Obama challenges Sarkozy about France’s disregarding of the US on the UNESCO issue. One could even argue that Obama was upset about France’s abandonment of Israel on this for which the US was advocating, but that might be going a bit far here. [Supporters will see a strong pro-Israel intent here by Obama]. The conversation leads to Netanyahu. This is interesting because there could well then be linkage between Sarkozy’s decision to vote for statehood in UNESCO, to abandon support for Israel, and to disregard the US. That personal dislike could have that impact on Sarkozy would be a major indictment of his character in and of itself. Sarkozy calls Netanyahu a “liar.” What did he lie about? I am wondering here. Anyway this leads to Obama.

Now with the leader of France being attacked by Obama for not supporting the US and EU stance and launching a tirade about Bibi as a liar, Obama’s response is not “You bet. He’s lied out his you know what!” Nor is it “I can’t stand the man. He is awful!” Instead, Obama actually deflected the conversation in an attempt to create camaraderie with Sarkozy, or to avoid an argument, while playing DOWN the situation. By saying he has to deal with Bibi every day, Obama ended the conversation.

Considering the fact that we already know that there have been a number of heated exchanges over the past couple of years between Obama and Bibi, Obama’s response to Sarkozy was highly restrained, in fact frankly surprisingly so. While Obama would not have said what he did in public, what he did say is a far cry from the sentiments that many ascribe to him and would have expected to hear from him under these circumstances.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who each of us like very well to whom we might refer at times as a pain in the ass, and certainly might in response to others who are very angry at those people. I think that Obama supporters will see Obama’s response as nothing more than that, essentially calling Netanyahu a pain in the butt. In fact, one could argue that no few of Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel would say similar things about him or much worse. Sarkozy’s comments on the other hand are not acceptable at all and were clearly much more hostile and even slanderous.

On the whole, I think that people who dislike Obama will play this situation up, while those who support Obama will have an easy time maintaining that support. Sarkozy has some explaining to do. I think that this conversation will have little or no impact on swaying the opinions of those who support the President and consider him a friend of Israel.

As a stand alone statement, it is problematic for a number of reasons.

• First, the pre-1967 lines are actually armistice lines, not borders. This means that they were simply where the armies were when the previous conflict ended. These were not necessarily reasonable, much less defensible, borders.
• Second, the situation on the ground has changed substantially since 1967 and hundreds of thousands of Jews now live on the other side of the lines.
• Third, this statement automatically places the vast majority of Jerusalem and all of the holy sites on the Palestinian side and makes Israel offer concessions from pre-1967 Israel in exchange for any of it to be agreed upon by the Palestinian side.

How can this possibly be acceptable to Israel?

We can discuss whether or not the “rough outlines” of a future Palestinian state would be mostly along the 1967 lines, but the President’s stated outline at this point is not that. Here is what he said at AIPAC Policy Conference on May 22, 2011 in clarification of his earlier statement:

Now, it was my reference to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps that received the lion’s share of the attention. And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means.

By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.

What is implied here is that the Palestinians have the ability to negotiate not from the status quo, but from the assumption that the entire West Bank including all of the Old City of Jerusalem with all of the holy sites is theirs to swap if they so choose. In other words, the President has de facto granted the Palestinians the West Bank including the Old City and told the Israelis to negotiate with them in exchange for what Israel wants to keep from it.

I am not sure how this can possibly be interpreted any other way. From the above statement, it is up to Israel to offer the Palestinians compensation (swaps) in order to account for the “changes” that are agreeable to the Palestinians. Now add on top of that the issue of Palestinian refugees!

Israel cannot negotiate from this position.

Regarding any hope for progress in the peace process, one needs to answer the following question:

What would the Palestinians accept in exchange for Israel maintaining control over most, if not all, of Jerusalem, maintaining the major settlement blocs, denying the “right of return” of the vast majority if not of all of the Palestinian refugees and maintaining security of the border with Jordan?

What could Israel offer? I cannot think of anything. This situation is untenable. It is even untenable if Jerusalem were to be negotiated separately as the President seemed to imply in his State Department speech.

The peace process cannot advance with these assumptions which is why the Palestinians are trying to go around the process and go to the UN. Meanwhile, having forced Israel into a position from which it cannot negotiate, literally having nothing that it is able to put on the table (since the assumption is that all of the West Bank belongs to the Palestinians and that none of it can be used by Israel as a concession), the US is also preventing the Palestinians from acting in the UN by exercising a veto.

