Obama administration will do nothing for Palestinians through end of term

The Washington Post and New York Times both have reports on the Israeli Prime Minister’s fence-mending trip to Washington this week that make it clear that the Obama administration will be bending over backwards not to offend Israel any more than it did already with its Iran deal, including paying off Democratic supporters of the deal with more aid to Israel. The only good news is that the U.S. is not likely to accept Israel’s extortionate demand of $50 billion in the next ten years, up from $30 billion, “to maintain Israel’s comparative advantage,” as PM Netanyahu put it to his cabinet this morning.

The Israel lobby has solidified around the importance of trying to put any differences with Netanyahu in the past; and the Democratic establishment (Hillary Clinton and the Center for American Progress) is going along with this program. “Democrats are scrambling to get back in Netanyahu’s good graces after their shameful ‘anti-Zionist’ support of the Iran deal,” says Ilene Cohen. “They are in denial that Netanyahu has thrown them under the bus and that they’re dead meat to him. Even I was shocked that the Israeli embassy didn’t invite them to its New Year’s party.”

So the coalition that helped Obama win the Iran deal inside the Beltway is getting nothing. Netanyahu will not be punished for trying to destroy the deal. Americans for Peace Now wants the administration to hand off peace negotiations to Europe; but no, the Obama administration will maintain the charade that it is working for Palestinian freedom.

Read over this conference call that high Obama aides had with the press Friday in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting of the president and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and you will see that the administration cannot even talk about the occupation. It will only issue bromides about the two-state solution in the distant future and “settlement building” — as if this even touches on the apartheid conditions Palestinians experience.

As you read these excerpts, reflect that Israeli forces just killed a 72-year-old woman deep in the occupied West Bank– 27 years after Israeli forces killed her husband in the occupied West Bank. Husband and wife were killed by occupying forces on lands that were supposed to be a Palestinian state. The occupation is permanent and it is the Palestinian condition. And it is why such a broad coalition of Palestinian groups support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which the Obama administration pledges to oppose.

The U.S. is on the same page with Netanyahu himself, who today announced the goal was “stabilizing” the Palestinian situation. That’s a policy of conflict management, which deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes endorses, citing the U.S.’s “unprecedented level of security cooperation” in light of “Israel’s very dangerous neighborhood.”

Though US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro says the US needs to try to reinstill hope in Palestinians so they stop revolting:

[We need to] generate some direction and progress and hope… to reinforce that pathway toward a two-state solution even if negotiations will have to wait for some later period.  So that’s a discussion I expect the President and the Prime Minister to engage in — what steps everybody can contribute to providing that atmosphere, obviously reducing the tensions and the violence that has been going on, and maintaining the viability of the two-state solution for the future.

Rob Malley, an NSC aide, said nothing will happen in the rest of the Obama term, not even negotiations– but Palestinians should accept this suspended reality, in which they can’t even dream about having rights:

there will not be a comprehensive final status agreement in the remainder of his term, and there likely may not even be meaningful negotiations between the two sides — given that reality, which is a new one, how does the Prime Minister himself see Israel going forward, given its own interests in stabilizing the situation in preventing the emergence of a one-state solution.  So what ideas is he going to be putting through to the President so they can discuss what can be done in the absence of negotiations between the parties to help stabilize the situation on the ground and to signal — both Palestinians and Israelis to signal that they are still committed to and moving towards a two-state solution even if they’re not in a position today to talk to one another about it.

Rhodes pledged to fight BDS:

I’d also add on the specific question of delegitimization that you referenced in Secretary Clinton’s comments — this administration has repeatedly stood up against the delegitimization of Israel… we’ve continued to stand up against efforts to delegitimize Israel, including through BDS.

Rhodes said that he was all for Netanyahu speaking at the Democratic party’s thinktank the Center for American Progress, even after he tried to submarine the Iran deal:

[O]ne point that we made over the course of the last year is that it’s incredibly important to recognize that part of the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship over the years has been that it’s completely bipartisan here in the United States.  Republicans and Democrats have been united in their support for Israel and its security.  So we do think it’s certainly a positive and constructive step for the Prime Minister to be speaking to Republicans and Democrats, to be speaking at AEI but also at the Center for American Progress.

