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Will weary Obama utter bromides about peace to Israelis, or a challenge?

Some of the stirrings around Obama’s visit to Israel and Palestine suggest that he’s under pressure to issue a challenge to Israelis about the two-state solution and might do so in his speech to young Israelis. But so far what he’s saying is vague, and very unpromising, to judge from reports of a meeting he had with Jewish leaders at the White House.

From the LA Times‘ Paul Richter:

President Obama, who will make his first visit to Israel as president later this month, will challenge Israelis to make greater personal sacrifices for peace with the Palestinians, the president told leaders of Jewish organizations at the White House on Thursday.

Obama has insisted that he will not try to pressure Israeli leaders during the visit. But he intends to exhort average Israelis to do more to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal because it is in their own security interests, according to several people present.

“What are you willing to do for peace? What hard steps are you willing to take?” Obama said he would ask Israelis during the visit.

JTA’s Ron Kampeas reports on the same meeting, that Obama voices little ambition for the trip:

According to the participants, Obama appeared weary and was emphatic about not bringing any “grandiose” plan for Middle East peace to the region. He said he would, however, counsel the parties against making “unilateral” moves.

He did not elaborate, but U.S. references to unilateralism generally refer to Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and Palestinian attempts to achieve statehood recognition.

Sadly, a lot of the meeting was taken up with the question of how to make Israelis feel that he loves them, per Kampeas:

Obama seemed more enthusiastically engaged, participants said, when he was seeking input from them on how best to reach out to Israelis and make them feel secure about the U.S.-Israel alliance. The exchange took up the bulk of the meeting, with Obama fielding more than a dozen questions and suggestions over 45 minutes.

Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union, said that he counseled the president to emphasize the Jewish connection to the land.

Yes the land, God help us. There were lots of rightwingers at the White House, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which sent out this note:

President Barack Obama met with twenty-three Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for almost an hour and a half yesterday to discuss his forthcoming trip to Israel. …

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rabbi Hier said to the President, “Everybody is for a two-state solution, but what we have on the ground now is a three-state solution with two competing Palestinian entities – one in Ramallah and the other in Gaza, who are in conflict with each other. It doesn’t make a difference, Mr. President, whether the Prime Minister of Israel is from the Likkud Party or the Labor Party. Both would be on the same page of making no concessions until the Palestinians speak with one voice and recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Mr. President, you should deliver that message to the Palestinian leaders during your trip.” 

The President concurred, and in a lengthy reply, said this was precisely the problem and that he intended to deliver that message directly to President Mahmoud Abbas when he meets with him in Ramallah.

But this report from “Palestine Briefing” in the U.K. says that the British government has a lot riding on the visit, and is even mulling sanctions against Israel if the Obama visit produces nothing.

In [last] Tuesday’s Foreign Office questions there were a record number of questions – 7 out of 15 – focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict and all but one of them critical of the Israeli government – a sign of how opinion is shifting within the House of Commons….
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, placed all his hopes on an American effort to revive the peace process when President Obama visits Israel and Palestine later this month…
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con) asked the Foreign Secretary what he would do if the American peace effort failed “as all the others have”? Was it not time to make it clear to the Israeli authorities that their flagrant breach of international law would finally have to be met by some serious consequences?
 
The Foreign Secretary argued that “we need to allow time and space for this American effort to develop as President Obama visits the region later in the month.

And the liberal Zionist organization J Street now has a petition up to pressure Obama to get off the dime on the two-state solution.

President Obama: The window of opportunity is open — use your upcoming trip to Israel and the goodwill created by your visit to move forward on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the 2012 Presidential campaign, President Obama said, “Our commitment to Israel’s security must not waver, and neither must our pursuit of peace.”

On March 21, President Obama is visiting Israel and the West Bank. Ask him to remember his pledge and continue to make peace a priority.

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It’s gonna be the first black president blessing racial Apartheid.

Phil, I think Obama’s saying that things are “bleak” and that he will not make any suggestions about making peace with the PA says more about his unwillingness to engage with this issue than about the current possibilities for success.

Giving a flowery speech to a group of college students about the audacity of hope and the “sacrifices” they should make for peace is a poor substitute for the tough diplomacy that the President seems intent on avoiding.

I see Obama’s visit as a big victory for the Israel lobby.

BTW, would it be too fanciful to mention that maybe the President should make time to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock after he puts that message in the cracks of the Western Wall?

The next US election is only 3 years away and if Hilary wants to be President Obama knows what to say. Besides he has battered wife syndrome. he’s afraid of getting slapped by Bibi again

Absurd, from a moral/ethical POV. Beiden left no stone unturned is telling AIPAC America would continue to issue a blank check to Israel, both in cash, interest, and diplomatic cover at the UN–even when Israel acts against official US policy, e.g., settlement expansion–and, against the whole world’s consensus. Beiden said nothing at the AIPAC Conference that was not OK’d by Obama and (more importantly), Obama’s handlers.

Obama did nothing during his first term, after his gallant Cairo Speech, except to retract it by his conduct, where he spent more tax money in each year on Israel than any past POTUS. All aid to Israel, unlike aid to any other country, is totally fungible. Thus, Israel gets to do what it wants, regardless of any US laws against funding settlements or funding Israeli military action that violates US law By Israel’s use of free US weapons–This thanks to the ambiguity of letting Israel define for the USA what is in Israel’s “self defense.”

Actually Beiden, lackey of Obama, recommends, as congress is now doing, that Israel determine when it’s merely defending itself by its preemptive actions, which the USA should support ipso facto with US blood, treasure, and lives.

Beiden actually says if there was no Israel, America would have to invent it to secure America. LOL

While the US can preach to the Palestinians about how and when to demand the end of their 45-year-long military occupation, Obama and other Israel firsters say the US “cannot dictate the terms” to Israel.

Pathetic isn’t it? It is sad indeed that the first African-American president of the United States defends in Israel exactly the kind of institutionalized bigotry, apartheid oppression, and racism in Israel the civil rights movement defeated in this country, a victory that made his election possible.

Good news? There will be when the US recognizes a two-state solution, a separation between Israel and this one, the United States.