Basically, the US is strongly enforcing the status quo while saying that the status quo cannot be maintained, blaming Israel for being unwilling to make concessions that it cannot possibly make, and blaming the Palestinians for avoiding negotiations in which they have nothing that they could possibly gain.

It is possible, if not highly likely, that this policy of enforcing the status quo in this manner is in response to Saudi Arabia which continues to insist on the entire West Bank being part of the Palestinian state and upon which the US remains overly dependent for its oil needs. It is hard to imagine that anyone seeking a swift solution to the peace process would strengthen the intractability of the process while also fortifying barriers to progress.

The impact of all of this is that President Obama’s rhetoric promotes a process in which it is not possible to achieve peace. This path also ratchets up criticism of Israel while granting Israel no possible way to alleviate it or counter it. Fortunately for Israel, sticks and stones can break bones, but words get vetoed in the UN. There is also a concern about delegitimization and that is the great task of Israel advocates, a challenge posed by the current situation.

Meanwhile, so long as the American President, now and into the future, supports the security of Israel with deeds, the real impact of words will be limited. Thus far, President Obama has vetoed anti-Israel measures in the UN and not only maintained, but increased military aid to Israel, including granting extra funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile systems that have already proven effective in Israel’s defense.

One can certainly criticize other aspects of the President’s policies and deeds in the Middle East and their impact upon Israel is also potentially problematic, but in this article I only wanted to address the specific issue of the 67 lines.

While criticism of the President’s words is certainly appropriate (just FYI, I have criticized every President’s words to some extent regarding Israel since Bush 41 and was too young to do so before that), we need to remember that under this administration America continues to stand by its staunch ally in the Middle East and that in spite of public disagreements between the leaders of the nations, the relationship between Israel and the United States on the whole is extremely strong. The Congress is quite possibly more strongly supportive of Israel at this point in time than it ever has been before.

Now, if only we could fix the economy and break our dependence upon foreign oil…

Four speeches. Lots of argument and conflict.

The President seemingly said what he did on Thursday in the hope of preparing the stage to go to European leaders and the Palestinians hoping to head off an attempt by the Palestinians to bring a vote for statehood to the UN General Assembly. Some of you may question this motive. I do not. I do think that is exactly what President Obama was trying to do. The Congress of the United States is even working on legislation in which the President is urged to act against such a move.

There was an understanding, I believe based upon the counsel of Samantha Power, one of the President’s advisors, that the Palestinians could invoke UNGA Resolution 377 to go around a Security Council veto by the US.

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377, the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, states that, in cases where the United Nations Security Council fails to act in order to maintain international peace and security, owing to disagreement between its five permanent members, the matter shall be addressed immediately by the General Assembly, using the mechanism of the Emergency Special Session.

Evidently, however, this is not true because, according to a J Post article published yesterday, in order for a vote to recognize statehood to take place at all, it needs to go through the Security Council first which means that absolutely nothing has changed. A US Security Council veto will prevent a vote from being taken. It is not the case that a vote is taken and then approved by the Security Council. There will be no vote if the US vetoes it. Thus, there was and is no need for the US to lobby European governments or for the US to convince the Palestinian leadership not to pursue it. This is a dead issue unless the sole purpose of US lobbying efforts are to get other nations to side with the US veto so that the US in not alone in vetoing the effort.

This is the real purpose of President Obama’s efforts in recent weeks. There is little or no chance that the Administration did not know about the rules in the UN. It is much more likely that the Obama administration was using the confusion about the possibility of the Palestinians utilizing UNGA 337 to pressure Israel to make concessions in order to promote negotiations so that other nations would be more willing to preemptively join the US in declaring opposition to a unilateral declaration of PA statehood in the UN. Now, that the cat is out of the bag, the entire argument is revealed to be a house of cards.

We are now back to where we were and where we were is that the Palestinians both need to negotiate in order to achieve the realization of a state and lack any bargaining chips in those negotiations other than violence or its absence. Because attacking security barriers is by definition an act of hostility, those who claim that “non-violence” may succeed are incorrect. Marching against borders is an act of violence even if done without weaponry or physical conflict. I wrote about this only a couple of weeks ago.

But what is more important now is that the situation is exactly as I wrote about in November, one in which the Palestinians lack any leverage in the negotiations. In fact, they have even less leverage now than they did then and that is saying a whole lot. If you haven’t read my article on Palestinian Leverage from November, you really should. It is all you really need to know about what is going on in the peace process.

