Obama’s November surprise

The organized liberal Jewish community has a new vision: that President Obama will use the lame duck period of his presidency to make a major initiative on the Israel/Palestine conflict and introduce resolutions at the United Nations Security Council to condemn settlements and/or set out the parameters of a two-state solution.

Thus Obama will establish a more assertive U.S. policy in favor of Palestinian human rights and self-determination that the next president will live by.

Hillary Clinton won’t let him go forward with such a resolution now because it would capsize her campaign. But when he does it in November or December– after she is elected president, according to the scenario– then she will say, There is only one US president at a time, and Obama’s policy is my inherited policy.

The dream was alive at J Street’s gala dinner the other night. Both Joe Biden and John Kerry were coming: that was a huge score for the liberal Zionist organization. President Obama invited members of J Street’s youth chapter into the White House last Friday. Morton Halperin the chairman of the J Street board (and the father of political talking head Mark Halperin) said that the torch had been passed; J Street speaks for a majority of Jews, and has endorsed most of the Democratic Congress, which will have the president’s back:

We have not given up our hopes that this administration will before it ends, lay out the parameters for a two state solution and lay out its opposition to settlements that is more meaningful and specific.

Then Biden and Kerry spoke, and the wealthy elderly legion at J Street (fyi, I’m 60) derived hope from the following statements. Biden:

Despite our overwhelming frustration with the Israeli government, we have an obligation to push them as hard as we can… at the same time being a guarantor, an absolute guarantor of their security.

Kerry:

I can tell you that for these next nine months we will not stop working to find a way…

[N]o matter how many times we hear people tell us the goal is unattainable, they can’t do it, they’re not ready, I remember the words of Mandela: “Nothing is impossible until it is done.”

The J Street people believe that Obama owes it to them because they helped him get the Iran deal. The theme of the evening was: Obama wouldn’t have gotten the Iran deal if we had not taken on AIPAC inside the official Jewish community. J Street took on AIPAC and cracked the monolith and signaled to politicians around the country, they could support the deal and still get Jewish backing and not get their heads handed to them in the next election. J Street is justly proud of this. And by the way, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council and Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares were in the hall that night; they also delivered the Iran deal. As did Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink and a lot of grassroots groups.

Do I actually believe that Obama will come up with a November surprise? Why not? He should do something. But will it mean anything or have any effect; that is the real question. Kerry gave the same Mandela mantra three years ago, and it’s done nothing. The despairing mood of the J Street dinner was that Netanyahu and the Israeli government are too far gone to be saved. We have been trying to tell them this for years. J Street is always too late to grasp the reality. Max Blumenthal tried to give them the news three years ago and was censored. J Street wants the United States to save Israel from itself with outside pressure, but it is unwilling to sign on to the most significant pressure campaign so far, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, because it wants nothing to do with anti-Zionists. At J Street, they still dream of a “democratic Jewish state.” Stav Shaffir, the young redheaded Labor member of Knesset, repeatedly called Israel and Zionism “miracle”s, then talked about Palestinian terrorists and how much they threaten Israelis; now please tell me, how do you get 20 percent of your population that is subjugated by Zionism to subscribe to Zionism? Labor didn’t dare say a word about peace in the last election; the train left the station on the two-state paradigm a while ago.

But let us stay with J Street’s political dream for a moment. It would be a good thing if the U.S. condemned settlements (finally) and a good thing if the U.S. opposed Israeli expansion. Such a move could change the dynamic of the global politics of the issue. It would lessen American power, and thus Israeli power; it would give Europe greater clout. It would be a sign that some day the U.S. will sanction Israel. When Joe Biden talked about how much money the U.S. is going to throw at Israel with the new memorandum of understanding, people in the hall were quiet. A lot of these J Streeters in their wirerimmed glasses understand that Israel is committing human rights abuses with that money. Some of them have kids who are in JVP or IfNotNow, or who don’t care about Zionism. Some of them understand why Palestinians resist. (Some of them know that the American revolution began when the British massacred five people in Boston in 1770 to quiet the mob, and Israel massacred 500 children in Gaza two summers ago out of the same tyrannical principle.)

