaction leading to negotiations. But that depends on whether potential allies, domestic and international, overcome their own inertia and help the process.

The new initiative's first target is the Israeli political debate. It's meant to show that peace terms close to what Arab leaders have proposed are militarily safe and publicly legitimate. It also shows that Netanyahu is the obstacle, and that he must be replaced. Lipkin-Shahak, ex-Gen. and Mossad chief Danny Yatom, ex-Shin Bet chief Yaakov Perry, and other signatories speak the classic national-security language, very short on feelings, that has a strong influence in an anxious country. Their political allegiances, past or present, are not to the radical left, but to the center-left or center, precisely the part of the electorate that has seemingly lost interest in peace. Their endorsement for negotiating based on the June 4, 1967 borders -- that is, for leaving the West Bank and Golan Heights -- identifies that position as centrist and Netanyahu as the extremist.

The new Israeli proposal, I should stress, isn't a blanket endorsement of the 2002 Arab plan, also known as the Saudi Initiative, but a more detailed response. The text is more than twice as long as the Arab initiative. On the Jerusalem issue, it calls for leaving post-1967 Jewish neighborhoods in the east half of the city under Israeli rule. The holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as Haram al-Sharif would be under Muslim administration but neither side's sovereignty. The pre-1967 borders would be adjusted on the basis of one-to-one land swaps. Unlike the Arab plan, the Israeli one makes explicit that there would be a passageway under Palestinian control connecting the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab plan calls for an "agreed" solution to the Palestinian refugee issue; the Israeli one says that refugees would be absorbed by the new Palestinian state with only a "symbolic" number entering Israel.

All of these details are products of the best moments in the sporadic Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since 2000. The gap between the unofficial Israeli proposal and the Arab initiative is real, but not large. A pessimist would say it remains unbridgeable, that a diplomatic rewrite of Zeno's paradox is at work: To get to peace, each side must first traverse half the distance to a compromise. Then it must traverse half the remaining distance, and then half of what is left, and therefore it is impossible ever to arrive. Motion itself is an illusion. Real life, however, has never cared about Zeno's sophistry. It is possible to move and possible to arrive.

For that to happen, some warm responses to the Israeli Peace Initiative would help. Tzipi Livni, head of the parliamentary opposition, should endorse it, showing that her Kadima Party really is centrist, security-oriented, and an alternative to Netanyahu. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should quickly describe the Arab and Israeli initiatives as precisely the framework needed for negotiations. Endorsements by prominent American Jews -- following the lead set by the pro-peace lobby J Street and Americans for Peace Now -- would make it easier for members of Congress to laud the plan. That, in turn, would create the right atmosphere for President Barack Obama to lay out his own proposal for an agreement, citing the unofficial Israeli proposal as a foundation.

In a recent article, veteran American peace negotiator Aaron David Miller both encouraged Obama to take bold steps on the Israeli-Palestinian front and expressed doubt that the president would risk doing so until after he is re-elected. Ostensibly, waiting is the cautious path. Second-term presidents are stronger and less constrained.

But a world in which Israeli-Palestinian peace is put off until 2013 is likely to be even uglier than the one we live in now. The real gamble would be to delay; the cautious path is to act immediately. That's why the Israeli Peace Initiative, belated as it may be, is still too good an opening to ignore. Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The Prospect. He is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He blogs at South Jerusalem.

Published April 7, 2011 in the American Prospect

Myth: Obama is bad for Israel. Not a chance.

"Setting the record straight: Obama deserves praise, not denigration, for commitment to Israel’s security," says Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET 's US correspondent, and

In "U.S.-Israeli Arms Cooperation Quietly Growing" (Forward, Dec. 25, 2009), Nathan Guttman reports that “behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing. Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency."

1. Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET:

Plenty of nonsense had been uttered in Israel in respect to the Obama Administration and its attitude to Israel. This was the case both in baseless articles and in statements attributed to close associations of Prime Minister Netanyahu in the wake of his first meetings with the American president. After the meeting in Washington in May, a senior official in the PM’s plane was said to have uttered a statement about the “idiot who speaks about a two-state solution.” Meanwhile, after the meeting at the sidelines of the UN general assembly in September we saw headlines claiming that Netanyahu was able to stare Obama down.

Foolish Remark

However, our Sports Minister, Limor Livnat, went further than ever. Foolish talk such as “we’ve stumbled upon a terrible administration” was never heard before, and American officials are asking why Obama deserves this.