Meanwhile, Rafah opened today. More on that to come.

The reality is that in any new policy, the President has three options:

1. Throw Israel under the bus and force it to make concessions in order to appease the Arab street while enabling the Palestinian side to avoid making even minor concessions and enabling the Palestinians to strengthen their demands for unreasonable future concessions.
2. Throw the Palestinians under the bus and demand that either Fatah reject working with Hamas or that Hamas publicly renounce armed struggle against Israel and actively combat it. The US would threaten to cut off aid to the PA.
3. Throw both sides under the bus, proposing a solution that is impossible for either side to support publicly for certain, but possibly in private as well, and which will have no impact on the ground (because neither side will be able to accommodate it). This will allow the President to appear to be boldly offering a new solution.

There is no “Win-Win” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are “lose-lose” scenarios and some of them are pretty drastic. More than likely, the President will offer a “lose-lose” scenario, throwing both sides under the bus, that will upset Israel more than the Palestinians in the hope that Israel will opt to take it rather than facing a “lose-win” scenario. A problem arises however in that the Palestinians may believe that if they hold out, they will eventually get their own “win-lose” option anyway.

For any solution proposed by the United States to have any impact, it has to be made abundantly clear by the administration that it will support an Israeli biased solution if whatever is proposed is not accepted by the Palestinians. There must be a credible threat that the Palestinian side could get worse than what is offered and little hope that it could get better if that option is not chosen. Meanwhile, no one should be holding their breath that whatever is proposed will lead to a final peace agreement anytime soon.

“All the forces that we see building in Egypt are the forces that should be naturally aligned with the US, [and] should be aligned with Israel,” he told attendees of the Florida fundraising event.

“I’m actually confident that 10 years from now we’re going to be able to look back and say that this was the dawning of an entirely new and better era,” he added. The US president expressed his hope that the new era would be one in which “people are striving not to be against something but to be for something.”

I can probably go with “some,” but not “all”. Really? “All?” Mr. President? “All?“such as the forces that decided it would be fun to attack Lara Logan in Tahrir Square while shouting “Jew! Jew!”? Such as the forces that decided to invite Sheik Qaradawi to spew hatred of Jews to the throngs there while preventing the advocate for democracy Wael Ghonim from speaking? Such as the ones that murdered a woman’s father because he did not kill her in an honor killing for having a relationship with a Christian, then burned down the Coptic Church terrorizing the town’s Christians, and followed that by triumphantly holding prayer services on the site of the burned down church? How about the forces that are demanding an end to the peace treaty with Israel? Those forces?

If you see those forces as naturally allied with America and Israel, Mr. President, I don’t think you have an understanding of the values of America and Israel or those of the forces about whom you speak. Simply opposing one form of tyranny, nationalist dictatorship, while backing another that is potentially far worse, theocracy, hardly qualifies as being naturally allied with America and Israel, even if there is a democratic election that brings it about. Advocacy for free elections does not mean at all that there is a desire that those elections produce a government that would be allied with America and Israel.

Mr. President, some of those forces building in Egypt would burn down your own church if they had a chance. They would certainly torch my synagogue. And if a mosque were to publicly condemn their actions, it would probably get torched too. They murdered a man for not murdering his daughter. I don’t think they would have qualms about flicking a Bic.

Is there reason for hope in the region? Yes. Is everything a reason for hope? Are “all the forces building in Egypt” those that give us reason to hope? If the answer for you is “Yes?” I must ask what kind of shrooms were served at that dinner? We might need to call the Narc Squad in.

Mr. President, you ran on a platform of hope. I too hope. I wish to see the good out there. I too hope to see good triumph. But I am not blinded by hope. Nor am I responsible for the future of the world as to a extent you are as President of the United States and that is what scares me. Mr. President, I hope that you are right about Egypt. Unfortunately, I’m worried that your vision is but a hope and a false hope at that.

Why do I fear that you are wrong? Mr. President, you might as well have said that you have spoken with the enemy and they have promised “peace in our time.” Meanwhile, minorities go into hiding, women are attacked, churches burn and freedom remains at a distance, perhaps even having retreated.

Because it is abundantly clear that some of the forces building in Egypt are anything but ones naturally allied with America and Israel, I know that your understanding that “all” should be allied with us cannot be correct. I just hope that you are not so incorrect as to result in disaster.

