Ron Radosh

July 16th, 2009 2:54 pm

On Obama’s Meeting with American Jewish Leaders

The outcome of President Barack Obama’s meeting with American Jewish leaders has not produced any satisfactory conclusion to the growing sentiment that his administration is being tough on the Israelis while hardly demanding on the Palestinians. As the Jerusalem Post editorialized, the issue of a settlement freeze is a red herring, and that “the non-zero-sum nature of Palestinian intentions is far from assured; and that it is the Palestinians who are inhibiting progress on a two-state solution.” And if American Jews do not offer counter pressure, and simply affirm his good intentions, it will serve only to “go on deepening the erroneous perception that settlements are the obstacle to peace.”

Fortunately, the signs are evident that Obama’s position is indeed eroding support where he once had it. Commenting on the meeting, Marty Peretz wrote to complain about Obama’s hectoring of Israeli leaders, which goes on while the various Arab leaders give him nothing. And as even Fatah including Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat have made clear the past few days, they demand Israeli concessions determined by them before any negotiations, including acknowledging the “right of return.” In this context, for Obama to tell them that they must engage in “serious self reflection” is more than insulting. And Peretz even recommends that the President and his readers look at Bill Kristol’s impassioned blog on the website of The Weekly Standard.

The only thing I would add to these observations is the announcement that the White House had invited to the session Jewish groups that previously were marginalized, and that while purporting to be pro-Israel, have like Obama put their emphasis on attacking Israeli policy rather than try to get fellow Americans to demand that pressure be put on the Palestinians and the so-called moderate Arab states, including those which like Israel, are privately worried about Iran’s growing nuclear threat.

These groups include Americans for Peace Now and J-Street, both of which hardly reflect major Jewish sentiment, both in Israel and the United States, Having them at the White House, while refusing to invite hard-line groups like the Zionist Organization of America- which is no more representative of mainstream Jewish sentiment than they are- makes it more clear that the President wanted a consensus behind his faulty policy, rather than risk any challenges to it. Sadly, except for a few perfunctory comments made by Abe Foxman, Obama evidently received only plaudits.

Certainly, the issues of the “settlements” are a diversion, allowing all who emphasize them to avoid facing the real issue. To recalcitrant Palestinian leaders, all Israel is a settlement. As they have made clear over and over, they are not ready to live in peace with the existing Jewish state. Until they do, the search for renewing the Oslo process is doomed before it even starts.

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8 Comments

1. Professor Guvinoff:

If the foundations of the Oslo vision had been solid, by definition the alleged resulting process would have borne fruit.

The only fruit I see is that the stubborn arab rejection is not quite as easy to conceal as it once was. Sooner or later the false arguments become recognizable for the artifice they have always been, and the smoke eventually points to where the fire comes from, regardless of how many layers of conventional lies are thrown over it.

The notion that reason in the Middle East will become possible after the so-called “palestinian problem” was resolved is exactly backwards. There will be palestinian children who will migrate to better places in the Middle East if they can ever find any. Once there, they won’t be welcome if they don’t play by the new rules, and the excuse of blaming the jews for their failure to assimilate won’t be available to them anymore.

The obstacle is not the jewish settlements, it’s the inability for the fanatics to settle for reasonable accomodation. As far as this goes, the US president is particulalrly unhelpful, and the american jews who still mindlessly support him need to wake up, and come to the support of Israel instead.

Jul 16, 2009 - 3:33 pm 2. David W. Lincoln:

I figure this column by Robert Fulford says a lot about the need of a negotiating partner, in good faith, for the Israeli’s:

The Palestinians’ man in Jerusalem

Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Saturday, July 11, 2009

The clouds that normally obscure events in the Middle East start to recede when Khaled Abu Toameh begins talking about the future of Palestinians and Israelis. This relationship, the key to his future life as an Israeli Arab, has been the subject of his journalism for more than two decades. What he’s learned contradicts beliefs held by much of the world, and differs sharply from what we expect from someone with his background.

