The Graveyard Of Diplomacy

The President is doing more to advance the cause of Middle East peace today than George Bush did in eight years. However, nobody knows if it will amount to anything.

President Obama on Tuesday chided the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority for not doing more to move peace talks forward but announced no breakthrough after meeting here privately with both men.

Speaking before convening three-way talks later in the day, Obama said top U.S. diplomatic officials will continue discussions with both countries in the next two weeks in an attempt to restart peace talks.

"It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward," Obama said after shaking hands for the cameras with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

"We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back," Obama said. "It is absolutely critical that we get this issue resolved."

Obama very specifically said to the two leaders, "I'm losing patience." Here's the full public statement.

Obviously, the President wants to at least be able to announce some progress. But getting a hard-right Likud government and the Palestinians to agree on that will prove harder than getting Republicans on board with his health care plan. I don't really see a window of opportunity here, though you can hardly blame the President for trying. And I agree with J Street that engaged Presidential leadership is the only way forward. Indeed, it always has been. When a President looks away, the factions in the Middle East take to fighting. When he is engaged, some progress toward peace can always be made. How much is the question.

Obama Gets Talks With Israel And Palestine

After George Mitchell left the Middle East without making headway on a deal between Israel and Palestine, nobody expected this report the next day:

Surprise announcement from the White House: President Obama will host a trilateral meeting on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. This meeting will be preceded by bilateral meetings between the president and the two leaders.

"These meetings will continue the efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed."

The meeting comes in the context of the Goldstone report alleging war crimes committed by both sides but particularly Israel in the Gaza war. That cannot go unmentioned in these talks, although the White House is signaling that they prefer to look forward and not backward. At least they're consistent.

We believe this report should be discussed within the Human Rights Council, and we look forward to participating in that discussion. We will approach discussions on the report keeping in mind the underlying causes of the tragic events in Gaza earlier this year – the lack of a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the attacks by Hamas against innocent civilians.

Our focus right now, as I’ve said before, is to get all sides to take steps to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations so we can end this conflict and the humanitarian suffering it has caused. We will move forward in discussions of the report while keeping that overriding goal at the forefront. We hope efforts related to the Middle East at the Human Rights Council and other international bodies will look to the future and how we can support the goal of a two-state solution.

The Goldstone report does complicate efforts and it's useless to ignore them. It provides a catalyst for the same grievances, which I'm sure both sides will use. It's the last thing anyone needed. In this context, getting a trilateral meeting at all is major progress.

Bin Laden Thugs Out

Another year, another bin Laden tape, another set of people wondering why this guy is still at large eight years after 9-11. Here's a translation, showing that the Al Qaeda leader is relying far more heavily on anti-Israel rhetoric, the Muslim extremist go-to, than ever before. This was not the case in prior bin Laden messages, and reflects not a little desperation on his part, suggesting that his other targets for demonization - America, godless Western culture, etc. - do not have the same traction. If Barack Obama manages to wage peace in the Middle East, bin Laden will see his rhetorical supply lines cut off almost completely. It's also interesting that he cannot take on Obama directly, but argues that he is captive to "pressure groups," probably because Obama is too popular in the Muslim world to attack to that degree.

Have we yet seen a conservative argue that bin Laden's takes on Jimmy Carter's statements about apartheid in Palestine, Mearshimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby, antiwar generals, and corporate and neoconservative control of the White House means that he's a closet liberal and presenting a Michael Moore position paper? Are they still taking a pathological extremist's word's literally?

Meanwhile, the best response to this has been Spencer Ackerman's auto-tuning. Because mockery makes sense, in this case. Death of bin Ladotune, moment of silence.

Israel/Palestine for Iran Swap?

A couple days after Israeli papers reported that Benjamin Netanyahu was stiffing Barack Obama and his plans for Middle East peace, the Guardian says that all sides have reacheda tentative agreement:

Barack Obama is close to brokering an Israeli-Palestinian deal that will allow him to announce a resumption of the long-stalled Middle East peace talks before the end of next month, according to US, Israeli, Palestinian and European officials.

Key to bringing Israel on board is a promise by the US to adopt a much tougher line with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. The US, along with Britain and France, is planning to push the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry, a move that could cripple its economy.

In return, the Israeli government will be expected to agree to a partial freeze on the construction of settlements in the Middle East. In the words of one official close to the negotiations: "The message is: Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not."