The last time a leader talked about “peace in our time”, things did not work out very well.

Americans believe that power is derived from the will of the people. We decry despotism. Yet our sense of fairness often drives us to allow the mob to rule even when we know that its rule is unfair. That contradiction results in another, namely a contradiction between the belief that the rights of every person are sacred and the belief that the will of the majority, even to trample upon the rights of the minority, must be followed.

Today we are witnessing upheaval in the Middle East. Mob rule threatens to overturn despotism. Ethically, we must support the mob because power should derive from the will of the people. Yet also ethically, we must oppose the mob’s efforts should they gain power, to create a tyranny of their own. Our conflicted minds think, “Down with the dictator! Beware the victors!”

I wish that I could say that this conflict was limited to foreign lands. It is not. This week, both on the left and the right of the political spectrum, mobs gather to press their voice, to press their power, in states across our Union. They speak and act in righteous indignation at affronts, at unfairness, or in religious fury. I will not for a moment declare all of these groups wrong to do so and, in this place, will not even criticize a one. What I offer here is one man’s sense that times are changing. The majority is feeling empowered to act as a mob. Minorities, both ethnic minorities and those who hold minority views, are under increasing threat.

Thus, when I hear the words of those advocating for the United States to support condemnation of Israel precisely because the majority of nations do and when I can note that this reasoning seems to be starting to resonate, I find myself, as I do today, becoming increasingly concerned. I am concerned not only for Israel. Israel has friends. Israel has strength. Israel may take care of itself. I am concerned that the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s will be reborn and that Israel’s purpose as a safe haven for the persecuted Jew will be made manifest again. I am concerned that the rights of minorities in America and throughout the world will be under threat because the masses so wish. I am concerned that the rule of law will be increasingly unable to be sustained against the will of the masses.

There is little or no difference between the resolution proposed in the UN Security Council today in condemnation of Israel and many others that have been proposed before. The real difference is in the sense that standing up for the persecuted minority, or even standing apart with a minority, increasingly appears to be seen as unreasonable and even as unrighteous.

Should the United States today vote to support the majority for that sole reason, it will be a shameful day in our nation’s history and a frightening omen for the future.

Today is Purim Katan, “Little Purim”. Today is the 14th of the First Month of Adar. Today, though we are not required to read the Megillah, the Book of Esther, as we will be required next month on Purim, we are reminded of the persecution of minorities everywhere in the world. We are reminded that the tide may swiftly change against us and others. We cannot forget.

If we are vigilant, we may live the blessing from the Book of Esther, “And the Jews had light and Gladness and Joy and Honor.” Kein yehi ratson!

This political blunder comes on the heels of what amounts to disgraceful incompetence in the foreign intelligence arena, with the DNI arguing that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a largely secular organization!” And of course, that after this administration appears to have been completely blindsided by the events in Tunisia and Egypt. Let’s not forget whole host of issues related to Iran. There are certainly many more issues that could be raised.

Why does this administration seem to be blindly blundering in the Middle East?

My own answer to this question is that this administration is full of people who feel that a certain type of foreign policy had never been given a real chance, namely reaching out to the Arab world as a friend instead of as a power. Further, that in spite of the dismal failure of this policy thus far, the administration is being urged to go “all in” by its proponents.

To answer my question specifically, people in this administration understand that traditional foreign policy has not brought them what they wish for, which is peaceful coexistence (something they actually deeply down believe is possible). In their minds, traditional foreign policy has promoted hatred of the United States as exceptional (which of course it is).

Their goal with what I would call “Naive Foreign Policy” (literally a foreign policy lacking in experience) is to experiment with alternatives to the tried and true. This is a generation whose actions throughout life have been sheltered by parents and by society. They’ve been able to experiment with drugs. They went through the sexual revolution. They treat religions like they do their cars, trading them in for new ones when they go out of style. And for all of their experiments, they have suffered very little that they can see. Thus, they see no real problem in experimenting with new foreign policies. What real harm can be done? We can always trade it in for a new model later. Worse, they believe not only in microwaving food, but in microwaving societal transformations and even global ones. They actually believe that peace is possible tomorrow, if only the necessary actions were done today.

Reason and rationality are not the basis of this foreign policy. Hope in the common humanity of their fellow men and women is the basis.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one in which both sides violate this utopian ideal. Historical fact violates this ideal and we therefore cannot use history as the basis of our actions now. The President has not used those exact words, but he might as well have. Remember what President Obama said in his speech to the UNGA in September of 2009? I will never forget it:

The time has come to realize that the old habits, the old arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people. They lead nations to act in opposition to the very goals that they claim to pursue and to vote, often in this body, against the interests of their own people.

