‘AT A time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past,” President Obama argued of the Palestinian issue on Thursday, “the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever.” How much of a real opportunity the Arab Spring represents is perhaps another matter. But US re-engagement with the stalemated process is welcome. Specifically, Obama’s reiteration of support for a two-state solution, and his public articulation, “a recognition of the obvious”, of the reality that a solution will have to be based on the 1967 borders of Israel adjusted to reflect new realities, “mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states”. In other words, recognising the permanence of some of the large Israeli West Bank settlements.
This has been unstated US policy since Bill Clinton and has been the basis of behind-the-scenes talks for years. Its explicit recognition by the US brings Obama on the eve of his visit here a welcome step closer to the European position. But the EU will be disappointed that Obama has been unwilling to endorse a Palestinian-backed UN General Assembly resolution recognising a Palestinian state and the legitimacy of those borders. The president’s suggestion, moreover, that talks on the borders of a new Palestinian state could precede, and would ultimately facilitate, later discussions on the most vexed issues of Jerusalem and the return of refugees do not chime with a broad international consensus that the issues cannot be disentangled.
His re-engagement does not unfortunately signal any US optimism that talks will soon be resumed. On the morning of the Friday meeting with Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, the New York Times reported that Obama had told advisers he does not believe Netanyahu will ever compromise for peace. Their meeting will have done nothing to disabuse the president. The Israeli paper Haaretz reports sources saying that the 90-minute chat was even “harsher and franker” than the public confrontation that followed.
Obama’s interesting domestic gamble, in stepping out of line with Israel at a time the re-election season is getting underway, is to believe he can persuade the powerful US Jewish community that his problem is with Netanyahu, and the even more intransigent Likud party he leads, not with Israel.
Promises of more aid to the Israeli army, a recommitment to US security guarantees, his opposition to talks involving Hamas, and assurances of US opposition to any UN resolution, reemphasised yesterday to the Israeli lobby group AIPAC, should hold the line in this regard.
In the 2008 election, Obama won 78 per cent of the Jewish vote and a poll last autumn showed that close to two-thirds of the US Jewish community believes Israel should be willing to dismantle at least some of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank as part of an accord. Political analysts believe that, even breaking with Netanyahu, he can expect to capture between 60 and 80 per cent of the Jewish vote next year.