I guess it matters which reporting you believe. Russia and particularly China seem to be missing in the Guardian's report about a tough line with Iran, and they both have veto power in the UN Security Council. Juan Cole doubts its effectiveness, and thinks the Likudniks will wriggle off the hook of whatever they agreed to during peace talks. Even in the report, they are only agreeing to a "partial" settlement freeze.

What could have a bigger impact is the news that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad plans to build the infrastructure for a separate state.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, unveiled a government program on Tuesday to build the apparatus of a Palestinian state within two years, regardless of progress in the stalled peace negotiations with Israel.

The plan, the first of its kind from the Palestinian Authority, sets out national goals and priorities and operational instructions for ministries and official bodies. Mr. Fayyad said it was meant to hasten the end of the Israeli occupation and pave the way to independent statehood, which he said “can and must happen within the next two years.”

There was no immediate official Israeli comment, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Europe. But two Israeli officials reacted with consternation over what they saw as a unilateral action. The United States consul general in Jerusalem expressed approval for the plan.

The two-year timetable matches Obama's stated two-year timetable for peace negotiations in the Guardian article. I would assume that there is some back-channel encouragement of Palestinian state planning and a means to goose peace talks.

I really don't need another American President getting belligerent about Iran, especially when, the last I heard, the Islamic Republic was offering to talk. But the gears of Middle East peace, stalled throughout pretty much the entire Bush era, seem to be moving again.

Netanyahu Buckles On Settlements?

Bibi Netanyahu rebuffing the Obama Administration on a settlement freeze has sure won him plaudits at home, according to members of his cabinet and center-right parties. Except, um, he hasn't rebuffed the President at all.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has exploited such sentiment to depict Washington's opposition to settlement growth as unreasonable. But Israeli officials say he is also seeking a compromise that would limit the growth and facilitate Obama's goal of restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Several officials said Tuesday that Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Housing Minister Ariel Atias had quietly agreed to suspend all government tenders to build new Jewish housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at least until the start of next year.

The government and its critics acknowledge that there has been no green light for construction bids since November and that Netanyahu, after taking office on March 31, allowed the de facto suspension to continue.

One official said the recent decision, which was not announced, makes the suspension explicit in advance of a new round of talks set for next week between Netanyahu and U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell.

Netanyahu's trying to thread a delicate needle. Obviously he needs US support for Israel's economic survival. At the same time, his right-wing base wants him to hold firm on settlements, particularly the settlers. This is the big obstacle to Middle East peace - the thorough intransigence among all sides of the debate. But the US does have power in the region, as evidenced by getting a right-wing Prime Minister of Israel to essentially agree to demands that could eventually hurt him politically.

What Do You Know About That

The most unyieldingly racist member of Israel's right-wing government is also facing a potential indictment:

Israeli police Sunday recommended that the state indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on charges of bribery, fraud, money laundering, witness harassment and obstruction of justice.

A spokesman for the Justice Ministry said the file now moves to the state prosecutor's office and then to attorney General Menachem Mazuz who must approve the recommendation before Lieberman is formally indicted. That process could take weeks or even months. If the foreign minister is indicted he will have to resign, according to Israeli law.

Lieberman released a combative statement after the police announcement.

"For 13 years the police have conducted a campaign of persecution against me," he said. "As much as my political strength and the strength of (my party) Yisrael Beitenu rise, the campaign of persecution also intensifies."

He said he was innocent of all charges and called the investigation "judicial torture."

I didn't see the persecution complex coming.

Benjamin Netanyahu's government will still probably orient themselves against peace and toward kicking Palestinians out of their homes in East Jerusalem and building settlements on occupied land, as they have been doing, most recently today. But getting a racist like Lieberman out of government would have an undeniably positive effect.

Two States Require Two Partners

The White House met with a lot of Jewish leaders last week to outline his plans in the Middle East peace process. I imagine they take into account this CAP paper, suggesting that Obama's timeline for success has travelled ahead of "the abilities or the political conditions of either the Israeli or the Palestinian side." We can certainly see that today, with the announcement by Israel that they will continue to build a housing project in East Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended plans for a new Jewish housing development in East Jerusalem, rebuffing the Obama administration's opposition to Israeli construction in the mostly Palestinian area.

"United Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged," Netanyahu said in response to questions that U.S. officials raised last week with Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren about a 20-apartment project approved this month. "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem."