They build up walls between us and the future that our people seek. And the time has come for those walls to come down. Together, we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides, coalitions of different faiths and creeds, of northern and south, east, west, black, white, and brown.

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of 20th century into the 21st, that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the nation given to this institution, the United Nations.

That is the future America wants; a future of peace and prosperity that we can only reach if we recognize that all nations have rights but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes this work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation.

We have a foreign policy in which history is irrelevant. Anyone find that frightening?

Egypt could be expected to aid flotillas into Gaza and to make it much easier for arms shipments and other deliveries to enter Gaza. Israel would then likely need to retake the Gaza border with Egypt and/or would need to place more troops on that border than ever before. Israel would additionally need to dramatically increase its military strength all along the Egyptian border because Egyptian troops would not be trusted to prevent incursion by militants, even if they could be trusted not to participate or directly aid in the incursions. Obviously, all previous agreements between Israel and Egypt would be in question either officially or unofficially.

The Palestinian Authority faces the possibility that its greatest supporter, Egypt, would suddenly become a supporter of its arch enemy, Hamas. The PA has been holding “We love Mubarak” rallies throughout the West Bank. Suddenly the PA’s best ally will be Israel. *I guess that I shouldn’t say this publicly because the PA would then be accused of being traitors to the Arab cause. Israel must be a hated enemy and the cause of all evil.

Jordan would have its best allies (Egypt and America) fomenting rebellion within its borders. It is almost a certainty that Jordan’s rhetoric regarding Israel in the months ahead will be much more hostile than it has previously been. This will be so as to avoid being accused of being a friend of Israel. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s leadership all have applied for and received Jordanian citizenship. This, just in case Jordan turns into a Palestinian state after all.

Saudi Arabia would face a highly hostile Egypt battling for hegemony in the region that will attempt to foment Islamist rebellion in the kingdom at every turn. Worse, for the King and his family, is the clear indication that the United States would abandon its close ally at the drop of a hat in favor of a hostile democratic rebellion within its borders.

So, looking at what is actually happening in Egypt, is it any wonder that the Saudis have told the Obama Administration where to place its proverbial oil rig? Is it any wonder that the Saudis have come to the aid of Mubarak, threatening to replace any aid that America would deny, and likely will or are coming to the aid of the leaders in Jordan and Yemen as well? Is it any wonder that America is no longer seen as a friend and supporter, but now as a potential threat for emboldening revolt? It is indeed a wonder that among Egypt’s best friends, among the Palestinian Authority’s best friends, among the Saudi’s best friends, is Israel!

We now look at a Middle East in which the peoples and nations that were/are at war with Israel find common cause with it against Iran, against Political Islam, and against America’s foment of insurrection.

It is indeed a strange new world.

Why? Israel wouldn’t accept it and Abbas knows that.

The alternatives to PA control of the West Bank are Hamas control of the West Bank which would be worse for Abbas and the PA than they would be for Israel (that’s really bad) or anarchy which would endanger even Hamas. In either situation, Israel would be much more likely to engage militarily and then withdraw than it would to remain in full occupation. In other words, Abbas is stuck in power while lacking even the power to abdicate. He has one real choice which he is doing everything in his power to avoid making, namely to concede enough to Israel in the peace process that Israel can help him and the Palestinian people as a whole out of the current predicament. No one else can help. The process is stuck not because of Israeli refusal to make concessions, but because of Abbas’s refusal to make the concessions that must be made.

This isn’t rocket science. There is an obvious need for a paradigm shift in the thought process of the Palestinian Leadership from one of “How do we achieve what we failed to achieve in 1948?” namely to eliminate Israel or even “How do we achieve what we all rejected in 1949?” namely a state based upon the pre-1967 borders to “How do we create something resembling a state today based upon the changes that have occurred since 1948, 1967, 1973, 1993, 2000, 2005 and 2009?” which is what must be done.

The following are basic realities that have been rejected by the Palestinians thus far and will need to be taken into account for a state for the Palestinians to have a chance to come to fruition.

