by Barry Rubin
To
put it plainly, the press briefing supposed to indicate how President
Barack Obama’s thinks about Israel on the eve of his trip here, is a
combination of fantasy and insult. It may well that the Obama
Administration did not mean this to be taken seriously, that the
statements were made for show, to persuade the Arabic-speaking world
that the United States is striving for peace and using its influence to
change Israeli policy even as it does nothing of the sort.
Yet
the premises on which this argument is based can be described as
believing that what the Arab public really wants is progress toward
peace with Israel and that the United States sees the ball as being in
Israel’s–not the Arabs–court. The other is a strange hint that
Washington has suddenly realized what Israel has understood since the
beginning–that the “Arab Spring” isn’t going well. Now it feels the need
to explain to Israeli leaders what they have long known, and give bad
advice on what to do about it.
To show how mainstream Israelis who follow these issues closely see these themes, let’s quote how the Ynet reporter who covered the briefing–the respected and nonpartisan Yitzhak Benhorin–summarized what Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said. Here’s his lead:
“U.S. President Barack Obama will
not be bringing a peace plan to Israel, but he will try to convince
Prime Minister Benjamin and the Israeli public that after the Arab
Spring, Israel cannot depend on autocrats holding everything together in the region..”
Here’s
a president arriving at a moment when Israelis think the region is
falling apart, with old autocrats being replaced by new ones and a more
hostile environment, and the message is: You shouldn’t be complacent
that everything is great?
Where
does this come from? It is the American conception that the “Arab
Spring” is a great thing, that old autocrats are falling and will be
replaced by more democratic and moderate regimes. That is American; not
Israeli thinking.
If that theme is based on fantasy, the second theme is insulting. Here is the second paragraph of Benhorin’s analysis:
“The
U.S. believes that Israel must show it is serious about its peace
efforts. It must convince the general Arab public, if nothing more than
to maintain Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt.”
These are Benhorin’s words, not Rhodes’ exact formulations. But I think Benhorin reads the message properly.
Let’s begin by discussing the idea that Israel must persuade the Arab public:
–The
question should be posed as this: When will the Arab public, or Arab
governments, show Israel they are serious about peace? In 2009 when
Obama sought such assurances and demonstrations he was turned down flat.
We know it and he should know it.
–How long a list do you want of the times Israel has shown the Arab public that it wants peace seriously?
–Do you think the Arab public cares or is going to be persuaded by any such behavior?
–Hundreds of Israelis died in the 1993-2000 period in the effort to show the Arab public Israel was serious about peace.
The
idea that Israel needs to persuade its neighbors to accept its
existence is a line we have heard almost daily since the 1980s or even
1970s. Yet curiously the Arab street pays no attention to the scores of
such Israeli gestures and the West soon forgets each one. And indeed
Obama has forgotten those that took place during his first term, for
example the nine-month-long settlement construction freeze, just as
before that were forgotten the Oslo agreement, Israeli withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip, the 2000 Camp David offer (including the offer to
redivide Jerusalem!) and many more. [See Footnote, below]
Guess
what? If today Israel were to make a huge new concession, six months
from now that would be forgotten in the West, which would also forget
that there was no considerable Arab response. Israelis know this and so
saying this kind of thing about Israel proving its decent intentions can
only fall with a cynical thud. Such statements remind Israelis why they
are NOT rushing to make new concessions or take new risks.
Note,
too, that Western and European promises to give Israel a big reward if
Israel takes a big risk or makes a big concession and the Arab side
doesn’t respond have also been repeatedly broken.
What
Obama is in effect saying is “Mr. Netanyahu, tear down that [security,
counterterrorist] wall.” When he should be saying to the other side:
“Mr. Abbas, Mursi, et. al., tear down that wall of hatred against
Israel!”
Of
course, he won’t do so because that would make the Arab leaders and
publics mad, not because they want Israel to move faster on peace or
seek a better deal but because they don’t want peace at all. And the
Islamists coming into power have no intention of tearing down the wall.
In fact, they are building it higher than ever. And there’s
nothing–absolutely nothing–Israel can do to change the course of events
in that respect.
Moreover,
in a context where the same point is not made loudly, clearly, and
publicly to the Palestinian Authority, the idea that the burden is on
Israel to prove its peace credentials is a veiled way of Obama
saying–and signaling to his supporters–that Israel is responsible for
the failure to achieve peace.
The
very fact that Obama’s visit is not about seeking to impose peace or
even to press the issue. But why? The Obama Administration isn’t being
honest about this. The reason is that the White House knows that such an
effort will go nowhere. And it also not because of Netanyahu. After
all, how well did six predecessors do in solving this problem? Yitzhak
Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Tsipi
Livni. Even if one can claim they all tried harder than Netanyahu why
did they all fail?
