MJ: What did the Washington Post say about the Arab Peace Plan of 2002, i.e., the Mother of All Offers?

Here is why I am pessimistic: If the Arab Peace Plan wasn't enough to stop settlements, then the Arabs cannot make an offer big enough to stop them. All Israel is doing is trying to gain acquiescence to the complete takeover of the West Bank.

And the road to that perdition is paved with unilateral Arab "confidence building" measures.

I agree that an end to settlement expansion - and even a rollback of the illegal outposts - is a necessary precondition for peace. For too long, the settlements have grown while talks have faltered. The result has severely undermined the moderates in the Palestinian camp willing (in name at least) to negotiate over a two-state solution and aided Hamas rejectionists who claim cooperation is futile. Well, the West Bank remained largely quiet during the Gaza war, the efforts of General Drayton appear to be paying off and there are signs of economic growth there. With Palestinians scheduled to choose new leadership soon, Israel can and must reciprocate.

But the issue raised in the WaPo editorial seems to me less about the goal of rolling back the settlements than about the wisdom and execution of Obama's insistence on an absolute freeze and public confrontation with Netanyahu on that issue. The Post is not alone in this respect. Indeed, several left-wing commentators including (as TPC notes above) Bernard Avishai here at TPM, Aluf Benn, Bradley Burson and others, have made similar points.

By failing to engage the Israeli public, by treating all settlement construction as the same in contravention of what at least most Israelis believed were previous understandings on the limits of construction, by denying the existence of those understanding outright rather than explaining why they were ineffective or outmoded, by singling out Israel on this issue as the primary obstacle to peace without any reciprocal demands of the Arabs, allowing Abu Mazen to insist on this as a precondition to talks, Obama has failed to generate support among the vast majority in Israel, even those on the Israeli left who detest the settlements. Instead of isolating Netanyahu as I believe he expected, Obama has allowed the Israeli leader to cast himself as the defender not of the rabid nationalists setting up outposts in the West Bank, but of families seeking to build kindergartens in settlements that everyone agrees would become part of Israel in a final agreement.

Because I agree with his goals, I'm willing to cut Obama a lot of slack on this, but I can't imagine this is what he foresaw. It seems cooler heads may just prevail as Israeli news is now reporting that Netanyahu agreed to freeze construction of 900 units in E. Jerusalem and the parties appear close to an agreement on a "freeze."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1104040.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1103690.html

In general, those commenting on this thread have dogs in the hunt.

I wonder what the average non-involved WP reader must be thinking about the slew of editorials there and in other MSM venues advocating the Israeli pov be given precedence over the American one.

During the bushie years, one rarely saw so much type devoted to pushing Israel's interests in direct opposition to US policies. Obviously, there was no need to do so.

In a way, all these critiques of Obama et al are reinforcing the message that the LOBBY is actively involved in advancing Israel's interests over and above those of the United States. Keep it up.

The Israeli media is trumpeting this WP Op Ed as per usual. The Arutz Sheva article on it and the issue of the split within the Jewish community includes a denial that bibi called Rahm and Axelrod self-hating Jews and is zeroing in on Rahm:

Whether or not the Prime Minister used the term, increasing criticism by American Jews of U.S. President Barack Obama signals a split in the American Jewish community.

snip]

President Obama revealed this week that his White House advisor Rahm Emanuel, whose father was an Israeli and part of the underground resistance movement under the British Mandate, tells him everything he needs to know about Israel.

snip]

Mondoweis Blogger Philip Weis, who continually attacks a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, wrote last month, “Obama's game is to defeat the Israel lobby from within. He could not defeat the lobby from outside it…. But now he is cracking it like a nut, and counting on Jews to do the cracking.”

That strategy has turned into a wall of opposition, both in Israel, where the president’s popularity rating is near-zero, in the U.S. where Emanuel has simply ignored opposing views of major Jewish organizations, and in the normally anti-settlement American press.

snip]

While Emanuel is trying to strengthen his position, he faces another challenge on the Obama administration’s health plan. Emanuel’s brother Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel is Obama’s “health czar,” and the plan is being widely panned in American media, leaving the White House Chief of Staff with two potential failures for the President.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132656

As always, consider the source.

This is the first time I've seen the claim that Obama said he relies on Rahm for everything he knows about Israel and the potential tie-in between Rahm's brother and the difficulties with the health plan.

"Jerry Haber" (The Magnes Zionist) refers to the author of the following piece as an agent of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Barry Ravid's opus on teh REAL issue, Iran, is worth a read. There are tons of claims about our current and future policies re Iran that can serve as a roadmap/timeline of sorts if they come to pass.

This is very aggressive, hardball stuff:

U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones, who is now in Israel to discuss Iran's nuclear program, indicated that Tehran has until the UN General Assembly in the last week of September to respond. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a similar message during his visit here earlier this week. If no satisfactory answer is received, the Americans said, they would work to form an international coalition to impose harsh sanctions on Iran.

A senior source in Jerusalem said the American message to Israel in these talks was to "lower its profile" and refrain from "ranting and raving" about Iran in public until the international evaluation on Iran takes place at the end of September. "Until that date, we must give diplomacy a chance," the official said.

New sanctions would mainly aim to significantly curb Tehran's ability to import refined petroleum products.

......

Jones and his team reported that a bill by Senator Joe Lieberman to curb sales of refined oil products to Iran is almost complete, and 67 senators have already signed it.