The Palestinians expect East Jerusalem to form the capital of a future Palestinian state, and the Obama administration has included the area in its demand that Israel stop building beyond the line that divided the sides before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Given that Netanyahu's win is still fresh, this is probably a fairly popular proposal in Israel. Which is why Obama's team must engage with Israelis to improve the position of peace and partnership in public opinion polls. Palestine doesn't really have a solid negotiating partner either - Hamas and Fatah's infighting could lead to stormy elections in the next year. While Palestine's problems, particularly the lack of a civil society and governmental institutions, are large, the block of hardliner Israelis at the head of the government may be a bigger obstacle to peace, however. I don't see either side truly interested in the concessions necessary to reach an agreement.

Abe Foxman said last week that "the Administration is putting too much weight on solving the conflict." As ridiculous as this sounds, it's probably the view inside much of Israel as well.

Did Biden Threaten Iran?

A lot of buzz about Joe Biden's strange construction of an answer about Israel's potential airstrike to take out suspected Iranian nuclear facilities:

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

It's just not the same as how the Administration has answered this question in the past. Robert Farley thinks this is an effort by the Administration to distance the United States from Israeli actions, while Kevin Drum thinks it was a warning to Iran. I tend to follow the latter. There's no way Israeli and American actions could truly be divorced in this case, not only because of US foreign military aid to Israel, not only because of historical precedent, but because Israel would have to fly over Iraqi airspace and get American go-aheads to carry this off. I agree that an assertion of Israeli soveriegnty is UN Charter biolerplate, and certainly Biden insisted that engagement with Iran would continue, but one statement can send two messages. Here's Drum's take:

Rhetorically, though, this amps things up. Biden is basically saying that Israel really might launch an attack, and the best way to avoid that is for Tehran to start dealing seriously with the United States. "If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage," he said carrotishly — and if they don't, well, there's not much we can do to stop our crazy cousin. You know how he is. You're better off dealing with us.

Hard to say if this will work. But that seems to be what's going on. This isn't distancing, it's pressure to quit screwing around and instead sit down and talk.

The good news is that Admiral Mullen, at the same time on CBS, announced that military action on Iran would be destabilizing. But an awkward statement like this could have the same destabilizing impact in the Muslim world.

LAST UPDATE (Monday morning): a variety of comments from assorted well-placed worthies have come my way over the last day, some online and others privately. Most suggest that Biden's comments were not meant to change U.S. policy, and that if anything he meant to distance the U.S. from any Israeli strike (though a few speculate that it was actually meant to strengthen the U.S. bargaining position ahead of the Moscow talks). If that's the case, then it is only that much more important to repeat that his comments are being nigh-universally presented in the Middle Eastern media (Israeli and Arab, at least) as a "green light." If that wasn't the intended signal, then the administration needs to recognize that its signaling has gone awry and clear it up before it's too late...

The White House has prided itself on engagement through Arab media, so if they truly didn't mean for this to be the message, they need to explain themselves publicly to that constituency.

Define "Complete Settlement Freeze"

That's not what this looks like to me:

Israel would be open to a complete freeze of settlement building in the West Bank for three to six months as part of a broad Middle East peace endeavor that included a Palestinian agreement to negotiate an end to the conflict and confidence-building steps by major Arab nations, senior Israeli officials said Sunday [...]

The freeze would not affect construction that was already under way, nor include East Jerusalem. But it would mean that during the specified time no construction of any kind could start even in the close-in settlement blocks that Israel expects to keep in any future two-state agreement with the Palestinians.

A settlement "freeze" that doesn't affect current construction, has a three-to-six month end date, imposes multiple conditions on the Palestinians and doesn't include one of the settlement areas?

That's not even a thaw, let alone a freeze. The senior ministers, by the way, don't even agree on these decidedly uninspiring terms.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Middle East envoy George Mitchell met in New York yesterday and reached some agreement, and Israel appeared to be knuckling under slightly in the face of US pressure. But if this is the end result, I don't suspect that the Palestinians will perceive it as some grand concession. US officials adamantly asserted that they have not moved back on their position of a full settlement freeze including "natural growth." We'll see soon enough.

Engagement With Syria

Here's something else that blew right by me a couple days ago - the US will send an ambassador back to Syria after a four-year absence.

