The Middle East is a place of incredible intransigence, including political stubbornness. Compromise is a dirty word in the Middle East. Breathing and needing to always “be right” in the Middle East are the same things for Arabs, Jews, Christians and Persians alike.
Politics can be viewed in this same absolutist light. Yet, at the end of the Clinton Administration, a major break from this “I win, you lose, I defeat you” mentality occurred. For the first time, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, offered the Palestinians a fair deal for peace. Barak was willing to give back to the Palestinian what was rightfully theirs: the Gaza Strip, and all of the West Bank, except for areas deemed vital for Israel security, remembering that before 1967 in some areas Israel was only 9 miles wide- a nearly impossible area to defend if one’s adversaries are intent on your destruction. As part of that agreement, in return for Israel keeping some Arab land in the West Bank for what Israel believed it needed to ensure its continued security and existence, Israel was to swap some Israeli land for Palestinian land.
Yassar Arafat, the head of the PLO for decades, apparently agreed to this arrangement. What he would not agree to was that all the Palestinians who had been uprooted and displaced by Israel’s creation in 1948 would not be able to return to their original property inside Israel. Israel made the claim that as a democracy, if all the displaced Palestinians returned to the Israeli territory, because Israel is a democracy, these new voters could simply vote all the Jews out of office. This Israel said it could not accept and the peace talks broke down.
What President Obama recently called for was a return to territorial agreement of the Barak-Arafat-Clinton deal. No more and no less.
Because of the intransigence of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel, this was portrayed as Obama subverting Israel and selling it out. In fact, it was a reasonable compromise position already agreed upon by a previous Israeli government.
Those in the Obama Administration who wanted the President to actually put real pressure on Israel, by putting forth an American Plan for a fair compromise to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lost the debate. Lead negotiator and former Senate Majority leader, George Mitchell, lost this debate to push the Israelis and Palestinians toward compromise. He then resigned in frustration. All Western governments have in fact been frustrated with the present Israeli government’s intransigence and their refusal to stop building and allowing illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The Israelis also asked that President Obama reinforce his commitment to veto an upcoming UN Resolution this September to recognize Palestine as a country, something that was done for Israel in 1948. President Obama agreed with Israel and publicly stated the U.S. will veto the resolution, apparently even if it stands alone as the only country in the world not willing to recognize Palestine. President Obama also explained to the Fatah Movement of the PLO that Israel could not be expected to sit down and talk peace with Hamas who still publicly state that its goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Lastly, the Israeli Prime Minister got himself invited to address Congress, by the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner to put pressure on President Obama to cave into Israeli demands for political reasons. President Obama would not cave into Israel. Our President stood his ground, telling Prime Minister Netanyahu you will not dictate to us what our foreign policy should be. President Obama has done the right thing on all accounts. He found an appropriate middle ground between giving the Israelis all that they want and recognizing legitimate Palestinian claims. For this, President Obama should be applauded, in spite of the right wing trying to say President Obama has disrespected Israel.
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