Kerry and Biden’s speeches at J Street were both lackluster. Kerry hugged his former campaign finance director Louis Susman on the stage and told some funny stories about his presidential dream, but he seemed to phone in the policy bits. Biden leaned over the podium like he was with buddies at his dinner table. That’s when the unscripted bit about “overwhelming frustration with the Israeli government” slipped out.

The real fear at J Street is that Obama doesn’t really care about Israel any more. The Obama administration got its Iran deal and Israel has ceased to be a threat to world peace, and it’s slipping into rogue state status. Back in 2010 and 2011 it felt like Israel was going to start World War III with Jeffrey Goldberg riding shotgun. Now that is done with. The realists have won. Israel and Palestine is just another pot of human rights violations bubbling on the back burner. Obama will do a November surprise, but it will be lip service.

 

55 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

If Obama would submit a draft UNSC resolution to recall that the settlements are present in violation of I/L and demand, with sanctions for non-compliance, they be removed, on a tight schedule — 1 year for removal of settlers, 2 years for removal (demolition) of settlement buildings — then (see below) the USA would not need to take the unnecessary and unworkable step of dictating peace or demanding peace upon a set of “parameters” (what are “parameters” anyhow but some sort of diktats).

If the UNSC would recognize the timeliness (at nearly 50 years of very belligerent occupation) of such a resolution, and recognize it as merely a very late but still appropriate act of enforcement of I/L and nothing further, then Israel — facing a vastly expensive political and economic and social catastrophe — might begin serious negotiations with PLO (or whoever). Or might begin threatening or dropping nukes here or there, if “existential threat” seemed the way to go.

Negotiations for what? Their choice. Maybe 2SS. Maybe 1SS with democratic guarantees.

One difficulty there (maybe “parameters” would be better?) is that by now the PLO may have dissolved into such non-representative, co-opted, corrupted subservience to USA/Israel that such “negotiations” would be dictated by Israel.

Would the UNSC go along? Not sure. Europeans have been very slow to put any sort of pressure on Israel. November-December-January is a short time to engineer and put into effect such a momentous thing with no prior diplomacy (as we must assume).

Still, even if it didn’t work, any USA effort at all to break the continuity and inevitability of occupation-now-and-forever would be a good thing.

Hillary Clinton won’t let him go forward with such a resolution now because it would capsize her campaign. But when he does it in November or December– after she is elected president, according to the scenario– then she will say, There is only one US president at a time, and Obama’s policy is my inherited policy.

then she’ll invite netanyahu to the WH, get cozy and the non veto will be a little blurp in history that lasted for a month. obama has had 8 years to get tough on israel and he didn’t do it. the lame duck session is too little too late but it might happen. it might give other counties cover to sanction israel or something.

The theme of the evening was: Obama wouldn’t have gotten the Iran deal if we had not taken on AIPAC inside the official Jewish community. But J Street took on AIPAC and cracked the monolith and signaled to politicians around the country, they could support the deal and still get Jewish backing. J Street is justly proud of this. And by the way, Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council and Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares were in the hall that night; they also delivered the Iran deal. As did Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink and a lot of grassroots groups.

the self absorption of patting yourself on the back and taking credit for an issue huge swaths of the american public were very vocal about is just stunning. and this reminds me very much of tablets scolding article claiming the very mention of money and lobbying and “foreign interests” over the iran deal was bigoted. >> http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/semitic-israel-lobby/

the idea that the deal went through because “J Street took on AIPAC and … signaled to politicians around the country, they could support the deal and still get Jewish backing” is still the idea jewish lobbiests buy politicians and — ultimately — have the power to control our foreign policy. but they claim it and it’s not anti semitism! yes, i agree it was a much broader coalition that delivered the iran deal. one that included a LOT of americans that spontaneously erupted across social media.

re: “Labor didn’t dare say a word about peace in the last election” — just wondering if anyone read todays: “Herzog: Labor Party Must Stop Giving Israelis the Feeling It Always Loves Arabs”
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.715362

Obama just met with J Street U’s national leadership at the White House. Anyone who understands military defense understands how silly it is to say that any US President “doesn’t care” about Israel. It’s not really a choice.
And JVP and groups like it, who could care less if Israel dropped off the face of the Earth, can take no credit for the Iran Deal. Radical activists drive people to the right, not the moderate center. In the case of the Iran Deal, which was sold as a benefit to Israel, activists who deny Israel’s right to exist are distinctly unhelpful.

