Obama sobers up
When the Adam-Psagot-Tel Zion-Ofra-Beit El-Shilo-Eli settlement bloc becomes
like Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel, no Israeli government, not even a Likud one,
will be able to imagine evacuating it. Nor would even a second-term Obama
administration.
By Israel Harel Op Ed Published Haaretz 01:24 09.07.10
www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/obama-sobers-up-1.300882

The Israeli media are shocked: U.S. President Barack Obama did not humiliate
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even worse, the Washington Post reported
that the opposite occurred: Netanyahu defeated Obama.

Even if the newspaper exaggerated, the outcome is still negative: Netanyahu,
the eternal wanted man, emerged from the White House with achievements, and
certainly not defeated as the media had hoped. And saddest of all, the
settlement freeze, which the media is so eager to perpetuate, may be thawed.

The prime minister did not defeat the U.S. president. Only his enemies, only
blind supporters of the Palestinians - and quite a number of Washington Post
writers are in that category - could write that. Had even an iota of
professional integrity found its way into their automatic support (and that
of many of their Israeli colleagues ) for the Palestinians, they would have
summed up as follows: There has been no strategic change in Obama's policy
of two states for two peoples, and Israel must still make most of the
concessions.

But as opposed to the dogmatically pro-Palestinian news commentators, Obama
has reached the conclusion that his tactics (which were also dogmatic ) did
not serve his objective, which is theirs as well.

Obama, as he made clear this week, is undergoing a process of sobering up.
He has understood, whether on his own or with the help of others, that the
person most to blame for the lack of progress may perhaps be found not in
Jerusalem, nor even in Ramallah, but in Washington. And that there may have
been truth in the claim that his Cairo speech, in which he toadied to the
Arabs, combined with his brutal pressure on Israel had caused the
Palestinians to climb such a tall tree that when they reached the top, they
suffered from vertigo and lost contact with reality.

And perhaps the U.S. president also reached the conclusion that since he
created this syndrome, it is his responsibility, precisely because he
supports the Palestinians, to get them down from the tree. His public
rapprochement with Netanyahu, which is mainly tactical, is the beginning of
this process.

The Palestinians will return to the negotiating table when they realize that
if they fail to do so, they will lose out, primarily on the issue of
territory. For in the present situation, the more organized and efficient
side, and the one with the greater resources, will be the one better able to
exploit the vacuum that has existed ever since the Palestinians appointed
Obama to head the team for freezing settlements and blasting Israel.

In order for them to resume negotiations, he must convince them that, just
as they have recently been grumbling, he really is not doing the job
according to their expectations, although he tried his best - and that if
they continue to be intractable, Israel is liable to continue to expand the
settlements to the geographic and demographic point of no return, even as
far as the United States is concerned.

When the Adam-Psagot-Tel Zion-Ofra-Beit El-Shilo-Eli settlement bloc becomes
like Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel, no Israeli government, not even a Likud one,
will be able to imagine evacuating it. Nor would even a second-term Obama
administration. And that is all the more true once the Kedumim-Karnei
Shomron-Immanuel-Yakir-Revava settlement bloc links up with Ariel to create
a huge Israeli geographic and demographic space in the northern West Bank.
(And that is what is going to happen - because the Palestinians do not
really want, or some say are unable, to recognize Israel even within the
1967 lines. )

And if Obama, a true opponent of the settlements, did not mention a
continuation of the settlement freeze, that is a sign that he is using
continued Israeli expansion as yet another means of pressure. By so doing,
he has begun to restore his administration to a sane worldview that takes
the abyss of Arab rejection of the Jewish state into account.

For Obama did hear the following things from Netanyahu, and not for the
first time ("And I believe him," Obama said to the cameras. Isn't that
humiliation? Would he talk that way about a European head of state? ): He
wants peace, and he knows that in return he will have to pay a high price.
In effect, he has already paid the biggest part of it, which to him may be
even more important than the territorial price, in his speech at Bar-Ilan
University. The leader of the Jewish state recognized - a historic
recognition - the Palestinians' right to a state of their own in the Land of
Israel, the homeland of the Jews.

Only someone who hates him with a passion, or does not understand the
historical, religious, substantive and political significance of this
recognition, could accuse Netanyahu, who took a giant step toward the
Palestinians, of foot-dragging. And Obama, who has apparently begun to
understand that the Palestinians will not make a similar declaration, has
begun to sober up. Let's hope he continues to do so.