There was a lot more blather about the peace process. Rhodes said we’ve tried anything:

[C]learly, part of our assessment has been that we don’t see a clear pathway right now to the type of negotiations that could produce a two-state solution, as much as we would like that to be the case.

We’ve tried many different approaches over the course of the administration — direct negotiations, indirect negotiations, the U.S. putting out some principles.  And again, at each juncture, ultimately the parties themselves did not take the sufficient steps forward to reach a negotiated two-state solution.

But the Palestinians are supposed to buy “confidence-building measures,” Rhodes said.

Given the current context in which tensions have been very high, I think what we’ll be looking for in the immediate term is what type of confidence-building measures can be pursued to build some trust back to reduce the tensions and to leave open the promise of a two-state solution.  Because ultimately, Israelis and Palestinians need to believe that two states for two peoples is possible as part of a means of ensuring that you don’t have continued tension.

And frankly, there are practical things that can be done on the ground to build back some degree of trust and cooperation between the two sides.

Malley was at least honest about the abject policy failure:

This is really the first time since the first term of the Clinton administration where we have an administration that faces a reality where the prospect of a negotiated two-state solution is not in the cards for the remainder — in the time that’s remaining.  That was not the case until now.

And the administration continues to “reassess” things.

So don’t expect sort of a big announcement that the reassessment is over.  We are reassessing given the fact that the landscape is different, and that we’ve reached that conclusion.

Rhodes kept talking about “security and dignity.” Dignity being the euphemism for the right not to have your children shot for throwing rocks, the right to vote for the government that controls your life.

the fact that we have the realistic assessment that we’re not looking at a very near-term conclusion of negotiations toward the two-state solution in no way diminishes our very fervent belief that a two-state solution is the one way to achieve the lasting peace, security and dignity that the Israeli and Palestinian people deserve.

So: expect nothing from the press availability tomorrow by the US president but the repetition of these empty words. Obama may tense his jaw as Netanyahu talks about ISIS and demands more aid, but that’s about all we’re likely to see. The Jewish establishment will be celebrating a right wing fascistic prime minister’s return to political grace. And a few hundred demonstrators will stand in for the American people’s rage and impatience with the special relationship.

43 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Increasingly the US has sacrificed its prestige and standing for the benefit of Israel. In all spheres the US is largely becoming irrelevant replaced by Russia and China. BDS is a grass roots effort and no amount of government legislation or interference can make me buy the occupation not here not inEurope. But it is no longer in support of two states but fairness in one. The global beacon of democracy will be naked in support of apartheid

Indeed, Obama planned to put Israel high on his agenda in the last 2 years portion of his incumbency but 3 things changed that.
The dramatic worsening of the situation in Syria where he kind of acknowledges that his inaction was a part cause for that – with that his political standing and capital were not enough for such a demanding venture.
The Iran deal: that`s a big project on its own, which of course involves Israel, and you cannot add another big dish to an already full plate.
The loss of majority in both Senate and House in the last election weakened his political hand.

Excellent post, Phil. You’re at your journalistic best when you put aside optimism and see the situation in cold, hard reality.

Obama has let the occupied people of Palestine down, refused to hold Israel accountable, and even takes the disrespect and insults.

Will be increase the aid to the zionists before his term is over? An interesting explanation for all the aid we tax payers are forced to shovel out to a rogue nation:

“U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the ‘Strategic Relationship”‘

by Stephen Zunes

“The U.S. aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world,” said Stephen Zunes during a January 26 CPAP presentation. “In sheer volume, the amount is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries,” added Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.

He explored the strategic reasoning behind the aid, asserting that it parallels the “needs of American arms exporters” and the role “Israel could play in advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region.”

Although Israel is an “advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country,” it “receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states.” Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, “even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world’s total population, and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes.”

U.S. government officials argue that this money is necessary for “moral” reasons-some even say that Israel is a “democracy battling for its very survival.” If that were the real reason, however, aid should have been highest during Israel’s early years, and would have declined as Israel grew stronger. Yet “the pattern…has been just the opposite.” According to Zunes, “99 percent of all U.S. aid to Israel took place after the June 1967 war, when Israel found itself more powerful than any combination of Arab armies….”