He was in Toronto this week, talking to a few journalists. He’s a Muslim-Arab, son of an Israeli-Arab father and a Palestinian-Arab mother. When he was studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he went to work for Al- Fajr ( “The Dawn”), the Palestine Liberation Organization newspaper. He left when he realized it would never print anything but propaganda.

Hoping to be a real journalist, he began working with foreign reporters covering Israel. Eventually, he produced TV documentaries and wrote for Britain’s Sunday Times and other papers. For the last eight years, he’s been the Jerusalem Post’s specialist in Arab affairs. “I am an Arab Muslim and the only place I can write honestly is in a Jewish newspaper,” he says. Other Arab journalists envy his freedom.

He believes the so-called “peace process,” begun with the Oslo Accords of 1993, has been a tragic failure and holds little promise of success. Over 16 years, the peace process has brought war — and plenty of it. It has disillusioned both Arabs and Jews — Arabs because they haven’t acquired the independence and honest self-government they wanted, Jews because security has become more elusive than it was two decades ago. Even so, the United States and others believe the virtue of the peace process is self-evident.

The Palestinians are now divided between two bloodthirsty sects — Fatah, which holds fragile power in the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Their conflict has cost nearly 2,000 Palestinian lives and shows no sign of abating. At the moment, Fatah has 900 alleged Hamas operatives imprisoned in the West Bank without charge. Some of them may well be Hamas sympathizers, Abu Toameh says, some not. In any case, Fatah has arrested them mainly to show foreign governments that it is “cracking down.”

Fatah, of course, is considered the “moderate” Palestinian force, as opposed to radical Hamas. Abu Toameh thinks neither of them could be called moderate by any sensible Arabic speaker. Fatah makes moderate sounds in English but in Arabic sounds as anti-Semitic and anti-American as Hamas. Abu Toameh sees no moderates on either side. Both factions suppress moderate opinion wherever it raises its head, which is apparently not often.

“This is not a power struggle between good guys and bad guys,” he said in a recent speech. “It is a struggle between bad guys and bad guys.” He wishes they were fighting over what would be best for Palestinians. “But they’re only fighting over money and power.”

The West spends a fortune propping up Fatah, in return for its relatively benign rhetoric. But Fatah remains unpopular. West Bank Arabs take its corruption for granted and now suspect that it’s controlled as well as backed by the Americans. Anyone who listens to Abu Toameh has to consider that U. S. President Barack Obama is now part of the problem.

Great fortunes stolen by Fatah officials are only occasionally reported in the West. When Abu Toameh first suggested foreign journalists

tell this story, he was asked by some of them if he was paid by the Jewish lobby. Other reporters explained that information on Palestinian corruption simply didn’t fit into the stories their editors wanted, about Palestinians oppressed by Israelis.

Most of the world believes, often with passionate intensity, that Jewish settlements on land claimed by Arabs limits the chances for peace. Abu Toameh disagrees. “I wish the settlements were the problem,” he says, because it can be solved by the Israelis. If settlements were the problem, he argues, then Gaza would now be at peace. After all, the Israelis pulled out in 2005. But the result has been war — war among the Palestinians, war with Israel. “The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government. Is there a partner on the Palestinian side for peace talks? No.”

What is to be done? He thinks Israel should simply wait until the Palestinians stop killing each other and create a credible political entity that can make a deal. Peace will then become possible.

Jul 16, 2009 - 4:02 pm 3. David Thomson:

“Fortunately, the signs are evident that Obama’s position is indeed eroding support where he once had it.”

There was never any rational reason for this support. A number of us clearly predicted the inevitable outcome. Are we downright brilliant? Should we perhaps be nominated for a Nobel Prize of some sort? No, we simply looked at the overwhelming evidence. Barack Obama attended a black power church headed by a racist and anti-Semitic pastor. We knew about his fairly close relationship with Bill Ayers and friendships with other radical leftists. Obama disgustingly threw his own white grandmother under the bus. What more was needed? He is existentially convinced that white people are oppressing the dark skinned inhabitants of the world. The Israelis are mostly white skinned and the Palestinians do not exactly possess blond hair and blue eyes. Thus, the state of Israel must be victimizing its Arab neighbors. it’s really not anymore complicated than that.