The time has come to set the record straight and look into what exactly is being done by the current American president for the State of Israel’s sake. Ten months after he entered the White House, we can clearly say that Obama continues to safeguard of all the major interests pertaining to Israel’s security and welfare. He makes sure to maintain its qualitative advantage and preserves the intimate intelligence and security ties.

Israel continues to be at the top of the list of US aid recipients – about $3 billion annually in ongoing defense aid, and further aid beyond it aimed at developing special arms and mostly anti-missile defense systems, topped by the Arrow 3 project. The administration, which cut America’s defense budget, could have undermined its aid to the project and insisted on a US-made missile, yet it did not do it. A terrible president could have also ordered the removal of the American radar system from Israel. This radar can spot a moving baseball 2,000 kilometers away and is being operated by Americans.

Indeed, the current administration has been declaring in every opportunity its obligation to protect the State of Israel’s security, while backing up its words in practice.

President Obama promised Netanyahu to enter tactical and time-limited dialogue with Iran, and assess the move’s success by the end of the year. In practice, Obama is not even waiting for year’s end. At this time, the Americans are pressing on all diplomatic fronts in a bid to advance Iran sanctions. Obama also promised Netanyahu to shift to harsh sanctions and keep the military option on the table, despite pressure by leftist supporters in the US to stop talking about it.

Meanwhile, the president adopted significant steps vis-à-vis the Russians in order to enlist their support to the Iran cause, including a change in priorities in deploying American missiles. It is unclear whether annulling President Bush’s plan to deploy US missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic was made in the framework of a deal with Russia for the sake of the effort against Iran, yet in practice it appears that President Medvedev is cooperating with Obama on the Iranian front.

Part II Obama not the enemy: Current US Administration not free of mistakes, but far from being hostile to Israel, Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET

The Goldstone Report was and still is a grave problem for Israel. Yet from day one, the Obama Administration pointed to the report’s absurdity and made an effort to prevent a UN discussion on the matter. While the US failed on this front, it voted against the anti-Israel decision, engaged in diplomatic efforts to convince other states to object or abstain, and continues to operate behind the scenes in order to prevent the report from being brought before the Security Council. Should the report eventually get there, the US is expected to veto it.

Moreover, despite the importance of the UN in the Obama Administration’s view as part of its foreign policy, in all matters pertaining to Israel he proved that he can act against his own ideology. The Administration embarked on talks ahead of the so-called “Durban II” convention in Geneva, yet the moment the Americans realized they will be unable to prevent an anti-Israeli text, they quit the conference.

When it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians and with the Arabs in General, Obama continues to speak about Israel’s right to defend itself. In his UN speech he stressed that in the framework of implementing the two-state vision, Israel will be a Jewish state, with all this entails in respect to the refugees.

Meanwhile, in his Cairo speech, Obama was the first American president who in the heart of the Arab world spoke about the unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.

The Israeli public does not grasp the extent of Israel’s dependence on the US, and takes the security and intelligence cooperation for granted. But is there any other state that enjoys this kind of cooperation with the US? Is it possible that Limor Livnat is part of our government yet doesn’t know this?

All American Administrations since the Six-Day War, including George W. Bush’s Administration, objected to the settlements and endorsed the two-state solution. As opposed to previous governments, the Obama Administration is serious in its intention to advance this solution, which Israeli governments ranging from Sharon’s to Netanyahu’s current cabinet openly endorsed.

The Obama Administration’s great mistake was to turn the pressure on Israel in respect to a settlement freeze into a public issue. Several weeks passed in Washington before officials there realized the gravity of the mistake. Now, they aspire to get the sides to talk as soon as possible in order to first resolve the issue of borders, which will make the volatile debate over settlement construction irrelevant.

There is one more issue that needs to be figured out: The personal relationship between Obama and Netanyahu. It is quite clear that we lost the intimacy that Rabin had with Clinton and that Sharon and mostly Olmert had with George W. Bush. The latter two spoke twice a week on occasion, while today there are almost no phone conversations between the leaders.

It is unclear whether this is merely a personal issue, or whether it has to do with Obama’s character; he is not an emotional person, but rather, very methodical. Indeed, it appears that Obama does not develop personal relations with world leaders. Even during British PM Gordon Brown’s visit, headlines in London addressed the dissipation of the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the US.

The Obama Administration is not free of mistakes, yet it is far from being the hostile Administration that is being portrayed in Israel.