Syria is an interesting case, the "swing vote" in the Muslim world, if you will. They have allied themselves with Iran on occasion, and certainly have meddled in Lebanon. But they've also shown a willingness to reach out toward the West. President Bashar al-Assad is a somewhat more liberal figure than his father, although he still cracks down on dissent and has been linked to the death of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. But this return to the region reflects the President's general belief in engaging all countries to find areas of agreement. A unilateral pullout did not serve us well.

The loss of U.S. diplomatic leverage in the region -- because of opposition among many Arabs to the Iraq war and a perceived U.S. favoritism toward Israel -- has left a vacuum in recent years filled in large part by Iran. The decision to return the ambassador to Syria, senior administration officials said, represents the restoration of a sustained U.S. diplomatic presence in a secular Arab country central to many U.S. interests in the region.

"It did not make any sense to us not to be able to speak with an authoritative voice in Damascus," the senior administration official said. "It was our assessment that total disengagement has not served our interests."

If there were a legitimate partner for peace in Israel right now, this engagement would probably bear immediate fruit, as Syria and Israel were discussing a peace agreement over the Golan Heights as recently as late 2007. But as Iran implodes and instability potentially spreads, tipping Syria closer to the West, or even removing the standoffishness, changes the balance of power and will help lower the temperature of the US-Muslim relationship.

Space On The Left For Two-State Solutions

It was clear when Bibi Netanyahu made his speech with its alleged concession to a Palestinian state that he was not fully endorsing anything approaching a framework for that state. What sovereign entity agrees to unilaterally disarm and not defend its borders? Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the US, basically confirmed this the other day:

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren said: "When the prime minister and the government uses the word 'state' now, it has to attach a number of caveats to it, so it'll be understood that what we're talking about here is not a state in the classical sense, as is widely understood, but a state that will have some -- some -- substantive restrictions on its powers."

That's just not going to be good enough, or at least it shouldn't be for policymakers in this country. Harold Meyerson points out that Americans, in particular American Jews, understand that a two state solution, and only a two state solution, can bring about peace in the region and ensure the security of everyone, including the Israelis.

What underpins the resolve of both the administration and Congress to push the Israelis, no less than the Palestinians, toward a settlement is the clear approval this approach commands among American Jews. A poll taken in March for J Street, an organization of American Jews that favors a territorial accord, showed 72 percent support among Jewish Americans for U.S. pressure on Israel and its Arab neighbors to reach an accord, and, remarkably, 57 percent support for U.S. pressure just on Israel. The poll also found 60 percent opposition to the expansion of settlements.

These numbers reflect changes in American Jewish life and thought that have been building for decades. At a broad level, the intense identification of American Jews with Israel has been waning for many years. More narrowly, the past couple of decades have brought the rise of American Jewish groups that try to pressure the U.S. government to push for a two-state solution -- a clear counterweight to more established organizations such as AIPAC that generally try to pressure the U.S. government to do whatever the Israeli government would like it to do. The J Street PAC, an organization that's just three years old, raises funds for members of Congress who back policies leading to a two-state solution, much as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) encourages its backers to donate to candidates who toe a more hawkish line.

I wouldn't go so far to say that AIPAC has been completely sidelined, but clearly Jewish groups have created space on the left to allow Obama to take a hard line on the settlements issue. It's good that Hillary Clinton refused to yield to racist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on this count.

Obviously, Netanyahu isn't being realistic or even serious about a Palestinian state. But for the first time in a while, the forces of peace are dictating strategy in the White House, at least as it concerns the Middle East.

Netanyahu Sort-Of Relents

Looks like Eli Lake was right:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed an independent Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, dramatically reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions the Palestinians swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his reponse to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

Senior Palestinian officials Saeb Erekat said the plan "closed the door" to negotiations [...]

Erekat said Netanyahu's plan was unacceptable since it effectively imposes a solution on the core issues of the conflict.

"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," he said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."

Is this a step forward for Netanyahu? Yes. Does it move the ball forward? Apparently not, as the last paragraph makes clear.

Just the fact that Netanyahu had to give a speech like this to combat the Obama speech in Cairo moves the ball forward in some sense, pushing the discussion toward the peace process. But each side is trying to outflank the other on who is more inclined toward peace and what must remain in and out of a deal that the going will be extremely slow. I would say it's better that he did this than nothing at all. But we're still light years away from a solution, and more engagement is needed from the Administration.

