The Obama administration’s wild generosity to Bibi may not be quite what it appears, as I explain in The American Prospect:
“There must be more here than meets the eye,” friends and colleagues have been saying about the deal that Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu reached for a new three-month freeze on West Bank settlement building. How could Clinton and her boss be willing to pay so much — 20 new F-35s, a guaranteed American veto in the Security Council on recognizing unilateral Palestinian independence — for so little? Surely Obama and Clinton must be up to something.
Actually, I’m beginning to suspect that they are up to something. But before I explain, two provisos. The first is that there’s a common psychological error among smart people: When they see other smart people doing what look like folly, they assume that a hidden, complex plan has got to be at work. Yet as historian Barbara Tuchman taught us, intelligent leaders do sometimes march, eyes wide- open, into folly, rendering moot all the complex rationalizations of how this dumb-looking act will lead to wonderful results.
The second proviso is that in diplomacy, there’s always more going on than reaches the headlines. The point of diplomatic leaks is to bend public opinion, not to let us in on the facts. That seven-hour meeting between Clinton and Netanyahu? In five or 10 years, when they write their memoirs, we’ll get selective, self-serving versions of what was said. In 30 years or so, the transcripts may be declassified. For a journalist, this is one more motivation to live a long time: One day, you’ll get to find out how completely you misread things.
With that nod to humility, let me return to the deal. Based on the latest unreliable reports, two parts of it are not quite what they seem: what the Obama administration has offered Israel and what the administration is asking in return. The combined significance of these two parts is that Netanyahu’s compulsive settlement building has him in a very tight spot.
The American incentives, we’ve heard, include those 20 advanced war planes, a pledge to veto anti-Israel measures in the Security Council for the next year and to prevent international supervision of Israel’s nuclear installations, and more pressure on Iran to stop nuclear-arms development. Look at that list carefully. The offer of the planes is not exactly unusual in U.S.-Israeli relations. It fits the consistent policy since 1967 of giving Israel the means to defend itself, so that the United States will not have to. Providing arms is also a way of creating jobs stateside. It’s likely that the F-35 deal was already in the works and has now been made contingent on Israeli actions. …
Read the rest here, and return to South Jerusalem to comment.
So what’s to stop Netanyahu from agreeing to the 90-day freeze and then stonewalling an agreement on borders? Will Netanyahu really agree to give up Ariel? Or to partition Jerusalem? Then he’ll have a free hand in the settlements and America’s agreement not to endorse next year’s declaration of a Palestinian state, which is our best hope for a new path to peace in the face of Israeli intransigence. Once again, Netanyahu will have outfoxed Obama and Clinton.
Exactly. Promising not to recognize the unilateral declared Palestinian state this time implies that U.S. is not bound to never recognize it forever. That means that as soon as Israel behaves badly U.S. can start supporting the Palestinian state in the Security Council. Even more, Obama knows that the previous freezes where more on paper than on the ground, and there is a chance that this freeze will be violated by Netanyahu, meaning that Obama could say that Netanyahu did not keep his promise, therefore U.S. can endorse the Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood.
Even more, as you mentioned, it is good that the question of borders should be solved first. After all that’s really the point. This conflict is nothing more than a territorial dispute and once one decide who gets what, the rest is just peanuts.
Your analysis is too clever for this reader. Tell us again in your next piece, please: Why won’t the Israelis (left and right both included by now) do their usual again – slow down the building for a few weeks, continue to not agree to boundaries, take the US warplanes and and protective promises, then continue with the usual 45-year-old pattern of build and delay (showing the US for the weak patsy it is and thus further discrediting their main supporter in the world community)? Gershom, your argument that Netanyahu will be under “heavy pressure” to make a territorial deal during this 3 months is just not credible and hasn’t been for many years now. Obviously the “deal” has been cut already, silently with a wink and nod, between Netanyahu, his coalition, and with the Israeli electorate – agree and sabotage then build on. As always, this plan to just bulldoze the Palestinians into non-existence over the next decades had better work, because it is so likely that no one will rescue Israel next time like the UN did last. Which would be tragic for the Israelis, but not nearly so tragic as the final destruction of the integrity of the Jewish People in the world that will accompany Israel’s fall. Remind us again, what right do Israelis have to finally destroy Jewish Peoplehood throughout the world?
Would the US really carry out a threat to support a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood? The Israel lobby would call for the blood of whoever supported it. American and Israeli politicians know this, too.
Well, those blandishments are not forthcoming (no Thanksgiving for Bibi) and so I guess thing go on normally for us out here in Yesha.
Lets assume that the Palestinians got their wish and asked for the declaration of the Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. As a formal cancellation of the UN creation of the state of Israel, it would probably receive the immediate support of 140 nation states. Lets assume further that a UN mandate called for a multinational force for enforce the new borders of Palestine. While the EU might provide financing for such a move (although not an optimal time for this), I dont see the US, China, Russia, or the EU providing the muscle for the UN to go up against the IDF. The only nation that I see doing this is Turkey, the end result being an independent Kurdistan
About those Palestinians…
http://tinyurl.com/LeftWingMythsandLies
The recent news is that this offer-ultimatum carrot -stick has been withdrawn. So GG if this analysis is correct – and it sounds good- that means maybe Obama should have kept it rather than let it expire UNLESS all those goodies that were presumably there anyway are now possibly in question. That would mean that this is the time for Palestinians to make their move at the UN to be recognized. That would put the spotlight on Obama regarding veto or even abstention. From what we have seen of Obama- I have my doubts. I think, in this period up to the 2012 campaign at least, he will not use any stick and perhaps be looking for some unacceptable compromise for both sides to swallow ( what more do Palestinians have to give?) or just us the veto with an excuse for us and then throw his hands up.