This is still reportedly in the works, but the outline of Obama's brand spankin' new Middle East Peace Plan is apparently being worked on as I write this, and one of my notorious Little Birdies has given me a few details to work with.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were humiliated by the Arab's absolute refusal to toss any reciprocal concessions Israel's way in exchange for concessions by Israel. So naturally, the Obama Administration decided to concentrate on wringing more concessions out of Israel in the hopes of persuading the Saudis and the Arab League to give a little, because this time, hey, maybe it might work!
In fact, it won't, as the Arabs have made abundantly clear, most recently at the Fatah conference. But given the hostility towards Israel by Obama, that's the track that's being pursued.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Obama's US Middle East envoy George Mitchell dickered back and forth at a meeting they had in London and reportedly came up with a deal on Israel's building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria(AKA the West Bank). The Israelis are reportedly offering a temporary 9 month freeze in these areas, although a number of already started projects will be completed. They're also committing not to build any new Jewish communities in these areas.
On Jerusalem Netanyahu and Mitchell have agreed to disagree, with Netanyahu stating that Israel will continue to build in its capitol and Mitchell saying that the US will continue to oppose construction in East Jerusalem. But the basic idea is that Netanyahu will limit construction in East Jerusalem and the US will limit its opposition to rhetoric.
What Israel is supposedly going to get in return is a harder US line on Iran. I've seen speculation on this several places. The US, along with Britain and France, is supposedly going to try to get the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry.
I personally doubt this scenario, because I'm sure Netanyahu is smart enough to realize that Obama isn't going to be able to stop China or Russia from vetoing any meaningful sanctions. Not to mention the fact that EU countries like Germany who have a healthy trade with Iran aren't about to abide by any sanctions that do get through. The UN's Oil For Food scandal is a pretty good indication on how well that works. Nor is Obama going to let America's military do anything personally to stop Iran's nukes, that's for damned sure. And I certainly don't see Israel trusting France or Britain ( Britain??? Guffaw!) to do anything meaningful either.
I think a more likely scenario is something like this: in exchange for a temporary building freeze, Obama has promised to try to try and get some kind of symbolic concession out of the Arabs and to come up with whatever watered down sanctions the he can get through the UN, and if that doesn't work out by say, year end, he'll wink at the IDF taking out the Iranian nuke sites.
There are a number of things wrong with this scenario, from Israel's point of view and from America's.
First, Obama's new revelation on Iran (if in fact it even exists) is a day late and a dollar short. The mullahs are at most six months to a year from developing nuclear weapons, and their missile technology has progressed to solid fuel, putting all of Europe in range. The day is long past when sanctions can be expected to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This has implications for America as well, in that it will give Iran the power to shut off oil from the Persian Gulf any time it chooses and black mail Europe. It will also turn Iraq and Lebanon into Iranian colonies.
Second, Israel already had a formal agreement with the US on Judea and Samaria, one made between President George Bush and Israeli PM Ariel Sharon. That agreement was that existing Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria would be part of Israel in any final settlement and that normal building would be allowed. And the Obama administration, aided and abetted by ex-President Bush's cowardice in keeping his mouth shut has simply pretended it doesn't exist.
If the Israelis go along with a freeze, they're essentially agreeing to waive the agreement they made with Bush, the entire basis by which Israel signed on to the Roadmap in the first place. Not only that, but they'd be making a new deal with an American administration that has already shown its hostility to Israel and its willingness to renege on any agreements it makes.
When it comes to Israel, Obama simply isn't part of their fan club. Just like his closest friends, advisers and associates. And don't be fooled by the Jews in his administration like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod. They're simply ruthless and ambitious hard Left careerists who are primarily interested in their own power and aggrandizement. They've latched onto Obama and could care less about any 'anti- Zionist' policies the boss man comes out with as long as they maintain that connection.
Obama wants to appease the Muslim world and sees Israel as an obstruction to that goal , and certainly not a US ally to be cultivated. As Victor Davis Hanson astutely pointed out, "to Obama, Israel is the exploiting Jewish landlord,the Palestinians are the oppressed tenant and Obama is the superior, all-knowing organizer-mediator who will give pep talks to the Palestinians on "responsibility" and "self-help" while drawing material concessions from the too wealthy Israeli building owner."
Obama will take whatever the Israelis give him and then simply ask for more without any reciprocation from the Arabs whatsoever. And there's no agreement Netanyahu could make with him that would be worth anything.