Unnatural Growth And Congressional Spine Stiffening

Not surprisingly, the Israeli hard-right government won't give an inch on settlement expansion, at least not for now. They've backed down to the "natural growth" dodge, which is a small victory because "natural growth" is such a transparently stupid concept - as if it's natural to build a new house for your son on someone else's land when he gets married. Gershom Gorenberg knocks this down pretty easily.

Barack Obama has not demanded that women in settlements stop having babies. Rather, he has insisted that Israel stop construction in settlements, in line with its commitments under the 2003 road map for peace -- in line, in fact, with American opposition to settlement building since 1967. Consistent with the road map, and with the 2001 report written by George Mitchell, now Obama's Middle East envoy, the president has rejected Israeli insistence that construction continue to allow for "natural growth" of the settler population.

The deliberate twisting of Obama's stance is aimed at both a domestic and American audience. And it has confused some otherwise astute observers. Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York and chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, said in press statement on Tuesday that he supported a settlement freeze but not one that "calls on Israeli families not to grow [or] get married. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane."

Don't worry, Mr. Ackerman: The president is not talking about universal contraception for Israeli settlers. If there's any logic behind the rhetoric of Schneller, Hershkowitz, et al., it's a claim that people have the natural right to have a larger home in the same community if they expand their families, and to have their grown children live down the street. Why should that be true? West Bank settlements aren't ancient communities in isolated valleys hundreds of miles from the nearest town. They are recently established bedroom communities, within commuting distance of Israeli cities -- where many settlers in fact work.

The settlement housing is heavily subsidized by the state, too.

It's just a way to keep growing the settlements while claiming not to grow them. And fortunately, Ackerman clarified himself today, affirming that settlement construction must stop.

In fact, even those Jewish Democrats previously offering unstinting support for Israel have felt more free to criticize on this particular issue, mindful that settlement growth represents a threat to peace in the region.

For the first time in America's decades of jousting with Israel over West Bank settlements, an American president seems to have succeeded in isolating the settlements issue and disconnecting it from other elements of support for Israel.

It is a disentanglement now seen most clearly in Congress, which in the past served as Israel's stronghold against administration pressure on the issue. But when Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu came to Capitol Hill for a May 18 meeting after being pressed by President Obama to freeze the expansion of West Bank settlements, he was "stunned," Netanyahu aides said, to hear what seemed like a well-coordinated attack against his stand on settlements. The criticism came from congressional leaders, key lawmakers dealing with foreign relations and even from a group of Jewish members.

They included Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee; California Democrat Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and California Rep. Henry Waxman, a senior Democrat.

The Jewish lawmakers among them believed "it was their responsibility to make him [Netanyahu] very, very aware of the concerns of the administration and Congress," said a congressional aide briefed on the meeting. The aide, who declined to be identified, stressed that despite the argument on settlement issues, members of Congress remained fully supportive of Israel on all other issues, including the need to deal with Iran and the concern over Hamas and Hezbollah's activity.

In their meetings, according to the congressional aide, lawmakers rejected Netanyahu's call for Palestinian reciprocity on terrorism as a precondition and kept pressing him on the need to stop building in settlements.

Good. More than anything, this represents the follow-through on Obama's speech to the Muslim world - a real change in US policy and pressing from a legitimate stance of an honest broker.

None of this means that Israel will budge, of course. Look at the ice to cut through.



I think at some point, not yet but at some point, the purse strings need to come into play.

Like Father Like Daughter

Liz Cheney must have learned the fine art of lying your tail off from dear old dad.

MITCHELL: Can you clarify at all a dispute some or among former Bush administration middle east experts and officials as to whether there was a secret promise or an agreement with Israel that Israel could proceed with settlement expansion to accommodate population growth?

CHENEY: It is a very complicated issue and the Road Map does talk about settlements. … But there’s the issue of, in existing settlements, if a family has a baby, are you allowed to build another room in the house? … I think there’s no question that this White House has gone much further in saying to the Israelis, “you must absolutely stop all of it.” And without, in my view, being as demanding of the Palestinians in terms of the security side of this equation.

Sadly, no.



Given that she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Bush Administration, put there, many feel, to report back on the State Department to the Vice President, you'd think she'd know that.

However, Cheney did part ways with her father on the issue of the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. She still thinks it exists, whereas Fourthbranch pretty much disavowed it earlier this week.

LIZ CHENEY: The issue is whether there's a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, which as he mentioned in that speech, George Tenet himself testified to, there's much evidence between the connection of Saddam and al Qaeda and Saddam and other terrorist organizations.

