President Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in New York yesterday and there was more talk about the president playing golf in Israel and visiting the country in his post-presidency than there was about the vaunted two-state solution.
Many liberal Americans have set store by the idea that Obama is going to unhatch a November surprise— and push Israel to agree to parameters of a two-state solution. There was no sign of that yesterday, even as the president issued a “guarantee” that he will visit Israel often.
Netanyahu said that Obama would always be a “welcome guest in Israel” and teased the president about the golf course next to his house in Israel, “a terrific golf course.”
“We’ll set up a tee time,” Obama said, without any feeling. But later he suggested he really would show up in the country.
I guarantee you that I will visit Israel often, because it is a beautiful country with beautiful people. And Michelle and the girls I think resent the fact that I’ve not taken them on most of these trips, so they’re insistent that I do take them. Of course, they will appreciate the fact that the next time I visit Israel I won’t have to sit in bilats — (laughter) — but instead can enjoy the sights and sounds of a remarkable country.
Here’s video of that last meeting. Though maybe it won’t be the last.
The president offered only the weakest promise of doing anything in the next few months on achieving an agreement between Israel and Palestine. The wire services heard resignation in this statement:
Obviously, I’m only going to be President for another few months. The Prime Minister will be there quite a bit longer. And our hope will be that in these conversations we get a sense of how Israel sees the next few years, what the opportunities are and what the challenges are in order to assure that we keep alive the possibility of a stable, secure Israel at peace with its neighbors, and a Palestinian homeland that meets the aspirations of their people.
Diana Buttu said– in an IMEU statement— that President Obama had set out eight years ago by saying settlements needed to be halted. And finished up the same way, saying that settlements need to be halted. Without having any effect.
If the next president continues down the same path as Obama and his predecessors, of attempting to appease an intransigent, hardline Israeli government, they will achieve the same measure of success — which is to say, they will also fail miserably.
Nathan Thrall says much the same in the latest New York Review of Books, in an excellent and bleak piece on Obama’s “last chance.” Obama will have done nothing at all to solve the conflict if he fails to lay down parameters for a resolution– “he will have left no mark”– but even those parameters will be Israel-tilted and will produce nothing. The Washington crowd can’t face the fact the two-state solution is over.
Where US officials come down on a parameters resolution depends to a significant degree on whether they believe the two-state solution is dying or already dead. Those who think it is merely dying—most in the administration—see a parameters resolution as a way to give new hope to hopeless Palestinians, inject a dose of realism into both societies about the compromises that will be required, ratchet up pressure on Israel to reverse steps undermining a two-state solution, and provide grounds for the Palestinian leadership to claim that its hand was forced by international law.
Those who think the two-state solution is already dead, however, worry that a parameters resolution will simply give new life to the lie of a “temporary occupation” that will end in the next round of talks, meanwhile wasting the time of the US and the international community with plans, pleas, and bribes to gain the parties’ acceptance as Israel gobbles up more of Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Thrall is more honest than the New York Review of Books usually is about the Israel lobby. He says that Obama’s biggest obstacle to taking action is “domestic politics,” including Haim Saban and Dennis Ross and “donors to the Democratic Party.”
And yes– proving that point, all but two or three Democratic senators landed on Obama this week, at the behest of AIPAC, warning him not to take any actions that would pressure Israel. Maybe that’s why Obama guarantees that he will visit Israel often. Because he needs to raise money for his presidential library? Just guessing.
Speaking of the lobby and the lack of straightforwardness about it, the New York Times published a report on Netanyahu’s goals in his speech to the UN General Assembly today by Peter Baker, the new Jerusalem bureau chief. Baker says that the audience of international diplomats will be “useful foils for Mr. Netanyahu as he makes his points to a wider world.” My emphasis; Donald Johnson points out that “wider world” is a euphemism, and a deceptive one. He writes:
Netanyahu according to this is making his case to a wider world. But Baker means Congress. What wider world does he imagine that likes Netanyahu and sympathizes with the settlement policy? I think Netanyahu is preaching to his choir, the Christian Zionists and AIPAC and Congress.
I know Netanyahu is trying to make friends with others, but who? Rightwing Hindu nationalists in India? Would they be natural allies? I want to be fair in case Baker actually has someone in mind besides Congress.
re: “And yes– proving that point, all but two or three Democratic senators landed on Obama this week, at the behest of AIPAC, warning him not to take any actions that would pressure Israel.”
I weep for my country.
A sorry state of affairs here in the US. Although this was a PR effort and a great photo op for both sides, the bottom line is, American Presidents come and go, and Israel knows whether they like it or not, all President must toe that line, send that aid, weapons, and show unwavering support for even this slime ball like Netanyahu.
Aren’t zionist sympathizers supposed to do so?
Perhaps Phil is right, Obama needs wealthy Jewish donors to build that library.
One can only hope that this encounter was a version of the typical end-of-holiday exchange among British tourists.
“Oh, be sure to drop in on us when you’re in Oxford.”
“Absolutely!”
Translation –
“We can’t actually have you banned from Oxfordshire, but if you insist on turning up, we’ll just pretend the doorbell doesn’t work.”
“Absolutely!”
Whereas Obama’s predecessors, Clinton and bush, had extended periods with cooperative Israeli premiers rabin, sharon and olmert, Obama’s entire presidency overlapped with Netanyahu’s term of office. The idea that a lame duck president will sign onto a un SC resolution that the elected president would object to is almost laughable. (I mean a reset or definition of 242) (in this season of trump, the laughable is not dismissable, but I think we can dismiss it.) A hail Mary pass on the last play of the game only makes sense if you have receivers in the end zone and neither trump nor clinton will back up such a declaration, so there is no receiver.
The obvious fact is that this is an election season and Obama is hillary’s surrogate at the moment. I think that the primary change that occurred during obama’s tenure vis a vis Israel has been the collapse of the regime in Syria in the context of the Arab spring. The array of forces in syria, including russia iran and hezbollah and the enmity of Saudi Arabia towards those backing assad is a very real bleeding wound and the events in israel palestine are a minor bomb in a dumpster in comparison to a major geopolitical event.
Who can tell the Palestinians that they have to wait until things calm down in syria. Their desire for freedom and a new direction is not going to be put on hold. But from a global viewpoint and a historian’s viewpoint, it will be Syria (and anti Muslim immigrant emotions in Europe and US) that will be what the years 2009 to 2016 will be known for.
Obama’s only hope to pressure bibi was to go over his head to the Israeli people and the odds against that were always slim.
The topic of the presidential library is more fit for the comments section, than the rest of the post, but it does raise the question of an Obama post presidency. Friends have mentioned a Michelle Obama run for office, but I scoffed that she does not have the fire in the belly that hillary always had. And what about Obama himself. He’s not going to build habitats for humanity. Carter had unfulfilled ambition when he left office and his post presidency reflected his need to not allow his defeat in1980 to define him. Obama has no such need. But he’s young and one wonders after a year or so, how he will deal with his “retirement”.
I doubt if he is hoping/planning to play any golf in the West Bank (aka Judea and Samaria) as there aren`t any courses there that I am aware of ( unless some of those ex Brooklyn and Florida settlers yearning for the comforts of their old homes have uprooted some more Palestinian olive trees to make way for one – oh and they would have needed to divert some more of that Palestinian water to irrigate the fairways and the greens. To make do they could of course just get out their five or six irons and practice by hitting balls from their hilltop settlement tees down into the untermenschen villages below. Good chance of getting lots of Palestinians in one and contributing to the fight against the demographic threat.