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2. In addition, Nathan Guttman reports in "U.S.-Israeli Arms Cooperation Quietly Growing," (Forward, Dec. 25, 2009) that “behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing.

"Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.

"Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States’ most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America’s most sensitive new technology.”

______

Yitzhak Benhorin is Ynet’s correspondent in Washington

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3813307,00.html Published 12/1/09

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3813614,00.html

Myth: Israelis and Palestinians have not felt enough pain to do anything hard for peace. Obama should walk away from Mideast peace efforts

until Israelis and Palestinians are really hurting, and begging for US help to settle the conflict. (Thomas L. Friedman, "Call White House, Ask for Barack," The New York Times).

The Facts:

1. Not enough pain? Over the last eight years, Israelis have suffered hundreds of suicide bombings from the West Bank and Gaza, thousands of rocket and missile attacks from Lebanon and Gaza on their civilian population centers in the north and south, and mounting fears about a nuclear-armed Iran; Palestinians have suffered Israeli invasions and counter-attacks, a deepening occupation and ongoing settlement expansion. In the last few years, they’ve endured Intifada II, Lebanon War II, and the Gaza War.

2. What would likely happen if we walked away? Friedman counsels the president to leave the parties to “enjoy the status quo.” “If and when they get serious, they’ll find us.” But the status quo is a tinderbox. Friedman would have Obama wait until Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, Iran and Israel are swallowed in the maw of a new regional war, the Palestinians radicalized and shorn of hope, the Israelis despairing and fearful. He would let extremists set the entire region aflame, and then send in the American fire brigade armed with water hoses and a two-state rescue plan—if the bloodied and embittered combatants dialed the White House 911. But who's to say there'd be anything left to salvage? By then, the two-state solution might no longer be an option, and the region might have reached an irreversible crisis, a critical tipping point.

President Obama would do well to reject Friedman’s “burn down the village to save it” strategy, built as it is on a tortured misreading of modern Middle East history – both past and future.

3. Friedman’s op-ed is best understood as a shot across the bow. Abbas could carry out his threat to resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority, leaving Israel without a Palestinian leadership with which to negotiate a two-state deal, and an ongoing occupation of millions of West Bank Palestinians for whom Israel would now be directly responsible.

By the same token, Friedman is threatening that if Israeli and Palestinian leaders don’t do more to promote an environment conducive to successful negotiations, the US could give up on peace efforts and leave Israelis and Palestinians to face the conflict on their own. In other words, Obama would start acting more like George W. Bush, but without the disingenuous rhetoric - a kind of uber-Bush.

The problem, however, is that it’s an empty threat. The U.S., as Israel’s closest ally, would be viewed throughout the world as enabling whatever steps Israel might take in an increasingly toxic environment. The threat is not credible; the warning shot is an empty shell. And Obama will never succumb to the do-nothing (but bomb), laissez-faire approach to foreign policy.

4. As Israel's best friend and ally, it would be supremely irresponsible for the US to abandon Mideast peace efforts - irresponsible to Israel, and to our own national security interests.

"In making the case for US leadership of Israeli-Arab peace efforts, there are two basic truths," writes Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now. " The first is that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts is vital to Israel's security, stability, prosperity, and very survival as a Jewish, democratic state. Thus, if the US cares about Israel, it cannot step back from this effort.

Second, “Middle East peace should be viewed through the lens of American national security interests, and [viewed] this way, the US can and indeed perhaps should 'want it' - want an end to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts - more than the parties. Looking at it through this lens, the US dare not step back from the effort to achieve peace.”

5. Here’s a better idea: the US should propose a detailed two-state framework to the parties now, with a deadline to work out a mutually acceptable formula with intensive American, Arab and international help. After a decade of growing Israeli and Palestinian insecurity, thanks to the benign neglect now championed by Friedman and practiced by Bush, Obama's new Mideast peace initiative must come not after, but before the next even more catastrophic clash of arms.

(See the related "Myth: Obama's Mideast peace policy has failed," and "Myth: American Jews disrespect Israeli democracy when they suggest Obama should press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to accept a US peace plan.")

For more insight, read the following:

1. Lara Friedman, "Tom Friedman: so wrong (and so glib)," Americans for Peace Now

2. David Halperin, “To Do Nothing is an Insane Policy,” Israel Policy Forum

3. Richard Silverstein, "Friedman Advises Obama to Wash His Hands of Israel-Palestine," Tikun Olam

4. Letters to the New York Times: "Mideast Path: Step Up or Step Back?"

Myth: American Jews disrespect Israeli democracy when they suggest Obama should press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to accept a US peace plan.