1. The “Right of Return” to Israel for Palestinians to Israel isn’t an option. It isn’t an act of peace, but is an act of war. Restitution is the only option for those refugees. In fact, restitution is the only option for the vast majority of refugees who would theoretically be able to return to a Palestinian state, but not to Israel (refugees from the 1967 war). Any future Palestinian state could not possibly support a dramatic increase in population for decades, if ever, so even a “return” to a Palestinian state post negotiations isn’t a viable option. To be honest, Israel couldn’t support such a bump in population either, even if it didn’t result in an immediate civil war, which it would. There will be no substantial return of refugees to either Israel or to a future Palestinian state.

2. The western, northern, and southern borders of the West Bank are not really issues, as they could be solved easily with territorial exchanges, with the exception of two issues. First, Jerusalem and second, other large Arab population centers currently within Israel. I’ll address those in a moment.

3. There is no chance that Israel could or would concede a large portion of the Old City to the Palestinians and there is little doubt that most of the residents of the Old City would NOT wish to become citizens of a Palestinian state. They are far better off as citizens of Israel and have said as much. A UN vote granting the pre-1967 border would go against their wishes. Yes, they want a Palestinian state to be created, but they do not want to live in it. This is much like those American Jews who are strong advocates for Israel but have no desire to make aliyah any time soon.

4. There is no chance that Israel could concede free and secure access to the Western Wall and the City of David for Jews which essentially means that it must maintain control over the vicinity of Temple Mount and Silwan as well as maintaining security control over the Mount of Olives to the East of the Temple Mount.

5. Israel is not going to allow the Mount Scopus Campus of Hebrew University to once again become cut off from Jews, which means that Israel will maintain a contiguous territory connecting an area North and East of the Old City with West Jerusalem, no matter what other areas it might consider allowing to become part of a future Palestinian state.

6. Places such as Um-al-Fahem, the large Arab village in the Galilee on the Israeli side of the Green Line would make some sense to place on the Palestinian side of the border after a peace agreement, but just as in #3 above, most of its residents would rather maintain Israeli citizenship than to become Palestinian citizens even though they might advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state. The PA might want this village, a prosperous Arab center, as part of the Palestinian state and no few Israeli Jews would be happy to oblige, but if the residents’ opinions matter, it will remain an Israeli city.

7. There will be significant shifts of populations after any peace agreement as settlements in the midst of a future Palestinian state will likely be abandoned. Compensation will need to be made in these cases as well. Restitution for Jews from Arab lands will be a consideration, but unless the discussions expand and become one between Israel and the Arab world, this issue would not be relevant as the Palestinians as such would have no responsibility to offer compensation to those refugees.

8. Israel cannot possibly allow either the Palestinians or an international force to control the Eastern border with Jordan. International forces have proven grossly and dangerously ineffective at stopping weapons smuggling in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, etc…. No Arab forces could be trusted to prevent the importation of weaponry to those whom they would almost certainly consider their allies. Hence, Israel will need to maintain supervision over the Eastern border of the West Bank indefinitely or it will not be able to make any other concessions.

9. There is no desire on the part of the Arab world to increase its Jihad, its struggle, against Israel and in fact there is significant impetus to improve relations with Israel without it resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. This is demonstrable from the Wikileaks documents.

10. Gaza cannot be a part of discussions until Hamas is removed from power because the Palestinian Authority does not speak for the people of Gaza. Current discussions should involve the West Bank alone.

11. The 1967 border was considered “noticeably insecure” and all previous discussions of UNSC Resolution 242 indicate that whatever border results from a settlement of that conflict must be secure. The understanding from the Western perspective, notably not from the Arab perspective, is that UNSCR 242 meant that Israel would not be asked to turn over all of the land captured in the 1967 war. The Arab world has always interpreted UNSCR 242 to mean exactly that Israel must turn over all of that land. The US does not believe Israel must do so, but also does not wish to define the border because to do so would undoubtedly upset the Arab world or Jewish and many Christian voters in America depending upon which side the administration chose to support. An abstention is the same as a vote in favor of the Arab side on this issue. Hence, the US has no choice but to veto and to demand that borders be settled by the two sides through negotiations. This is exactly what the US is currently doing.

12. While they may make pronouncements in the United Nations, in Arab League meetings, or to the press in general to the contrary, a final settlement of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not in the interest of the United States or that of many of the Arab League nations either because of positions they would need to take at that stage or because of consequences that would almost certainly follow such as turning hundreds of thousands of refugees into citizens of their states.

There are certainly more considerations that could be listed here. I simply came up with twelve significant ones. Any discussion of peace or of the creation of a Palestinian state that does not take these factors into account, if not many others as well, is not realistic.