Imagine this scenario: Obama addresses the UN General Assembly in September, as he's scheduled to do. He has an informal agreement with Netanyahu along the lines mentioned above. But then, surrounded by the Arab nations in the anti-Israel UN, Obama unilaterally expands on that agreement, announcing a new plan that would substantially follow the Saudi peace ultimatum, which he's already endorsed.In exchange for an ill-defined 'comprehensive peace' with the Arabs, Obama calls for the Israelis to redivide Jerusalem and cede the Golan and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria ( AKA the West Bank)to the Arabs, effectively making them judenrein and pushing Israel back to the pre-1967 borders Abba Eban aptly called 'the Auschwitz lines'. he calls for Israel to unconditionally recognize a Palestinian state.
He doesn't address the other two parts of the Arab demands,releasing convicted murderers from Israeli prisons and swamping what's left of Israel with genocidal 'refugees'- for the present.
Instead he introduces a couple of new angles. He calls for his anti-Israel adviserSusan Powers' solution, imposing this new settlement and enforcing it with a UN peacekeeping force to establish 'security' along the new borders, which would work about as well as UNFIL has enforcing UN resolutions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And as a 'confidence building measure' to facilitate negotiations with Iran, he demands that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and open its nuclear site to
All this could explain why, after extensive visits by Obama administration special envoys to Damascus, Hamas suddenly made a major change and announced it was now open to Obama's plan for a two state solution.
Can you imagine the UN not jumping at the chance to vote for this as a binding resolution,particularly with American support? Would anyone listen to the Israelis protesting this rape of their country?
If Israel accepts anything like this, it will be national suicide. If they don't, they will be seriously isolated as a pariah nation and likely subject to massive sanctions for disobeying the UN diktat....which is probably what Obama intends.
Middle East peace for the Arabs has never been about 'settlements', 'occupation' or 'refugees'. It's always been about destroying Israel and the Jews. The ludicrous thing, the cosmic bad joke about the whole affair is that by helping destroy Israel, America and the EU are not buying themselves peace but paving the way for their own destruction. As the Iranians and others are fond of chanting, first the Little Satan, then the Big Satan.
Since Obama is likely to do this no matter what the Israelis agree to, they'd be far better off not bothering with making deals with him. Far better for them to simply hunker down and wait things out, concentrate on their own priorities and perhaps look for some new best friends. Israeli high tech an know how is a highly desired commodity on the world market. And India and China look increasingly promising as consumers.
i agree with ff overall assessment of the community organizer-in-chief not comprehending the ra......, ra......, middle east model of doing things.
ReplyDeletei would nit-pik two items.
let me get my redneck gentile prism out, here, ok.
first there's this statement:
And don't be fooled by the Jews in his administration like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod.
this statement and the subsequent statements in that paragraph, signal, to me at least, a shift in ff position.
i have thought that ff viewed these two as being there, and being able to influence hussein's thinking toward israel. ff wrote an essay a few months back about the israeli politician who wrote a letter to little ram(not a typo), reminding him of his heritage. i thought at the time, the action of writing the letter and ff discussion of it were somewhat odd. did the writer of the letter actually think that ram had bumped his head and forgot who he is/was?
second there's this statement:
India and China look promising.
this isn't the first, or will it be the last, time i don't understand ff logic regarding new friends for israel. a couple of weeks ago ff posted an essay written by someone who claimed china was going to go to war with india. while i don't think it will happen, based on the premise of the essay, picking these two as friends could be a tricky balancing act for such a small country as israel. both are currently somewhat dependent on the US economy, but that could change. with israel, it could come down to putting too many eggs in a particular basket. the tech/medical industry would be the most lucrative for both, but the israeli weapons systems are light years ahead of anything either china/india have and that could be a problem. the essay mentioned also pointed to a china/pakeestan connection. would israel allow some of their weapons technology to drift into pakeestans hands, given pakeestans opinion of israel?currently, however, with friends like the US, who needs enemies? just as honduras.
oh, sorry, wrong thread............
Hi Louie,
ReplyDeleteRE: Rahm Emanuel, I'll go you one better. Full disclosure..Back when I first heard about him becoming Obama's COS, I was actually somewhat cautiously relieved because I took it as a signal that Obama was going to be more moderate RE: Israel and the Middle East then I previously thought.
I was wrong about Emanuel on several counts, and subsequent events have proven that my current portrait of him is a lot more accurate. As for Axelrod, his parents were anti-Zioist commies and he was a so-called 'red diaper' baby who had a long standing friendship with Bil Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn even before he hooked up with Obama.