We often hear that American Jews may have a right to an opinion on the Israeli-Arab conflict, but no right to tell Israelis and Palestinians what they should do in matters of peace or war. If they go so far as to suggest that President Obama propose a peace plan and press the parties to accept it, or to negotiate within its parameters, they are being disrespectful of the wishes of the Israeli electorate and the government that represents them.

The facts:

1. This argument ignores that American Jews are American citizens too, and as full participants in American democratic process, we have a right and a duty to express our views to our elected officials over US policy towards the Middle East, including Israel. As American citizens, we are under no obligation to subordinate our judgments about US Middle East policy to those of Israel’s electorate, or its government. That would be tantamount to allowing Israel to dictate to us, and to our own government, what US policy should be. In fact, it disrespects American democracy to tell American Jews that they must urge American leaders to act as Israeli voters wish, not as American, including American Jewish voters, choose.

We “are American citizens who back American policies that we believe are in our own country’s interests, as well as the interests of Israelis, Palestinians and the rest of the world….I think the Obama administration is helping America and Israel when it tries to stop actions that, if left unchecked, will preclude a two-state solution, including Israeli settlement expansion and Palestinian violence and incitement,” notes Dan Fleshler.

It goes without saying that the President of the United States is under no obligation to subordinate his views on US Middle East policy to those of the Israeli government. He must consider the full range of US values and interests, among which our friendship and alliance with Israel is unquestionably a top priority. But the Israeli government’s views as to how the US should pursue our interests in the region, or our relationship with Israel, should not, by themselves, determine how the US should act. As others have noted, US policy towards the Middle East must be made in Washington, not in Jerusalem.

2. America’s alliance with Israel has a wide range of consequences for US national security. An Israeli decision to mount a preemptive strike against Iran will embroil the US in a protracted war with Iran, and expose hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf to counter-attack. Our alliance with an Israel in conflict with the Palestinians and Arab nations breeds animosity towards the U.S. among Arabs and Muslims. Dan Fleshler observes: “As long as Israel and America are seen in much of the Muslim world as steadfast allies in a war between civilizations, what Israel does in the occupied territories is my problem, too. The Israel-Palestinian conflict fuels global instability and extremism and provides a valuable mobilizing tool for terrorist groups that would just as soon attack the New York City subway system as Sderot.”

Americans, and not only American Jews, are willing to bear the consequences of our alliance with Israel, for good or for ill. We must and will stand by our bond with the Jewish state, no matter the consequences. But the fact that our own security is impacted by Israeli actions means that we do and must have a weighty voice when it comes to what steps Israel should take in the region to promote peace and in matters of war.

3. As important as the US-Israel relationship is to us as American Jews and to the President, the US has its own set of global interests which aren’t necessarily identical to those of Israel, even if there is considerable overlap. When some Israelis or other American Jews tell us that all American Jews must subordinate their opinions to those of the Israeli voter – or to however Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s arcane electoral/coalition system translates the will of the Israeli electorate – they are playing on our identity as Jews, and demanding that we subordinate our American-ness to our Jewishness.

4. Even if we placed our Jewishness before our American identity, it does not follow that American Jews must encourage their elected officials to pursue an American policy that is made in Jerusalem by the Israeli electorate or its government. If our moral compass, our sense of responsibility for our fellow Jews, or our judgment as autonomous American Jews actively committed to Israel’s well-being, leads us to different conclusions than the Israeli government, we are obligated to urge our elected officials – and Jewish leaders who we feel represent us - to adopt our chosen policies.

5. An Israel – or an American Jewish leadership – that demands of American Jews obeisance to the policies of whichever Israeli government is in power, alienates a growing number of American Jews from active engagement with Israel. That translates into less, not more, support for Israel. If the only kind of pro-Israel support that is kosher is a slavish, unreflective following of the Israeli government’s tune, that amounts to a one-dimensional Jewishness that is at odds with the core Jewish tradition of argument, debate and reflection. A narrow concept of what it means to be pro-Israel is bad for Israel and bad for American Jews as Jews and as Americans.

