by Ron Radosh
A few weeks ago, when discussing the Obama administration’s policy towards
On Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, Khalidi was a guest along with Bret Stephens, the pro-Israel columnist from the Wall Street Journal and former editor of the Jerusalem Post. During the discussion, Zakaria asked whether or not it was “a shift for the — the
Khalidi again emphasized his main point: “that Israel is not the strategic asset it was touted as during the Cold War” and that the U.S. had returned “…in effect, to the Eisenhower administration’s view of the Middle East as an area where the United States has problems, and Israel is, in some small way, one of those problems.” Clearly, all the boilerplate assurances coming from the Obama camp in the past few weeks — assuring Americans that the U.S. commitment to Israel as a major ally is as firm as ever — have not dissuaded Khalidi from reaching a quite different conclusion.
Khalidi’s perspective, of course, comes entirely from that of the Arab world and its perpetual narrative: that
The debate became sharp, as Stephens retorted that rather than moving a peace process forward, everything the Obama team has been doing is moving things in the opposite direction. As Stephens said, “It basically sends a signal to Israel that this administration is not reliable, there’s no longer a kind of a hug-me-close mentality, which has — which has, in fact, moved Israel to, for instance, remove its settlements, its settlers from Gaza.”
When Khalidi challenged Stephens by arguing that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was entirely due to a unilateral act by Sharon, Stephens pointed to the fact that Sharon “obtained a letter from Bush saying that in the event that Israel withdraws from Gaza, the Bush administration would not expect Israel to withdraw from all of the settlements that would accept the so-called realities …on the ground.” That letter was what led Israelis to accept
But to Khalidi, it has been “the American embrace of Israel” that had led to decades of standoff, and he is now pleased that at present, we seem to be going back to the Bush 41 years, when Secretary of State James Baker complained about Israel. As he so famously put it, “f… the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway.” Khalidi also hoped that U.S. policy would make it clear, as he thought it once did, that Israel has to elect a different Prime Minister more amenable to US policy — or as some would put it, engage in an open policy of “regime change” in Israel as the major US goal.
Among other things, Khalidi is adamant that the
A full-length argument by Khalidi and Stephens is available in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, in which both analysts offer a more lengthy defense of their positions. Khalidi defends his position that “Washington’s overt bias toward Israel became a growing liability for the United States” since 1991, and Stephens argues that Obama’s “new tone on Israel” is self-defeating, given both the truth that “America remains an instinctively pro-Israel country,” and that any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state without any final settlement agreement with Israel “would destroy the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
One thing is apparent: the gap between the two views is huge, and the Obama administration cannot straddle the differences, hoping for the best. In fact Stephens believes Obama has made things worse:
“Indeed, by turning up the heat as he did, the president may have accomplished the opposite of what he intended. Israelis are now increasingly convinced that the administration is hostile not just to Netanyahu but
That policy, of course, is precisely why Khalidi and the Palestinians see grounds for optimism. Khalidi is pleased that “the current Israeli government” is now “extremely uncomfortable,” and he continues to advocate not any compromise for his side, but rather, a U.S. policy that makes demands only on Israel, including what he calls “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,” and the “illegality of settlement in all occupied territories.” Not one word, as expected, about decades of Arab and Palestinian intransigence, rejectionist policies, and a continual unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Friends of Israel should be deeply concerned that Israel’s sworn enemies now see hope in Obama’s policies, and are certain that contrary to administration assurances, the United States has embarked on a new policy that will put an end to the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel that has been in place since Harry S. Truman recognized Israel in May of 1948.
Ron Radosh
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