While
the ideas on the “peace process” show the problem with U.S. thinking on
that issue, the idea on the direction being taken by the region shows
the wider miasma of fantasy that surrounds U.S. policy.
This
idea that Israel cannot depend on autocracies to maintain the status
quo parallels Obama’s view for U.S. policy: that to protect the region’s
stability, the United States must show its desire for good relations
and the fulfillment of Arab and Muslim dreams by helping force out
pro-American authoritarian regimes and to substitute for them
(anti-American) Islamist authoritarian regimes.
Ladies
and gentlemen, it is not 1980. Does Israel not understand that the
region is already overwhelmingly ruled by autocracies hostile to itself?
Here is the list: Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, in particular. And one can add
Tunisia and Turkey were elections do mean something.
What
does Obama intend to convey by this idea? It seems as if he is saying:
You better act now while the relatively friendly dictator Bashar
al-Assad is running Syria before the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists
take power! But that is absurd. How about: You better act now before we
pass the window of opportunity of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
regime being eager for comprehensive peace with Israel? You better act
fast before Hamas (which rules the Gaza Strip) and Hizballah (which
rules Lebanon) change to a more hostile attitude?
What
better time to make risky concessions than when the security situation
is deteriorating and the new rulers of your neighbors are baying for
your blood?
At
any rate, the old autocrats are already gone for all practical
purposes. The U.S. idea is an outdated one: Don’t depend on being nice
to Mubarak because one day he could be overthrown and there will come a
pharoah who knows not Joseph. Thanks, but that’s already happened and
you helped bring about that problem.
Thus,
Israel must prove that it is a nice guy to…the Muslim Brotherhood? The
nonsense involved is clear when the concept is stated plainly.
In
Jewish history this concept translates, for example, into saying that
the Jews shouldn’t put all their eggs in the basket of the Weimar
Republic because it had just been overthrown by the Nazis, so the Jews
had to prove to them that they wanted good relations. (I apologize for
the over-used Nazi reference but it is appropriate to explain the
situation.)
The
problem is that the United States is under the illusion that even the
United States can make friends with Islamist regimes. How all-the-more
ridiculous is it to claim that Israel can do so by concessions or
gestures? How can anyone with a straight face suggest that if Israel
shows progress on negotiations with the Palestinians that regimes which
have sworn to wipe it off the map will change their minds?
Rhodes
added that in particular progress on the peace process required that
Israel show Egypt it should keep the peace treaty by making concessions
to the Palestinians. Perhaps Egypt should keep the treaty because it is
an international agreement it is required to keep. Or that it is in
Egypt’s interests because Israel and the United States would make Cairo
sorry if it abandoned the treaty completely. Notice that only
concessions–not toughness, deterrence, or credibility–are a tool to keep
treaties.
In these circumstances, a phrase often comes to my mind: Just because you are stupid, why should I kill myself?
Yes,
it is intemperate of me to call these people stupid but they leave me
no choice. Who does the Egyptian government support among the
Palestinians? Hamas, despite their recent bickering. So how would
progress on negotiations with the Palestinian Authority soften Egypt’s
attitude? Is President Mursi going to say: Wow, that treaty with Israel
is worthwhile because there is hope of a deal with the Palestinians that
will ensure a non-Islamist government in Palestine and help to
guarantee the existence of a Zionist state in the region? Yay!
No.
He would say that such progress would indicate a betrayal by the PA and
make it harder for the Islamist cause to flourish. Hence, any such
deal must be stopped. Mr. Rhodes, let me explain. It was Mubarak who
perhaps benefited from an advancing peace process; Mursi hates the idea.
Rhodes continued:
“I
think there’s an opportunity, frankly, for there to be a deeper source
of support for peace broadly across the region if there can be
progress.”
I will give Rhodes the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that he does not believe one word of that sentence.
Again,
Obama’s trip is not about this issue. Yet by keeping the mythology
alive about the state of the conflict the Obama Administration does
another disservice to Israeli interests and American understanding of
the region.
Oh, and let’s not forget something else.
Rhodes
didn’t say that the PA, whose leaders Obama will also meet, must show
Israel that it’s serious about peace. Supposedly, making peace is a
one-way street in which the burden is always on Israel. Yet Israel’s
behavior is not due to stubbornness, paranoia, or ideology.
It is based on experience.
Footnotes:
Of course I am aware that there have been circumstances in which
specific Arab factors were responsive to Israeli concessions. To act
Arab leaders–autocrats or otherwise–must believe they can get away with
defying Islamists, who will declare anyone wanting to make peace with
Israel as enemies of Allah. That was most obviously true of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat. Mursi’s ideological compatriots killed Sadat.
That graphically sums up who is on which side and why Rhodes’, and hence
the Obama Administration’s, formulations are absurd.
This article is published on PJ media.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press.
Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/03/why-president-obamas-concept-of-the-middle-east-will-fail-just-listen-to-it/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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