6. If Israeli and Palestinian politics are too dysfunctional to enable their leaders to take the necessary steps to move the conflict towards resolution, leading to growing regional insecurity and renewed war and violence, it is incumbent on the U.S. to play a leadership role to help the parties move forward. This may entail proposing a US peace plan or framework for negotiations, and providing incentives and disincentives to both sides to reach an agreement within a specified time-frame. That's pro-American, pro-Israel, and decidedly the right, and responsible, thing for President Obama to do.

For more insight, read:

Dan Fleshler, "The Pro-Israel Camp Cares About America Too," Realistic Dove

Obama “sold out” Israel and put it on the “chopping block” at the UN? Ridiculous.

Obama’s conservative critics are accusing him of “selling out” Israel at the U.N. by calling on Israel to retreat to the “indefensible 1967 borders.” In fact, Obama did neither. Obama is being labeled “anti-Israel” for using the same language as President George W. Bush. Even Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken out against these wild and outlandish charges.

In a series of smear emails, blog posts, op-eds, and an interview on Fox TV News, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and other neoconservative critics have claimed that at the UN General Assembly opening President Obama “put Israel on the chopping block” by “calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegitimate” and “talking about ending ‘the occupation that began in 1967.’ That implies that he supports going back to 1967 borders…Obama…is frequently taking the side of the Palestinians...,” charged Bolton.[1]

“The president says America does not accept…‘the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.’ Not new Israeli settlements, continued Israeli settlements.…That calls into question, in my mind, all Israeli settlements…,” Bolton told Fox News host Glenn Beck.

“Beck and Bolton then took a map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories and used a big red magic marker to show how Israel could be sliced up if Obama’s nefarious plans were implemented. Needless to say, Beck and Bolton’s scribblings did not resemble any plan offered by anyone, ever,” notes national security researcher Matt Duss.[2]

Beck closed his exchange with Bolton about Obama’s UN speech by insinuating that Obama’s Israel policy is a product of “Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitism.”[3] “Did we sell out Israel today?” Beck asked. “I think it’s very close to it. I think it’s the most anti-Israel speech I can remember by an American president,”[4] replied Bolton.

Duss rightly calls this “blatant and dishonest fear-mongering on the president’s policy toward Israel….What Bolton failed to mention in his transparently dishonest attempt to scare Fox viewers is that President Obama’s language almost exactly reproduces language used by President George W. Bush in describing the opening point for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in 2008:”

BUSH: “There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent.”[5]

OBAMA: “The goal is clear, two states living side by side in peace and security - a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”[6]

Obama’s description of Israel as a Jewish state, coupled with his commitment to two states for two peoples, reflects his support for Zionism’s central idea, giving the lie to wild inflammatory charges that he “sold out Israel.”

Not to be outdone by Fox, OneJerusalem distributed an email insisting that

“With the United States leading the way, the forces aligned against Israel are becoming bolder and brasher. One would expect the President of the United States to stand firm against America's enemies and support its allies. Today however, President Obama used the forum of the United Nations to abandon Israel and embrace the unfounded demands of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).”

On what do they base these outrageous smears against President Obama? Obama’s reference to the “occupation that began in 1967,” says OneJerusalem, “implies that Israel must retreat from its own land, return to indefensible '67 borders, divide Jerusalem, and capitulate to Palestinian forces bent on destroying Israel. A few weeks ago, One Jerusalem sent out a Red Alert warning that Obama was going to ambush Israel at the United Nations. He did it, today.”[7] OneJerusalem won’t let the facts interfere with its continuing rants against President Obama. Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is among those who are now claiming that Obama’s U.N. speech proves that he is “pushing” for a “full withdrawal to the 1967 lines.”[8]

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu poured cold water on the fevered imaginings of Obama’s detractors:

“The things [Obama] said [at the UN] about the occupation are not new. He also said them in Cairo, and in fact that is the formula adopted by the [Bush administration’s] Road Map and it does not say we have to go back to the 1967 borders. This is the formula adopted by governments before the one I head, which did not agree to go back to the 1967 borders. We certainly would [also] not agree to that. In the matter of the settlements he also said nothing new...”

Netanyahu noted that “Obama, like other American presidents, reflected the deep basic friendship between the American and the Israeli people, and that ‘he stood in Cairo before the whole Muslim world and said this relationship would never be severed.’ Netanyahu added he believed the obligation of the United States to Israel's security was total.”[9]

Netanyahu is right that Obama’s statements on settlements are continuous with those of previous U.S. presidents. In fact, every administration since 1967, both Republican and Democrat, has criticized Israeli settlements as illegitimate and an obstacle to peace.

