If . . .
. . . I were a supporter of President Obama and of a “two-state solution” in the Middle East, I’d have to be asking myself, “what has Obama accomplished in Israeli-Palestinian peace-making over the past three years?”
The answer is that the Palestinians are more alienated from American policies than ever, and that they have actually been driven away from the negotiating table by the Obama Administration.
Soon after coming into office, it was Obama who moved to establish new U.S. “red lines” for Israel by focusing on Jewish residential construction in Jerusalem, an issue never before contested by the Palestinians. But after observing a 10-month moratorium on residential construction in its own capital, Israel found the Palestinians uninterested in negotiating.
Last summer it was Obama who blind-sided Benyamin Netanyahu by invoking Israel’s “1967 borders” on the eve of the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the United States. That move not only alienated friends of Israel, but gave to the Palestinians even less incentive to negotiate.
In response, the Palestinian Authority has turned to the UN for statehood recognition and to Hamas for a unity government. The Obama administration has had to exercise veto diplomacy at the UN and fend off threatened Congressional aid cut-offs to the Palestinians.
This course of diplomacy has been a fiasco for the Palestinians, who have failed at the UN and who have so far been unable to unify.
It has been a fiasco for America, which is seeing a dramatic decline in it influence all over the region.
It a fiasco for the Mid East peace camp, who are further away from a two-state solution than when Obama came into office.
And it has contributed to a more dangerous environment for Israel.
How did it come to pass?
The fundamental problem is that the peace camp believes it is mainly Netanyahu and “the Israeli right” who stand in the way of peace, and so they relentlessly pressure and attack him, even when it is counter-productive to their own declared goal of a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There is never anything like reciprocal Administration pressure on the Palestinians, who get 100s of millions a year in U.S. and European aid.
(More to come.)
UPDATE: Talks between Israeli, Palestinian negotiators leading to full peace talks have ended with no progress, PA Pres. Abbas said. (JTA) Read more>
In our view, there are many American Jews who would respond to a stronger anti-Obama candidate than M.R. In other words, there are many ‘to the right’ of where the Republican Jewish Coalition stands today.
Via Los Angeles Jewish Journal –
KRISTOL: On Sarah Palin, Caucus States, and Latino Voters
This is his victory speech last night from South Carolina, via TheRightScoop –