MITCHELL: Well, al Qaeda in Iraq, which was an offshoot, but didn't exist before the start of the war.

LIZ CHENEY: That's actually not true.

Right, well, um, you're wrong again.

If the best politicians are the best liars, Cheney's got quite a future.

The More Things Change

I don't want to deny that the ensuing actions will be more important than these words. This sets the table for those actions, and can be very useful. But only if followed through correctly. I think the speech will be met with cautious praise, overall, but this passage in particular shows exactly what a minefield Obama is walking into.

Israelis on the far right, for example, blasted Mr. Obama for what they said was his casting of an equivalency between the Holocaust and the suffering of Palestinians in two concurrent paragraphs of his 55-minute long address.

“How dare Obama compare Arab refugee suffering to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust?” asked Aryeh Eldad, a parliamentarian from the rightist National Union Party, adding that Mr. Obama might understand the difference better when he visits the Buchenwald concentration camp in the coming days.

It was a mirror image of the reaction in Gaza, where Ahmed Youssef, the deputy foreign minister of the Hamas government, criticized the speech for not going far enough on Palestinian issues. “He points to the right of Israel to exist, but what about the refugees and their right of return?” Mr. Youssef said of Mr. Obama’s remarks, leaving out that Mr. Obama also said Palestine’s right to exist can’t be denied.

“As a legal specialist,” Mr. Youssef added, Mr. Obama “should know people are under occupation, and they can not recognize the state while they are under occupation, only afterwards. Why put pressure on Arabs and Muslims to recognize Israel while it is not recognizing our existence?”

I mean, there you have it. Of course, the goal for progress would be to allow voices other than the extremes of the Israelis and Palestinians to come forward. However, those are not currently the voices in power.

The Speech

Barack Obama often gives these speeches in aggressively non-sound bite forms. The speech on race doesn't have one line that people recite over and over, nor does his DNC nomination speech, or his speeches in Europe, or his Inauguration speech. He would rather create an event, something that needs to be read or watched in full. This morning's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo was promoted intensely on Facebook and Twitter, and translated into multiple different languages. The intended audiences are overseas, and the ideas complex and not easily boiled down.

Today's speech starts as almost a historical lecture about the challenges between Muslim countries and the United States, and like many Obama speeches, he seeks common ground between the divides, and calls for a new beginning of mutual understanding and shared principles, focusing on what unites and not what divides. And he asks that the two sides listen to each other and be honest with one another.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

He addresses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israel/Palestine issue, the Iranian nuclear weapons crisis, democracy promotion, religious freedom and women's rights, doing the "on the one hand, on the other hand" shtick with almost all of them. Here's a good example, and a really keen take on the Israel/Palestine debate:

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

There was a lot of honesty in the speech. Obama asserted that "our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons" to a part of the world where women are less equal. He said that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other" and acknowledged American roles in past overthrows of Muslim governments, particularly in Iran. He said that "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons," an oblique reference to Israel, and made a hedge on Iranian negotiations by admitting that they "should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

The President, in other words, challenged the assumptions of both Americans and Egyptians, Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, and sought common understanding through honesty and a new foundation for dialogue. Some will see the speech as essentially empty, as if a speech could end all oppression in the Muslim world. And I agree that actions matter, and words fall hollow if not backed up by them; in fact, the rhetoric makes things WORSE if the actions do not match. But I also agree with MJ Rosenberg, that speaking to Muslims and Arabs as equals does have an impact. Marc Lynch has a good take as well. Ultimately, Obama seeks to bring the greater Muslim world forward into a new conversation and marginalize those extremists who pervert religion with violence, and refuses to use ideology as a wedge between the divides. In that respect the speech is not as important as its buildup and the environment created around it. You can see by the Al Qaeda freakout in reaction - as well as conservatives - that they both hate the crackup of the Manichean relationship between the Western and Muslim worlds.

More coverage in NYT and WaPo, and even from Thomas Friedman, though I advise you to read what's inside the quotes from Obama and not the Moustache's turgid prose.

In The Words Of Fred Armisen's Impression Of Joy Behar...

Who cares?

Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”

The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve peace in the Middle East. Mr. Obama was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and is scheduled to address the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday.