To suggest that by advocating a two-state solution to the conflict Obama “put Israel on the chopping block” or requires Israel to “retreat from its own land” assumes that the West Bank is part of Israel. Like the vast majority of Israelis, Palestinians and American Jews, no U.S. president has ever accepted this outlandish view of the “Whole Land of Israel” extremists who want only one state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Virtually the entire world rejects the idea that the West Bank belongs to Israel. But that doesn’t stop vocal supporters of the extremist fringe from opposing every American effort to resolve the Israel-Arab conflict and whipping up paranoia about the U.S. “selling out Israel.”

[1]Robert Costa, “Bolton: ‘A Post-American Speech By Our First Post-American President,’” National Review Online, Sept. 23, 2009
[2]Matt Duss, “Bolton: President Obama ‘Anti-Israel’ For Using Same Language as President Bush,” Wonk Room, Sept. 24, 2009
[3]“Glenn Beck Asks: ‘Could Obama Be Anti-Semitic?,’” Fox News, September 23, 2009
[4]“Glenn Beck Clips 09-23-09 Seg5- John Bolton: Obama Speech to UN Most Radical Ever by Pres.” Fox News, September 23, 2009
[5]“Bush calls for end of ‘occupation’ of Arab lands,” MSNBC, January 8, 2008
[6]To read the entire excerpt on Israel and Middle East peace from President Obama’s UN speech, see our debunking of the earlier smear “Obama planned ambush of Israel at the UN? Fat chance.”
[7]“President Obama Puts Israel on the Chopping Block,” OneJerusalem, September 23, 2009
[8]Dore Gold, “The Quartet’s Disturbing Shift and America’s New Direction,” Jerusalem Post, October 2, 2009; Lloyd Greif, “Obama’s Mideast Policy Endangers Israel: Israel Stands Alone,” Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, October 6, 2009
[9]Natasha Mozgovaya, “Netanyahu: No peace until Palestinians accept Israel as Jewish state,” Ha’aretz, September 24, 2009

Myth: Arab states won’t agree to begin normalization with Israel in exchange for an Israeli settlement freeze, proving they don’t really want peace.

The Facts: 8/25/09: Heralding an impending announcement by the Obama administration of an Arab-Israeli deal for the renewal of peace talks, the Guardian reports that “Israel, in return for a deal on settlements, is seeking not only a tougher line over Iran but normalisation of relations with Arab states, such as overflight rights for its airline El Al, establishment of trade offices and embassies, and an end to the ban on travellers with Israeli stamps in their passports.

"Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have so far tentatively agreed. Saudi Arabia has refused, saying Israel has had enough concessions. But the US is taking comfort from the fact that, crucially, Saudi Arabia has not tried to block other Arab states from signing up. 'They may come on board last, but they will come on board,' a European official said [of the Saudis]. A coalition of Arab states, thought to include the Saudis, has been in secret contact with Israel to discuss what they see as a common threat posed by Iran." (Barack Obama on brink of deal for Middle East peace talks, Guardian, 8/25/09)

8/14/09: “The United States told Israel last week that Gulf states Oman and Qatar are willing to renew their relations with Israel if it agrees to a moratorium on construction in the West Bank… Israel's embassy in Oman was shut down in 2001 after the outbreak of the second intifada. Qatar had an Israeli delegation office, which was also shut down.” (Oman, Qatar: We'll renew Israel ties if it freezes settlements, Ha’aretz, Aug. 14, 2009)

At the same time, press reports indicate that the Saudis are not inclined to show intermediate steps towards normalization with Israel in exchange for an Israeli settlement freeze. Instead, "Riyadh wants an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement to precede its Arab peace plan offer for normalization of relations between Israel and 23 Arab states."

8/19: Two prominent Israelis, Shai Feldman and Gilead Sher, write in “The grand bargain that is the Mideast’s best hope,” Financial Times, Aug. 18, 2009: “The reluctance of Saudi Arabia’s Prince al-Faisal to reward a partial Israeli move such as a settlement construction freeze is understandable given the distrust between Israel and its neighbours. The failure to end the conflict through interim stages has made all parties sceptical about such steps being more than temporary.

"Instead what is proposed here is that the Arab states engage Israel in an exercise in reverse engineering: announcing that once Israel reaches an agreement with the Palestinians on a permanent resolution of the dispute, the Arab states would reward Israel for every step it took towards implementing this vision.”