RE Israel, India and China, if you'll remember, you commented on this at the time and I agreed with you that the odds of India and China going to war again are pretty slim, but I posted it in Must Reads because I found the writer's reasoning interesting.
China has always been more concerned with keeping others out then conquering other countries, and has only ever gone to war along its borders throughout its history when justifiably or not, it felt threatened by outside forces.China's conquest of Tibet is one of the few times in its long history that China has ever mounted an aggressive war against another country, and even that was along its western border.
This is obviously no guaranty of future behavior, but seeing as both countries are nuclear powers, I don't see war in their future.
As far as Israel seeking new best friends, perhaps this might be helpful.
Israel did not become an ally of the US or receive anything much in terms of aid military or otherwise until the Nixon Administration, although JFK and LBJ obviously did the odd trade deal and provided lip service to the Jewish State.
Israel managed to survive quite nicely without it, partly because they found a friend and made an ally out of DeGaulle before he turned on them on the eve of the Six Day War. The planes Israel won that victory with were mostly French-made Mystere fighters, and one reason for the pre-emptive strike was that the Israelis knew that they weren't going to be able to get more spare parts out of the French and time was of the essence.
If the US is going to turn its back on Israel, as it appears Obama wants, they will need to find new allies. China and India are prime candidates because they need Israeli hi-tech and even more importantly, they are both facing Muslim jihad.
Also ( unlike Russia) neither country has any history of Jew hatred..the reverse, if anything.
This is an extension of an old Israeli concept known as 'the strategy of the periphery.' What it acknowledges it that while Israel itself is surrounded by hostile Arab nations, outside that ring is an area of non-Arab nations who likewise are threatened and can be made into allies. That was the reason the Israelis developed such close relations with the Lebanese Maronites, the Kurds, certain African nations, Iran under the Shah and with Turkey.
Now that Iran and Turkey have become Islamist, there is yet another ring of nations to pursue this with,and Israel actually doesn't have many other options if Obama has his way.
Also, another difference between today and 1967 is that the Israelis have their own very well developed arms industry now. They didn't then.
As far as your questions about Pakistan and re-engineering go, China's relationship with Pakistan is essentially commercial not military. Pakistan gets their arms from the US and Britain. Israel offers a bigger game than the basket case of a country known as Pakistan does for China...especially if Pakistan becomes more Islamist, which I think is likely.
Re-engineering is something we've discussed before. There are a number of safeguards that can be put in place to prevent this, and all countries selling arms do this.
Hope this helps.
regards,
Rob
"The ludicrous thing, the cosmic bad joke about the whole affair is that by helping destroy Israel, America and the EU are not buying themselves peace but paving the way for their own destruction." I could not have said this better myself.
ReplyDeleteAs I have been saying even before the attacks of 9/11/01 Israel is America's most important buffer between it and its Islamic terrorist enemies. If this buffer is weakened, America and Western Europe become much more difficult and costly to defend, as the terrorist assets now deployed against Israel would be deployed elsewhere. Very likely they would be deployed against Western Europe or the American homeland.
Given America's precarious economic situation engaging in activities that would make it more costly to defend the country make no sense whatsoever. Also, the military while likely still formidable has been worn down considerably in the ongoing military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Given these factors any thing that would make America harder to defend is ill advised to say the least.
With all due respect a friendship between Israel and India or China seems to be a pipe dream right now. Those countries are to dependent on Iranian and Middle Eastern oil. The entire equation could be changed if large quantities of oil were to be discovered in Israel. The gas fields that have been recently discovered may help. A number of researchers are expecting large quantities of oil to be found in the land of Israel. I pray they are right!!
I agree that no deals with Obama should be made. When the Israeli leadership agrees to things like "two state solutions" and "settlement freezes", they undercut their supporters here in America and probably elsewhere in the world. "Hunkering down" might be a viable opiton, however, the EU and others have sufficient power to enforce a two state solution no matter what America does. As such, I don't think this is a particularly good option.
Israel could simply annex Samaria and Gaza. The Americans are in no position to stop them even if they wanted to. As for Russia and China, they probably could but Israel could be a valuable asset for them in their proxy war with America.
This works if alternative sources for oil can be found for China. Also, China and Russia hardly need any help to defeat the United States right now. While the challenges Russia, China, and India face are formidable. They are nothing compared to the challenges faced by the United States. The leaders of those countries have to be going to bed every night thanking what ever God they may believe in that they do not have have challenges as great as what America has!!
I think Israel's best bet would be to rely on the promised of God who authored the Holy Scriptures. In this Israel is given the land they now have and much more.