The Israeli officials said that repeated discussions with Bush officials starting in late 2002 resulted in agreement that housing could be built within the boundaries of certain settlement blocks as long as no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered to move to settlements and no new settlements were built.

Certainly an interesting proposition, that Bush lied to the world while making secret agreements. But no President is bound by the secret agreements of his predecessor. In context, it makes sense that Netanyahu was so confused, wondering if Obama really meant it when he said that he wanted construction to stop. But it makes no difference today what Bush and the Israelis conspired to create. The settlements violate international law and the obligations of the Israelis in the Middle East peace process. They need to be dismantled. But as a first step, the building needs to stop.

Obama's Boldness On The Settlements Issue

It's clear that, while the President has been less willing to stake out a bold and uncompromising position on many issues, with respect to settlement growth in the West Bank, he has definitely done so. This has played out very publicly, surprisingly so, with Obama and his Administration calling for a freeze, while the Netanyahu government in Israel seeks expansion, which they call "natural growth," an insidious euphemism. President Obama has signaled more bluntness on the issue in the weeks to come.

The United States will be more blunt in raising objections to Israel's settlement policies in the Palestinian territories than previous administrations, President Barack Obama told a U.S. radio network in an interview on Monday.

"Part of being a good friend is being honest," Obama told National Public Radio. "And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests.

"We do have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace," he added. "I've said that a freeze on settlements is part of that."

When asked about Israel's refusal to commit to a complete settlement freeze, the president told NPR it was still too early to determine what measures the administration could take to pressure Jerusalem.

"It's still early in the process," Obama said. "They've [Israel] formed a government, what, a month ago?"

"We're going to have a series of conversations," the president told NPR. "I believe that strategically, the status quo is unsustainable when it comes to Israel's security," Obama said. "Over time, in the absence of peace with Palestinians, Israel will continue to be threatened militarily and will have enormous problems on its borders."

Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister, met with US officials yesterday and received the same message - that settlement expansion is intolerable, and a freeze represents the first step on the path to peace. Barak's compromise proposals were not accepted, and Obama himself popped in at one point to discuss the situation. While aides downplayed the tensions, clearly the US and Israel differ on this crucial issue.

Clearly the settlements issue will not be settled overnight, but just as clearly, the forces supporting the status quo and an expansion of the settlements in the West Bank are marshaling their forces, trying to whip up Congressional opinion against Obama's stance. This was a matter of time - the Israel lobby has many friends on Capitol Hill, and seeing their hardline position threatened, they at some point were going to use those allies to try and head it off.

“My concern is that we are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute,” said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.). “I think it would serve America’s interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements.”

“When Congress gets back into session the administration is going to hear from many more members than just me,” she said.

Presidents from Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush saw attempts to pressure Israel draw furious objections from Congress, but members of Congress and observers say Obama will most likely prevail as long as he shows that he’s putting effective pressure on Israel’s Arab foes as well.

But even a key defender of Obama’s Mideast policy, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), is seeking to narrow the administration’s definition of “settlement” to take pressure off Obama. And the unusual criticism by congressional Democrats of the popular president is a sign that it may take more than a transformative presidential election to change the domestic politics of Israel [...]

“There’s a line between articulating U.S. policy and seeming to be pressuring a democracy on what are their domestic policies, and the president is tiptoeing right up to that line,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who said he’d heard complaints from constituents during the congressional recess. “I would have liked to hear the president talk more about the Palestinian obligation to cut down on terrorism.”

“I don’t think anybody wants to dictate to an ally what they have to do in their own national security interests,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who said he thinks there’s “room for compromise.”

Lining up one by one.

The ruling Likudniks in Israel have matched this rhetoric, accusing Obama of interfering in their domestic politics. This is ridiculous. The greatest interference by the United States in Israeli domestic politics concerns the billions in foreign aid we lavish on them every year. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that, as a condition of that support, Israel does not pursue policies that inflame hatred in the Muslim world, particularly hatred toward the United States. Settlement growth is a national security issue for this country.

And Obama has proceeded with determination not to allow such destructive policies to rebound on the United States. As Juan Cole says, Israel's settlement policy is the "Amy Winehouse of foreign affairs," hurting both itself and others. Cole has some ideas about where Obama can go next, but I think he's on the right track. And the Middle East issue sits at the forefront of all of our problems with the Muslim world, so he certainly has the pressure and mindset to move forward in a forthright manner.

