PRESIDENT OBAMA has once more pronounced on the Middle East. Once again his subject is the state of Israel and a future Palestinian state living in harmony, each respecting the others sovereignty.
The President’s ‘solution’ reminds one of that old Coca Cola advert; where hundreds of young, multi-ethnic people stand waving bottles of Coke in a sunny pastoral setting, and singing, ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…’.
Those saccharine sentiments were meant to tug at the idealism of youth when, in the 1970s, racism flourished, and Coca Cola sent out the message that as a company, they did not mind who they sold their beverage to – they were not prejudice.
If President Obama was not such an intelligent and gifted political operator, I would have suggested a streak of naivety in his remarks comparable to the disingenuousness of the lyrics in the Coca Cola jingle.
The president suggested that (and I hope it was nothing more than that) any future settlement between Israel and the Palestinians should be based upon pre 1967 boarders. As someone who is old enough to understand the events of the 1967 Six Day War, I feel that President Obama (who was, at that time, yet to merit any kind of existence) fails to fully understand the duplicity and treachery displayed by the Arab world at the time as they acted together and in secret, to launch a surprise attack on the state of Israel, only to be surprised themselves by Israel’s own initiative in pre-empting the Arab aggression.
The outcome was the capture of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and both the Golan Heights and the Sinai by Israel. Since then the Sinai has been given back to Egypt and the Gaza Strip has been vacated, only to leave it in the control of a terrorist group that refuses to acknowledge the state of Israel.
WHAT WOULD ANY KIND OF ‘solution’ involving the pre 1967 boarders would mean? Would it be the movement of a half million people from what the Palestinians describe as the occupied territories, only situate them behind the pre1967 Israeli boarders?
Now if Prime Minster Netanyahu were to go along with Obama’s ‘solution’, does the American president believe that these vast numbers of people would go quietly into that dark good night. Does Obama really believe that such a movement of people could be set on the ‘right path’ by a mere click of Netanyahu’s fingers?
Such a process would set Jew amongst Jew threatening civil war. It would divide the country and strengthen the hands of Hamas as well as the Palestinians generally. Even the idea of trading off land proposed by President Obama posed the same threat.
If I threw a ball through my neighbour’s window; my neighbour would find it contemptible if any request were made by myself for the balls return. A simple analogy, but one with a similar injustice felt by the victim: and the victims in 1967 were the Jews as well as the state of Israel. Right was on their side when they took the pre-emptive action they did at the time: and any land seized was forfeited by the aggressor.
Prime Minister Netanyahu was right to bring President Obama to task over this issue. The Israeli prime minister is the head of Likud. The Likud Party, like all Right of centre parties carry the tag of being either racist or populist. To be described as being Right Wing (whether you are a politician, journalist or painter and writer) it is a term that immediately conjures up a list of reactionary beliefs.
Netanyahu has his nation’s very existence at heart. Israel is surrounded by enemies (potentially, even more after the Arab Spring). He cannot talk to people who think his country should not exist. To do so would be admitting that there was some genuine claim to be made on the Jewish state. First of all, all Palestinians must accept the right of the Jewish state to exist. If this is not possible, then a solution is not possible. It is not Israel that has to compromise but Hamas who rule Gaza, and have recently reunited with Abass on the West Bank.
WHEN I READ OBAMA’S COMMENTS, I, like many friends of Israel felt betrayed by them. America has been Israel’s main pillar of support since the state came into existence in 1948. Today the state of Israel is admired for its readiness to keep the Jewish state a solvent entity. Particularly in America, the land of the state of Israel is seen as being the primary source of Christian belief. This land was the womb of Christianity and many Christians in America support the state of Israel because of its significance to their faith.
But even people like myself, who consider themselves as atheists recognise that the Jewish people were once rooted to a homeland known as Judea; and were replaced by the Romans. From this came the Diaspora that lasted 2000 years culminating in the Holocaust. Throughout those two millennia the Jewish peoples roamed the earth forever persecuted by governments and Kings.
Never has a people struggled for success and been so despised for achieving it. Because they were never allowed to practice business in many of the societies in which they found themselves either stranded or marginalised, they became what we would call today financiers (money lenders) or traders in precious substances.
Envy and scapegoating have persecuted the Jews wherever they took up residency outside of their ancient boundaries. In 1948 they returned to those boundaries and were once more set upon by their neighbours and have been prodded, poked and taunted ever since. If the Holocaust had never happened, then perhaps the call for a Jewish homeland would today be comparable to (in popularity) the call for Scottish Independence. But Zionism gained impetus because of European nations attempt at exterminating the Jewish race.
What the ordinary Jew learnt from the Second World War was that wherever they were living on this planet, if the 2000 years of persecution continued; he or she would be provided for within a Jewish homeland, no longer dependent upon the trials and tribulations of the Diaspora.
WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA does not seem to comprehend is that Israel is not only a country where Jews can call it their own. But it is also a sanctuary away from the anti-Semitism that, as in Germany, or in 19th century Russia, may once more return; where even today, because of the long standing Russian peoples’ prejudice toward Jews, future programs cannot be ruled out.
So before President Obama makes suggestions about the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians that leaves the state of Israel weaker and ever more dependent upon the USA; (as well as every other future here today and gone tomorrow president) he had better realise who his, as well as his country’s friend is in the region, and retract his statement about pre-1967 boarders. The 1967 boarders were established through victory. Those who opposed Israel at the time sought the overthrow of the Jewish state. Had they been successful, would we today be arguing for an Israeli state that would mean asking the Palestinians to forfeit parts of their land?
The state of Israel is here and will remain here. It will only face ruin if its main ally (the United States) tries to make it obey decisions that Israel knows will lead to the termination of the Jewish state.
If Israel is put at arm’s length by the Obama administration (as it appears to be the case), then Israel had better play her trump card. This card, according to anti-Semites in America, is money and the Jewish conspiracy. These two long standing grievances regarding the Jews may play well among Afro-Americans, but when it comes to the many different protestant beliefs within America. The part played in them by the Jews and the Old Testament reinforces their Christianity.
President Obama should rethink his view about the pre-1967 boarders regarding a so-called ‘solution’ to the current impasse in the Middle East. No Israeli leader is going to leave his or her country weaker than he or she finds it. To do so would encourage such ignominy that all that would be left to such a leader would be to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