(Professor Shai Feldman is director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Gilead Sher, one of Israel’s most prominent lawyers, was its chief negotiator and is author of Within Reach: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations 1999-2001).

8/3/09: "Saudi Arabia’s negative public comments, other officials said, bear little relation to what it is saying in private. Mr. Mitchell insisted he was getting a very different message in his private meetings with more than a dozen Arab leaders, including the Saudis. Many, he said, were ready to consider new measures.

"He declined to discuss what kinds of steps, but other officials said the United States was pushing for a package of measures ranging from Arab countries’ opening commercial offices in Tel Aviv to their leaders’ granting interviews to Israeli journalists. Another step would be getting Arab nations to allow Israel’s state carrier, El Al, to fly over Arab countries to cut flight times to Asia." (New York Times, 8/3/09, U.S. to Push Peace in Middle East Media Campaign)

Israel has not been willing to agree to a full settlement freeze as requested by the US and the international community, and as required by the Road Map, insisting that it will continue to build Jewish housing in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including those in heavily populated Palestinian areas which have no chance of becoming part of Israel under a future peace accord.

The Arab states are rightly skeptical that even if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to a partial freeze on settlement building, he will not agree to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state on fair terms. The Israeli press has reported that various people close to Netanyahu have said that he agreed to pay lip service to a two-state solution, but under terms that he knew the Palestinians and the Arab world would never accept. Netanyahu's long-standing opposition to a two-state solution, with a territorially contiguous Palestinan state in the West Bank and Gaza, makes such skepticism well-founded. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that Netanyahu has not inspired the kind of confidence and trust that would enable Arab leaders to begin an incremental process of normalization with Israel.

"Arab leaders are concerned that if they offer normalization, they will be embarrassed by new Israeli construction in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, which the entire international community and the Arab world believe should become part of a Palestinian state: 'One of the main [reasons] Arabs are saying they can't go very far' in showing possible reciprocal gestures to Israel, said Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation, 'is, [they say], ‘what worries us most, will you guarantee that the Israelis won't embarrass us?'" Levy explained that Arab governments are afraid they will show reciprocal gestures only to have Al Jazeera showing pictures of new Jewish settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"When Israel's new ambassador to Washington Michael Oren was at the State Department July 17 for a "getting to know you" session, State Department officials raised with him among other topics Washington's opposition to Israel having recently granted permission for a 20-year old plan for construction of 20 Jewish apartments at the site of the old Shepherd Hotel in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, JTA's Ron Kampeas reported.

"The Saudis could point to the planned Israeli construction in East Jerusalem as an example of the reason Arab states feel they could be publicly embarrassed if the United States doesn't get Israel to agree to a settlement freeze first, a Washington Middle East peace activist who asked to speak anonymously said. 'The Saudis could point to that and say, ‘President Obama, we believe you are serious; but until you have the Israelis under control, you can't expect us to act.'"

Still, some Arab leaders may agree to President Obama’s proposal to make some normalization gestures towards Israel in order to help foster a positive climate for the President’s push to renew negotiations for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli accommodation.

"A high-ranking Arab official quoted in the Asharq Al-Awsat report said that while Arab states 'will not reject the US request,' they intend to respond with certain conditions. First, he said, Arab states will wait to check that US moves bear fruit, especially in terms of bringing about a halt to settlement construction. He emphasized that normalization would only come after Israel ceases construction in the West Bank. Additionally, the official said that Arab states would push for Israel to improve living standards of West Bank Palestinians.

"The official went on to point out that in the last 15 years, many Arab states had improved trade and semi-diplomatic relations with Israel. The Arab stance, according to the official quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat, would not constitute a unified front, and individual states will be free to respond to US requests however they please. (Jerusalem Post, 7/30/09, “Normalization when construction stops).

Bahrain: "Last Sunday, Bahrain's Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa called in the Washington Post for Arabs to talk to Israelis. 'Our biggest mistake has been to assume that you can simply switch peace on like a light bulb," al-Khalifa wrote. "The reality is that peace is a process, contingent on a good idea but also requiring a great deal of campaigning -- patiently and repeatedly targeting all relevant parties. This is where we as Arabs have not done enough to communicate directly with the people of Israel. [...] We must stop the small-minded waiting game in which each side refuses to budge until the other side makes the first move. We've got to be bigger than that. All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance.'" Mitchell's planned visit to Bahrain this week would seem to indicate Washington's interest in exploring ways to advance the crown prince's call for simultaneous, good faith action.

