Why Obama must act tougher than he is doing in the Middle East

By OKIYA OMTATAH OKOITI
Published July 19, 2009

It is now clear that hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spitefully rejected US President Barack Obama’s very lenient demands that he freezes all Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank to advance the peace process. His speech on June 14 amounted to nothing more than throwing bones at Obama. Vintage Netanyahu was sleek, and he used beautiful words, which were empty and incapable of moving the peace process forward. In the contrary he raised new obstacles to peace and backtracked gains made by his predecessor Ehud Olmert.

With his mind fixed on grabbing and dictating as opposed to negotiating in a give-and-take environment, a defiant Netanyahu deliberately proffered an unacceptable way forward to a Palestinian state bereft of borders, dignity, sovereignty and viability – the absolute and irreducible minimums necessary for self-determination.

Netanyahu is determined to go on expanding settlements under the pretext that Israel must provide for their natural growth yet currently up to 40 percent of the settlements are vacant. Ideologically, natural growth is the by word for Israel occupying yet more land meant for the Palestinian state. Juxtaposed against the obsession for natural growth is the artificial decay imposed on Palestinians, whose homes are routinely destroyed by Israelis in East Jerusalem. Hence, Netanyahu’s policies are about grabbing land and dictatorship. It has nothing to do with providing for naturally growing settler populations. It is about eventually evicting Palestinians from the region by making their existence unviable.

Netanyahu’s apparent recognition of the two-state solution, which he and the constituency that elected him vehemently oppose was a public relations stunt. That’s why he didn’t mention its borders, the removal of the Israeli settlements, and insisted that Jerusalem would remain wholly in Israel. To him, the destiny of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees lies outside Israel’s borders. Worst of all, he wants Israel to be recognized as a Jewish state, yet such an ethno-religious state is anathema to modern democracy because citizens who are not Jews, such as the minority Arab and Muslim populations will be reduced to second-class citizens.

Though it is costly in the short-term for Israel to dismantle all its settlements on occupied territories, in the long-run the resultant peace dividend will be much cheaper than the current state of war with her Arab neighbours. Further and conceptually, if Israel makes the Palestinian lands unviable, it will lose the opportunity to be a distinct state with a Jewish majority, while the fast growing populations with nowhere to go are absorbed into the Israeli state.

Netanyahu’s de facto rejection of the two-state solution, whose specifics the two belligerent sides agreed to in 2003 when they signed the comprehensive roadmap, must not be encouraged with kid gloves. Both sides have clear obligations and Obama should not be soft on them. Netanyahu’s spite should tell him that using safe platitudes that set the bar too low, encourages the kind of arrogance that can be retrogressive to the peace process.

The onus is clearly on Obama to lead the world and create a new reality for the region. Realizing that conceptually the two-state solution empowers extremists ,who oppose it in both camps and denies moderates a voice, Obama must demand in no uncertain terms and get from both Israelis and Palestinians some compromise on issues hitherto considered untouchable.

For the Israelis, Obama must raise the bar and make it clear to Netanyahu that America will accept nothing short of the following irreducible minimums: dismantling and not just stopping the settlements; withdrawing to the 1967 borders; accepting that East Jerusalem will become the capital of a sovereign, viable and dignified Palestine; and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

The fact that members of the US Congress have began talking against settlements gives the Obama administration the political cover no other American president has enjoyed in recent times. He has a free hand to take a hard stance on Israel and become the elusive honest broker the peace process has lacked but desperately needs.

On the Palestinian side, the likes of Hamas must publicly accept the right of Israel to exist as a modern democratic state. And recent utterances by the Hamas leadership on the issue indicate that their refusal to accept Israel is largely a tactical position and not an ideological. Overall, the Palestinian street must abandon violence and resistance using weapons, but embrace methods that enhance their rich culture and education.

Finally, with Obama’s ‘unclenched fist’ having demystified America’s image as the great devil among Muslims, what remains is a nuclear-free Iran, and resolving other challenges to America in the Palestinian peace process. This will get the Arabs and the larger ‘Muslim World’, to stand with America against extremists in their midst.

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Tags: middle east, obama, political