Obama and the Palestinian Fig Leaf
16 January 2017
By Amir Taheri
In the days that Fleet Street was the home of the British press many clichés
circulated in the public bars as gospel truth of journalism. One such was the
claim that the safest issues to write an editorial about were Palestine and
Afghanistan. Six hundred words on why Palestine needed a better deal or why
Afghanistan had to be helped to develop its economy would make the writer feel
good about himself while the paper could pose as a fount of wisdom- all that
without committing anyone to anything let alone upsetting any applecart.
It seems that the administration of President Barack Obama has adopted at
least part of the cliché by suddenly feeling an upsurge of sympathy for the
Palestinian cause. For more than a week the White House has been spreading the
news that the US decided not to veto a resolution critical of settlement
buildings in Israel on Obama's ''firm instructions.''
The resolution, numbered 2334, is marketed as an attempt at reviving the
mythical peace process by fomenting confusion regarding other key resolutions
of the Security Council, on the subject, notably the famous 242. It makes a
set of recommendations to Israel without even hinting at what might be done if
they are ignored. More immediately, it gives Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin
Netanyahu additional arguments in favor of its ''stand firm and fast, no
compromise'' stance that he tries to justify with reference to an uncertain
international situation compounded by Obama's apparent wish to fire parting
shots at his Israeli bête-noire.
You need not be an expert in diplomacy to know that the resolution reduces any
chance there might have been for a two-state solution, a chimera put in
circulation by the then juvenile United Nations and later given a second life
by President George W Bush. Because Obama is intelligent enough to know this,
the only reason for his 11th hour activism on this issue must be his desire to
hide the total favor of his lackluster presidency, especially in international
affairs. One could already imagine him claiming in his memoirs that he had
''worked hard'' for a two-state solution until the last moments of his
presence in the White House. (I wish Senator George Mitchell would write about
his experience as Obama's Middle East peace appointee and how the 11th hour
self-styled peacemaker effectively sabotaged every practical step in that
direction.)
Those who might ask why Obama didn't do a thing eight years, or even two years
ago, must remember that he was more concerned with his petty electoral
calculations than any desire for justice for the Palestinians. In 2008 he
needed the support of Jewish Americans in such crucial states as Florida and
Ohio; and they did help by giving him 85 per cent of their votes. Last year he
had the same calculation, this time in favor of Mrs. Hillary Clinton, his
Democrat Party's presidential candidate. No longer in need of electoral
calculations, he can rediscover a conscience that reminds him of his
attachment in his youth to the Palestinian cause.
Obama's foreign policy factotum John Kerry has also been searching for a fig
leaf to hide the nakedness of his failure as Secretary of State. His entourage
tells me that he wanted to make a big speech on the subject in 2014,
presumably to divert attention from his and Obama's abject failures on
Georgia, the Baltic States, Turkey, Egypt, Poland, Ukraine and Syria among
other places. According to the yarn spun by his entourage, Kerry did not
trigger his logorrhea because Obama ordered him to remain silent after the
2016 presidential election.
With that order no longer in force, Kerry, too, could build a bit of a legacy
with a 60-minute diatribe that is bound to be studied as a model of confusion
and dishonesty in diplomacy. According to French officials, Kerry has also
asked to be allowed to make another lengthy speech in Paris later this month
on the same subject as another failed president, Francois Hollande, launches
an international peace conference on Palestine in Paris. Well, there is no
reason why Hollande should be denied the fig-leaf that Obama and Kerry try to
procure for themselves in the name of Palestine.
Obama, Kerry and Hollande are not the first to try to look heroic at the
expense of the Palestinians, and the Israelis who suffer and die in a 70-year
old zugzwang carted by the so-called international community which has told
Arabs, and more specifically Palestinians, that they need do nothing
themselves to achieve a peace settlement with Israel: the UN is there to do
the work by passing endless resolutions with no mechanism for implementation.
For people far from the conflict and with no real interest in it, adopting a
heroic posture at the expense of the Palestinians, or the Israelis for that
matter, is no big deal.
The problem is that such heroism bought at the expense of others who pay with
their lives could only prolong a conflict that might have been resolved
decades ago hadn't others, starting with the British, the UN, the Arab League,
the US, Soviets etc. not intervened, often with empty promises or
self-centered schemes, on one side or another.
The Obama-Kerry tandem may yet engage in other shenanigans before they ride
into the sunset. Their political careers over in disaster across the board,
they have nothing to lose by posing as peacemakers while settling personals
scores on the side.
The Palestinians and Israelis should learn that no outsider, even with the
best of intentions, which is not the case with Obama and Kerry, could solve
their problems for them. It is up to the Palestinians and Israelis to decide
whether they could live together and on what terms. Big speeches and
meaningless resolutions might camouflage that fact for a while but won't
deprive it of its urgency.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran,
London and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In
1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a contributor to the
International Herald Tribune. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French magazine
Politique Internationale, and the German weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005,
he was editorial writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has published 11
books, some of which have been translated into 20 languages. He has been a
columnist for Asharq Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York.
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