The Americans are proposing financial sanctions such as banning insurance on trade deals with Tehran, which would make it difficult for Iran to trade with other countries. They also want to impose sanctions on any company that trades with Iran and use this to pressure other countries, mainly in Asia, to resist making deals with Iran.

In the next stage, the Americans will consider even harsher sanctions, such as banning Iranian ships from docking in Western ports and, as a next step, banning Iranian airplanes from landing in Western airports.

.....

Jones and his team - including the president's special advisor Dennis Ross, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, and Gary Seymour, the White House official in charge of arms control and nonproliferation, who is a close friend of [Uzi} Arad's - also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

On Tuesday night, when Jones arrived, Arad held a reception for him at the David's Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem.

Jones and his team presented the ideas that the administration is forging, together with France, Britain and Germany, on imposing additional sanctions on Iran via the UN Security Council if the dialogue fails. The Americans are also discussing this issue with Russia, which at this stage objects to further sanctions.

China, which has numerous interests in Iran, also objects to further sanctions. Jones told the Israelis that Obama will therefore go to China soon to try to enlist Beijing to join the coalition.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1104208.html

Unmentioned in the above is the fact that many European business interests could be harmed by the imposition of such onerous sanctions. Ditto for India.

This, if accurate, is a pretty ambitious agenda.

Interesting, Lally.

Apart from non-existence of Iranian nuclear arms program, Russia and China would be rather oblivious to it in any case, while they have some worry about American penetration to Central Asia, which is pretty much surrounded by Russia, China and Iran, except for two corridors: Afganistan and Azerbaijan. Afganistan is rather useless (as a commercial route), and Azerbaijan useful, but not beyond pressure and intimidation.

The grand plan of coopting China and Russia to pressure Iran is quite, quite insane. Perhaps if we satisfied some laundry list of fond wishes of those two governments they COULD consider it. Say, recognize independence of South Ossetia and Abhasia, renounce Dalay-Lama as feudal relic, embargo arms trade with Taiwan, withdraw NATO forces from Baltic states...

The Washington Post's editorial policy under Fred Hiatt is a sad failure in what was once a great newspaper. A real shame.

Krauthammer is obviously a ridiculous ethnic chauvinist (probably needs a shrink as well) and why anyone, much less a once-honorable paper like the Post would want to give him a megaphone defies rational analysis.

But is it really all on the delirious Hiatt and his twisted jingoists like Krauthammer and "Mr. Iraq" Kristol? There is an apt saying that I associate with Russians: "A fish rots from the head down."

Your post is upsetting, MJ, and rec'd.

For anyone still reading here, Tom Friedman has a spot-on op-ed in today's NY Times. It cuts straight through the settler-lobby animal dung that the Wash. Post has buried itself in. A clear subtext of Friedman's column is that for any informed American who is genuinely pro-Israel (rather a slavish dupe or tool of AIPAC and the settlers), Obama's policy on the settlements is basically a no-brainer. By going along with Obama and facing down the most despicable lunatics amongst its diverse citizenry, Israel sacrifices nothing of any importance to it whatever, gets goodwill from America and the world, and strikes a blow for civilization and rule of law at home.

The New York Times
August 2, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Free Marriage Counseling
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats they have had over the years, replete with “I-am-not-taking-any-more-of-your-guff” outbursts by Obama officials at American Jewish leaders, and, yes — it wouldn’t be a real Israel-U.S. dust-up without it — Israeli accusations that Jewish Obama aides are “self-hating Jews,” working out their identity crises by working over Israel. Having been to this play before, and knowing both families, I’d like to offer some free marriage counseling.

Here’s what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.

As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: “The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.”

For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.

The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, captured the we-are-untouchable arrogance of the settlers last week when he quoted Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the settlement of Nahliel, calling Mr. Obama in a speech “that Arab they call a president.”

So if Mr. Obama has bluntly pressed for a settlements freeze, he is, in fact, reflecting a broad sentiment in Congress, the Pentagon and among many Americans, Jews included. Haaretz quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as calling two Obama aides pushing the freeze “self-hating Jews.” Bibi’s spokesman denies he said that. I hope he didn’t. When you have to trot that one out, you’re really, really out of ammo.

What about Mr. Obama? He has nothing to apologize for policy-wise. The president is working on a deal whereby Israel would agree to a real moratorium on settlement building, Palestinians would uproot terrorists and the Arab states would begin to normalize relations — with visas for Israelis, trade missions, media visits and landing rights for El Al. If the president can pull this off, it would be good for everyone. But going forward, if peace talks get under way, there are a few style points Mr. Obama should keep in mind.

One is: Don’t get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict, which his Cairo speech veered into. Palestinians don’t believe they are to blame for this problem; neither do Israelis. A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well: “People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it.’ ”

The other point is: Israel has real enemies. Iran’s president says the Holocaust is a myth, that Israel should be wiped away. And, he’s trying to build a nuclear bomb. Israel unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon and Gaza. Its leaving was messy, but it got out. And the first thing it got back was rockets. Israelis are like most people; they listen through their stomachs. That is, connect with them on a gut level that says you understand where they live, and you can take them anywhere. Don’t connect on a gut level, and you can’t take them anywhere.

Bottom line: Israelis need to understand this is not the Bush administration anymore, where they had the run of the White House; they have a real problem with America on settlements. Mr. Obama needs to understand that on Arab-Israel affairs, the less you say and the more you do, the better off you are. Every word in this conflict has its own history. Get the deal done — a settlement moratorium for some normalization — and that breakthrough will do the talking.