The U.S. supports Israel’s dominance so it can serve as “a surrogate for American interests in this vital strategic region.” “Israel has helped defeat radical nationalist movements” and has been a “testing ground for U.S. made weaponry.” Moreover, the intelligence agencies of both countries have “collaborated,” and “Israel has funneled U.S. arms to third countries that the U.S. [could] not send arms to directly,…Iike South Africa, like the Contras, Guatemala under the military junta, [and] Iran.” Zunes cited an Israeli analyst who said: “‘It’s like Israel has just become another federal agency when it’s convenient to use and you want something done quietly.”‘ Although the strategic relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states in the region has been strengthening in recent years, these states “do not have the political stability, the technological sophistication, [or] the number of higher-trained armed forces personnel” as does Israel.

Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is “little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers,” considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S. Moreover, arms to Israel create more demand for weaponry in Arab states. According to Zunes, “the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it.”

In the fall of 1993-when many had high hopes for peace-78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain “at current levels.” Their “only reason” was the “massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states.” The letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S. “I’m not denying for a moment the power of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the pro-Israel lobby,” and other similar groups, Zunes said. Yet the “Aerospace Industry Association which promotes these massive arms shipments…is even more influential.” This association has given two times more money to campaigns than all of the pro-Israel groups combined. Its “force on Capitol Hill, in terms of lobbying, surpasses that of even AIPAC.” Zunes asserted that the “general thrust of U.S. policy would be pretty much the same even if AIPAC didn’t exist. We didn’t need a pro-Indonesia lobby to support Indonesia in its savage repression of East Timor all these years.” This is a complex issue, and Zunes said that he did not want to be “conspiratorial,” but he asked the audience to imagine what “Palestinian industriousness, Israeli technology, and Arabian oil money…would do to transform the Middle East…. [W]hat would that mean to American arms manufacturers? Oil companies? Pentagon planners?”

“An increasing number of Israelis are pointing out” that these funds are not in Israel’s best interest. Quoting Peled, Zunes said, “this aid pushes Israel ‘toward a posture of callous intransigence’ in terms of the peace process.” Moreover, for every dollar the U.S. sends in arms aid, Israel must spend two to three dollars to train people to use the weaponry, to buy parts, and in other ways make use of the aid. Even “main-stream Israeli economists are saying [it] is very harmful to the country’s future.
The Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot described Israel as “‘the godfather’s messenger’ since [Israel] undertake[s] the ‘dirty work’ of a godfather who ‘always tries to appear to be the owner of some large, respectable business.”‘ Israeli satirist B. Michael refers to U.S. aid this way: “‘My master gives me food to eat and I bite those whom he tells me to bite. It’s called strategic cooperation.” ‘To challenge this strategic relationship, one cannot focus solely on the Israeli lobby but must also examine these “broader forces as well.” “Until we tackle this issue head-on,” it will be “very difficult to win” in other areas relating to Palestine.

“The results” of the short-term thinking behind U.S. policy “are tragic,” not just for the “immediate victims” but “eventually [for] Israel itself” and “American interests in the region.” The U.S. is sending enormous amounts of aid to the Middle East, and yet “we are less secure than ever”-both in terms of U.S. interests abroad and for individual Americans. Zunes referred to a “growing and increasing hostility [of] the average Arab toward the United States.” In the long term, said Zunes, “peace and stability and cooperation with the vast Arab world is far more important for U.S. interests than this alliance with Israel.”

This is not only an issue for those who are working for Palestinian rights, but it also “jeopardizes the entire agenda of those of us concerned about human rights, concerned about arms control, concerned about international law.” Zunes sees significant potential in “building a broad-based movement around it.”

The above text is based on remarks, delivered on. 26 January, 2001 by Stephen Zunes – Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at San Francisco University. ❑

Winning the US election is the great prize, that is why the lobby cultivate a bi partisan approach to both Parties, and why there is 100% Congressional support for Israel. If individual Congress members take a critical approach to Israel, they know their opponent at the next election will be heavily sponsored by the lobby. That’s the way the system works “money money money, its a rich mans world”.