Clinton appears to have handily won NY, despite Sanders driving a wedge between his candidacy and hers on the issues of being too uncritical of Netanyahu, defending disproportionate force against the Palestinians ( a war crime), and ignoring Palestinian rights in her speech to AIPAC – the long-awaited (by Mondoweiss) politicizing of the War of Ideas in the Middle East in a presidential campaign.

Or were the reported mishaps that blocked many Dems from voting part of an organized effort to “deliver” the election to Clinton? Some 126,000 voters were purged from Democratic voter rolls in Brooklyn in the last few months, part of a large net drop in total eligible voters in that borough, which is a suspicious sign when Sanders is the one bringing masses of new voters to the primary polls for the first time in state after state.

Now we have this report of an elaborate plan for J Street and a “lame duck” Obama, to try to advance the peace process after the election, i.e., to keep the peace process out of the election, where Americans can vote on it directly. What? The American people can’t handle the issue directly? Obama is too timid to fight for peace until after the election is over?

Well, I think Sanders has put his differences on display, and, I believe, that difference will grow in importance in other states, especially California. The Emperor’s nakedness is now well passed having been noticed and laughed at. People are at the stage of being angry that parade continues, their integrity insulted.

I also think, if Clinton and Trump win their respective nominations, Clinton will have to face much blunter and more forceful accusations of having, in partnership with Obama, destroyed the chances of peace whenever they’ve arisen, while even more steadfastly having advanced the causes of counter-productive wars, and the careers of those who use bureaucratic infighting to achieve them.

The only hope for peace to is directly take on those for whom the opposite of peace is their motivating mission in life, from Netanyahu on down through all the Neocons and so-called neo-libs allied with him in the US. They don’t want peace, and should be treated as the war criminals and war-mongers they are.

I don’t think there will be any movement toward peace as long as the U.S. thinks it can achieve an agreement without applying meaningful pressure on the stronger party.

QUESTION: Different topic. Okay. Very quickly on the Secretary’s speech yesterday —

MR KIRBY: Yeah.

QUESTION: — at J Street, he said that, quote, “I can tell you for these next nine months,” talking about the peace process, “we will not stop working to find a way.” Then he went on to say, “And so we will continue to advance the two-state solution as the only solution because anything else will not be Jewish and will not be democratic and we understand that,” unquote.

Now, does he have – like, is there something in the offing? Is there going to be some sort of an initiative that the Secretary might undertake, perhaps either – because we’re talking about a very short period of time.

MR KIRBY: The Secretary is very mindful of the time left while he has in office, and he’s also mindful of the importance of this issue. And I don’t think I can improve upon his words from last night, that he is very committed to continuing to try to work to get to a two-state solution. Does he have an initiative or an announcement to make? I have nothing for you on that today. I can just tell you that the point he was trying to make last night was that for as long as he’s the Secretary of State, he’s going to continue to work on this and work as very – as hard as he can.

QUESTION: The reason I ask this question, because only months ago – maybe couple months ago – the President himself said there’s not likely to be anything. But listening to the Vice President and listening to the Secretary of State, they’re basically saying that this thing is alive and kicking and we’re going to push for it. So —

MR KIRBY: I don’t know that anybody said it wasn’t still an objective. We’ve also said – I know I’ve said and I know the Secretary has said that it’s up to the leadership there in the region – all parties, the leadership on all sides – to take the kinds of affirmative steps and initiative to get us there. We can’t do it for them. It can’t be legislated externally. It has to be something that they decide to move forward on. And as both, I think – as both the Secretary and the Vice President said last night, it’s difficult to see that way right now because that sort of leadership isn’t being fully exerted. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t still committed to it, that we aren’t still going to try to help them get to a position where they can make these decisions and we – they can take the kinds of actions to reduce the violence, restore the calm, and move forward. I don’t see the gap, quite frankly, the way you’ve described it.

QUESTION: Maybe just —

MR KIRBY: We’re all still committed to it.