Rashid Khalidi must be happier than a pig in shit today. I’m sure you’ve read the excerpts from Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Obama. Read the whole thing instead. It includes Obama misusing Hillel’s most widely-quoted words and passing along two lies: The demographic lie that Jews will eventually be a minority in Israel (this lie counts on including Gaza and exaggerating Palestinian Arab birth rates both in the West Bank and in Israel) and the lie that time is running out for a peace deal. He also included veiled threats that his administration won’t support Israel when the BDSholes convince more nations to boycott the Jewish State. And he insisted that the Palestinians totally, totally, totally want peace with Israel, led by their “moderate” fan of the Jewish State, Mahmoud Abbas. He’s pretty much guaranteed a rerun of the worst meeting between him and Bibi by trying to pressure Netanyahu before he sets foot in the White House.
And here are the president’s words. On Bibi’s motives:
But I believe that Bibi is strong enough that if he decided this was the right thing to do for Israel, that he could do it. If he does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach. And as I said before, it’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.
Note that he basically accuses Netanyahu of not wanting peace. It’s another version of the patented Obama “my way or the highway” bullshit. In fact, it can be argued that this is Obama saying you’re either with him, or you’re against him. His way is the only right way. Anything that deviates is wrong.
Here he is using the “I just can’t control the international establishment if Bibi doesn’t do what I say” routine. Note the harsh words for Israel. We’ll come back to that later. Also note the threats.
But what I do believe is that if you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction — and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time — if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.
GOLDBERG: Willingness, or ability?
OBAMA: Not necessarily willingness, but ability to manage international fallout is going to be limited. And that has consequences.
This is the new administration line, and it reads like something right out of the Rashid Khalidi/Samantha Power/Susan Rice playbook.
The condemnation of the international community can translate into a lack of cooperation when it comes to key security interests. It means reduced influence for us, the United States, in issues that are of interest to Israel. It’s survivable, but it is not preferable.
Translation: If Israel doesn’t go along with me, well, there’s just no telling what the rest of the world will do. And my hands are tied, tied, I tell you.
Now let’s look at how Obama describes Mahmoud Abbas, the man who utterly refused to even sit down and talk with the Israelis for nine months on the flimsiest of charges.
I believe that President Abbas is sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist, to recognize Israel’s legitimate security needs, to shun violence, to resolve these issues in a diplomatic fashion that meets the concerns of the people of Israel. And I think that this is a rare quality not just within the Palestinian territories, but in the Middle East generally.
It’s like night and day. Abbas has used every excuse in the book not to have negotiations. He continues to insist on the “right of return” for all of the millions of Palestinian “refugees” (second-, third-, and fourth-generation descendants of the original 750,000), and yet, he is simply the Most. Moderate. Palestinian. Ever. When Goldberg asks him if he thinks that Abbas, a weak leader of a corrupt organization, can pull things off, Obama’s answer? Well, where’s the harm in trying?
But here’s what I know from my visits to the region: That for all that we’ve seen over the last several decades, all the mistrust that’s been built up, the Palestinians would still prefer peace.
[…] So I actually think that the voices for peace within the Palestinian community will be stronger with a framework agreement and that Abu Mazen’s position will be strengthened with a framework for negotiations.
There would still be huge questions about what happens in Gaza, but I actually think Hamas would be greatly damaged by the prospect of real peace.
“Naive” does not begin to describe the man. And I have yet to cover his thoughts on Iran. That will have to wait for later. Read the whole interview. Then have fun watching the photo shoot after the meeting today. If they so much as meet each other’s eyes, I’ll be surprised.
Note the contrast with Rouhani: The notion that in the midst of negotiations we would then improve our position by saying, “We’re going to squeeze you even harder,” ignores the fact that [President Hassan] Rouhani and the negotiators in Iran have their own politics. They’ve got to respond to their own hardliners. And there are a whole bunch of folks inside of Iran who are just as suspicious of our motives and willingness to ultimately lift sanctions as we are suspicious of their unwillingness to get rid of their nuclear program. With Rouhani, Obama says, “Look we can’t press him too hard because of his internal politics” even though Obama acknowledges Iran “For years now, Iran has been an irresponsible international actor. They’ve sponsored terrorism. They have threatened their neighbors. They have financed actions that have killed people in neighboring states. And Iran has also exploited or fanned sectarian divisions in other countries.” You can only hold these two beliefs if you believe that “occupation” is worse than terrorism, threatening other countries, and fanning sectarian divisions … COMBINED!
Occupation is worse than terrorism if you mean the occupation of the Oval Office by an ignorant POS.