Jul 16, 2009 - 5:13 pm 4. Gibson Block:

Israel doesn’t seem willing to give up the West Bank. That’s a major issue. And kind of a non-issue because it has long been assumed that this is a requirement for peace.

If Obama wants to clarify that this issue is settled (as I previously thought it had been) then he is in a much stronger position to say time to ante up to the Arab side of the equation.

In fact, I can’t see why pro-Israel forces are mad about this. It wd be crazy to make the West Bank part of Israel. So Obama isn’t asking Israel for anything that is difficult to concede.

Jul 17, 2009 - 9:15 am 5. david levavi:

Focusing on the “settlements” is a cheap trick typical of the current administration and its congressional Democratic Party supporters. It is a diversionary tactic similar to the attack on Cheney and the CIA. During the campaign, the Obama team ruthlessly played the race and gender card against its opponents while taking umbrage at the slightest suggestion of racism from its opponents. Sleazy stratagems to defraud the voters are Obama’s MO.

The head of the Black Chamber of commerce recently dressed down Barbara Boxer, accusing her of racism for citing support for administration policies by one Black group (NAACP) against another (Black Chamber of Commerce). Does it not follow that Obama is an anti-Semite for attempting to do doing the same to Jews? How long before Jews recognize that this sleazy opportunist whose famously high IQ is merely ordinary among Jews is getting ahead of himself?

Setting Jewish Oreo-cookies and Uncle Toms against the Jewish majority isn’t difficult. There is no shortage of gutless and psychologically twisted American Jews. Offensive though they are, such creatures must be recognized by clear-thinking Jews for profoundly damaged victims of anti-Semitism. These confused cripples have internalized the hatred of their enemies and turned it inward.

Weirdly revealing is the fact that these Jewish Zion-haters imagine themselves courageous for disagreeing with their fellow Jews. As if there is a downside to a Jew expressing such warped views. Has anyone ever heard of one of these obnoxious fools being assaulted for his or her opinion? Barred from Synagogue? Professionally blocked? Socially shunned?

Obama’s hostility to the Jewish state demonstrates his contempt for the eighty percent of American Jewish voters who blindly and reflexively support the Democratic Party and Black candidates of any persuasion to the detriment their own interests. For the twenty percent of Jewish voters who think before they vote, the message is clear: There are too few of us to split our support over issues. Even if you disagree abstractly on policy (hot-button issues like abortion and gun control barely effect Jews), hold your nose and vote Republican. Three branches in the hands of the Democratic Party is dangerous to democracy and absence of democracy is especially dangerous to Jews.

Jul 18, 2009 - 10:49 am 6. Carl Sesar:

Ron,

J Street and Peace Now, sad to say, aren’t as marginal as you think, but are every bit as representative of mainstream American Jewish opinion as the other Jewish organizations Obama invited to his pep talk. You yourself note that, except for a few perfunctory remarks, “Obama evidently received only plaudits.”

Among the uninvited, you cite what you call the “hard-line” Zionist Organization of America. Whether you meant it so or not, the term is usually taken as a pejorative. Obama’s ostracizing the ZOA, however, is a badge of honor for Morton Klein and his hard-line organization.

The groups in attendance shamed themselves, and Obama, basking in their applause, is America’s misfortune, and theirs.

Jul 18, 2009 - 4:18 pm 7. Carl Sesar:

I meant to say,

” . . . is a badge of honor for Morton Klein and his stalwart, hard-line organization.”

Jul 18, 2009 - 5:19 pm 8. Carl Sesar:

Anne Bayefsky writes trenchantly about Obama’s meeting with American Jewish leaders in both the Jerusalem Post and the Jewish World Review, an article worth reading. Also, Dry Bones in the JWR notes that the media watch organization CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) was, like the ZOA, also deliberately not invited to the meeting. Both organizations’ websites are well worth a careful look-see on that account alone.

http://www.zoa.org
http://www.camera.org

Jul 20, 2009 - 5:47 am