Qatar, Tunisia, other Arab countries: "American officials have been approaching other Arab states who may be more amenable to such overtures. Israel and the United States have floated a variety of ideas: Qatar might reopen the Israeli trade office it shuttered in January to protest Israel's military offensive in Gaza. Tunisia and other countries might allow Israeli planes to use their airspace. Arab leaders also might grant interviews to Israeli journalists, an Israeli government idea that the crown prince of Bahrain publicly endorsed last week, saying that Arab nations should 'tell our story more directly to the Israeli people by getting the message out to their media.'"

Quotes from Laura Rozen, The Cable, Foreign Policy magazine blog, 7/27/09)

Myth: Anyone, Jew or Arab, can purchase a home anywhere in Jerusalem (Netanyahu)

Conservative spin: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "claimed that anyone, Jew or Arab, could purchase a dwelling anywhere in Jerusalem, and pointed to a few dozen Arab residents in Jewish neighborhoods like French Hill and Pisgat Zeev."

The Facts:

1. "It is virtually impossible for an East Jerusalem Arab (who is a resident of Israel but not a citizen) to buy a home in most of West Jerusalem or in many Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, where the land is leased only to full-fledged Israeli citizens by a state ownership institution."

2. "These neighborhoods [French Hill and Pisgat Zeev] are in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967. That's what the controversy over Jerusalem is all about. Arabs who moved there did so due to the housing shortage in Arab East Jerusalem.

That housing shortage was brought on by two factors. One is construction of the Jerusalem security barrier, which separates East Jerusalem from the West Bank and makes it extremely difficult for Arabs to live outside the city and commute to work there. The second factor is the failure over the past 42 years of the government of Israel and the Jerusalem municipality to issue all but a handful of housing construction licenses for Arab residents of the city." (Israeli security analyst and former Mossad official Yossi Alpher, Jewish Settlement in East Jerusalem: Working at Cross-Purposes, Bitterlemons, 7/27/09)

"The FACT is that while American Jews like Irving Moskowitz can buy land in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, a Palestinian resident of, say, Sheikh Jarrah cannot purchase an apartment in many parts of west Jerusalem, because the Israel Lands Administration, which owns the land, will only enter into a contract with Israeli citizens of persons entitled to citizenship under the Law of Return." (Former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Jeff Barak, Netanyahu's Self-Inflicted Crisis, Jerusalem Post, 7/26/09)

Myth: It's inconceivable that Jews can live where they wish in Paris, New York and anywhere else in the world, but not in Jerusalem (Netanyahu)

Fact: "Paris and New York are not Jerusalem, a de facto divided city. The annexation by Israel of Jerusalem's eastern half is not recognized by the international community, which almost unanimously designates it as the future Palestinian capital. Incidentally, few countries even recognize West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. " (Israeli security analyst and former Mossad official Yossi Alpher in Bitterlemons, 7/27/09) "Not one government has its embassy in Jerusalem today. Netanyahu's statement of our sovereignty in Jerusalem not being challenged is at best wishful thinking." (Gershon Baskin, Oh no, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2009)

2. Netanyahu's unwillingness to freeze construction of new Jewish housing in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem undermines the prospects for progressing the Arab world towards peace with Israel: “Actions like this approval [by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu of a new Jewish settlement construction project at the Shepherd’s Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem] will only reinforce and increase Arab distrust of Israel and the peace process President Obama is trying to catalyze, making it even harder to convince the Arab states to deliver the sort of early normalization steps that the US views as critical to the process.

“Israel and the US have for some time been complaining about Arab unwillingness to promise any normalization in advance of an actual settlement freeze. The Shepherd's Hotel debacle offers a very good example of why, perhaps, Arab leaders are reluctant to ‘pony up’ until it is clear that there won't be continual embarrassments and setbacks.”

-Lara Friedman, Director of Policy and Government Relations, Americans for Peace Now, and attorney Daniel Seidemann, Ir Amim (Israel). APN Settlements in Focus (July 22, 2009): “Abusing Jerusalem to Assail Peace: the Case of the Shepherd's Hotel." (Ir Amim is an Israeli non-profit organization working for an equitable and stable Jerusalem with an agreed political future. For more information, see www.ir-amim.org.il/eng)