The Settlements Issue Goes Public

If the President can be criticized in the first several months of his Administration, it would be for his reticence to step out on controversial issues. In fact, perhaps the first example of his White House being bold and forthright on something bound to win him enemies as well as friends is his very public stand against Israeli settlement building.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama Thursday ratcheted up what might be America's toughest bargaining position with Israel in a generation, demanding anew that Israel stop expanding its settlements in the disputed West Bank as a key step toward making peace with its Arab neighbors.

Obama made the demand after a White House meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, building on unusually blunt language the day before from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Each party has obligations," Obama said of the so-called Road Map to Peace, to which Israel is a party. "On the Israeli side, those obligations include stopping settlements."

He said he made that point to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met earlier this month, noting that the conversation "only took place last week" and that Netanyahu must work through domestic politics, but added: "We don't have a moment to lose."

You can read Obama's statement after meeting with Abbas here. It's astounding to see an American President pick a public fight with Israel. But ultimately, stopping the settlement expansion is in the best interest of the Israelis and eventual peace.

Isn't likely to happen so fast, however:

Mr. Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said Thursday that the prime minister won't change his long-held position that building should be allowed to continue in existing settlements as part of "natural growth."

Mr. Regev said any complete freeze in settlement activity could be discussed only in final-status peace negotiations with the Palestinians. But Palestinian leaders have refused to resume negotiations until Mr. Netanyahu acknowledges the commitments of past Israeli governments to a Palestinian state.

Laura Rozen has more from Netanyahu's perspective. He appears to have been really blindsided by an Administration who refuses to bend their principles to fit the dictates of the Israel lobby.

"This is a sea change for Netanyahu," a former senior Clinton administration official who worked on Middle East issues said. The official said that the basis of the Obama White House's resolve is the conviction that it is in the United States' as well as Israel's interest to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "We have significant, existential threats that Israel faces from Iran and that the U.S. faces from this region. It is in our mutual interest to end this conflict, and to begin to build new regional alliances."

Netanyahu needed to engage Obama directly, the former official said. "Now that he has done so, and also sent a team of advisors to meet [special envoy to the Middle East George] Mitchell, he has very clearly received a message: ‘I meant what I said on settlements. No natural growth. No elasticity. There will be a clear settlement freeze.'" (Netanyahu sent a team of advisors including minister for intelligence Dan Meridor for meetings with Mitchell in London Monday.)

"Over the past 15 years, settlements have gone from being seen in Washington as an irritant, to the dominant issue," says Georgetown Univeristy Middle East expert Daniel Byman. He pointed out that key figures in the Obama administration -- Mitchell, who headed the Mitchell Commission, which recommended a halt to settlements; national security advisor Gen. Jim Jones -- see the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, home to some 290,000 people, as a key obstacle to getting a peace settlement. "I don't think the logic is hidden," Byman said.

It's really fascinating, and I honestly don't know how it'll play out. The wingnuts are preoccupied with calling a circuit court judge a racist right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Wurlitzer ramp up on this before too long. Expect some stories about the Black Muslim in the White House siding with the Palestinians, when in actuality, Obama is siding with the Israelis by insisting on the only avenue for progress. Bully for him.

Strong Words

I'm very gratified that the Obama Administration, and the Democratic leadership generally, are going to the mats with Israel over settlement construction.

Rebuffing Israel on a key Mideast negotiating issue, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the Obama administration wants a complete halt in the growth of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, with no exceptions.

President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions," Clinton said.

Growth in settlements built in the West Bank has become a key point of disagreement between the United States and Israel as the administration assembles its plan to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

U.S. officials believe that a complete Israeli halt to settlement growth could lead to early concessions from moderate Arab nations and put new momentum behind the peace effort.

That's an extremely strong statement, and much further that I would guess anyone would have suspected that Democrats were willing to go. And not only that, but Martin Indyk, of all people, is telling the truth:

On Netanyahu: "Bibi suffers from the fact that many people in the administration know him too well."

On Israel's taking risks to achieve peace: "All these years, the US has been strengthening you precisely for this purpose -- so that you can take the risk of making peace. How exactly can the Palestinians destroy you? The real existential danger is that you will not succeed in parting from them."

The settlements violate international law. A fanatical far-right minority uses them to stand in the way of peace. And Bibi Netanyahu has simply been caught out. He can pretend that his survival isn't dependent on a strong ally in the United States, or he can lose his Prime Minister position. Period.