From the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi:

Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) said he would be surprised if Iran accepted the P5+1/IAEA proposal and warned that Iran was already acting like a nuclear power. Further, and more dangerously, Iran is establishing “emirates” across the Muslim world, including South Lebanon and Gaza, sleeper “emirates” in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the mother of all “emirates” in Southern Iraq, and now Saada in Yemen. MbZ suggested that the U.S. is misreading the situation in Yemen and failing to recognize strong evidence of Iranian support.

In response to the US State Department briefing on the nuclear enrichment deal with Iran, MbZ responded:

The Crown Prince said he would be “very surprised” if a deal was possible, as Iran’s nuclear program is not an issue of internal conflict but rather one of national pride for the vast majority of Iranians. He stressed that Iran is not North Korea, because 1) it is looking to reestablish a Persian empire in the 21st century, 2) Iran has resources and lacks neighbors, including the UAE, who can pressure it, 3) the leadership has not changed (it is the same people who seized Embassy Tehran in 1979) , and 4) Iran believes itself to be a superpower.

This is among the milder arguments made by Arab diplomats. The King of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged, practically begged, the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and leaders of many other Arab nations have as well.

What these documents reveal is that US policy vis-a-vis Iran is not supported by our allies in the region, any of them. The United States is going it alone in its belief that sanctions will work. Wasn’t this administration supposed to be one seeking to work with our allies? As far as Syria is concerned, again our Arab friends completely reject the narrative put forth that Syria may be swayed from association with Iran as did Asad himself in discussions with American diplomats.

This leak of documents does three things:

1. It greatly harms our ability as a nation to have candid conversations in secret with foreign leaders, something that does immeasurable harm to our ability to conduct diplomacy going forward and
2. It proves that the United States is not only becoming weaker diplomatically (no few of these cables involved the US attempting to pressure foreign governments only to fail to accomplish goals) but also
3. It demonstrates that US policy for some years regarding the Middle East has been conducted without allies in the region, across administrations, and continues to be conducted in that manner.

All of these points demonstrate what amounts to a crisis level problem that has been exacerbated in the past few years, both at the end of the Bush administration and during the Obama administration thus far. The US has been and continues to be going it alone in the Middle East, focusing way too much attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and way too little on Iran, radical Islam which seeks to expel Western influence from the region, and, as noted by at least several Arab leaders, North Korea, which is shipping arms into the region while aiding Iran and Syria in nuclear aspirations.

We can only hope that the recent leak of documents does not do massive harm to our ability to alter this situation by disrupting candid discussions about how Arab leaders really feel. Then again, if we are going to ignore their opinions offhand, it doesn’t really matter whether or not we hear them. It also does not matter if we find an insane amount of evidence (an earlier Wikileaks release) that Iran is actively supporting and supplying those who are fighting against the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we have no intention of ever threatening Iran over that evidence. The Wikileaks documents exposed that we have evidence of exactly that, a profound and significant presence of Iranian military intervention against the United States likely resulting in the deaths of scores of American troops and countless deaths among our allies. Our government has never mentioned it: not during this administration or during the previous one.

There are no few who believe that the Bush administration was war hungry. Yet, the only possible excuse for the failure to respond strongly to the evidence presented in countless places against Iran is an absolute desire to avoid confronting it. The Great LIE (the 2007 NIE concerning Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons) has done immeasurable harm to the region. It may well go down as the worst foreign policy decision made by a US administration regarding the region in decades. One can only believe that the US government at the time was so opposed to confronting Iran that it refused to see the truth as demonstrated by ample evidence, refused to listen to our allies in the region, and refused to consider the consequences of being wrong in its assessment. Meanwhile, that LIE was promulgated in direct contradiction to evidence provided by at least two of our allies with profound knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program, both Israel and Germany. The link to Israel’s perspective comes from December 10, 2007.

Meanwhile, in addition to exposing that America’s current policy regarding Iran is supported by not a single ally in the region, it also confirms my contentions concerning the absence of Palestinian leverage in the peace process regarding the Arab world. Israel is on the same side vis-a-vis Iran as most of the Arab world, the part that does not support Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. There is no linkage between support for strong action against Iran and any settlement of the peace process. In fact, Arab leaders are urging immediate action against Iran while only making scant or passing references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Having seen the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, it is abundantly clear that any suggestion of linkage is an outright fiction.