Date: May 21st 2009

This article was first published by BitterLemons International and
can also be found on their site here:
http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/inside.php?id=1117

Ali Abunimah

***************************************************************

No hope or change from Obama-Netanyahu meeting

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
21 May 2009

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10546.shtml

Seldom has an encounter between an American and Israeli leader been
as hyped as this week's meeting between US President Barack Obama
and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As expected, Obama
committed himself to diplomacy with Iran and pledged an enormous
effort to achieve a two-state solution. Netanyahu continued to
incite confrontation with Iran and refused to commit himself to a
Palestinian state.

On the surface it may seem there are real differences and that the
forces arrayed on each side -- including the formidable Israel lobby
-- are gearing up for an epic battle to determine the fate of
US-Israeli relations.

But Obama offered little new, reaffirming well-worn US positions
that view Palestinians, particularly Hamas, as the aggressors, and
Israel as the innocent victim. While calling for Israel to halt
settlement construction (as US presidents have done for decades),
Obama offered no hint that he would back those words with action.
Quite the contrary, the president said he would urge Arab leaders to
normalize relations with Israel, rewarding it in advance of any
renewed peace talks.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Obama applies
unprecedented pressure to force Israel to make a deal with the
Palestinians. What would such a deal look like? The outlines were
suggested in the recent report sent to Obama by a group of US elder
statesmen headed by former National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft. The document, warning that there was only a "six to
twelve month window" before all chances for peace evaporated, called
on the US to forcefully advocate the creation of a Palestinian
state. But this would be a demilitarized truncated state "based on"
the 1967 borders. Israel would annex large West Bank settlements and
there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. This
"state" would be occupied indefinitely by a NATO-led "multinational
force," which the Scowcroft group suggests could also include
Israeli soldiers (see "A last chance for a two-state
Israel-Palestine agreement, 2009).

Of course the Scowcroft proposal does not necessarily represent
Obama administration thinking, but it expresses the pervasive peace
process industry consensus that views such an outcome as
"reasonable," "pragmatic" and all but inevitable, and it accords
with Obama's own statements opposing the right of return and
supporting Israel's demand to to be recognized as a "Jewish state."

In other words, what the vast majority of Palestinians would view as
a horrifying plan to legitimize their dispossession, grant Israel a
perpetual license to be racist, and turn the apartheid regime set up
by the Oslo accords into a permanent prison, is now viewed as bold
and far-reaching thinking that threatens to rupture American-Israeli
bonds.

Netanyahu has little to lose by embarking on another "peace process"
after making a show of resisting American pressure (or extracting
more American concessions or money). He knows the chances of ever
getting to the stated destination are nil. Obama will not apply
significant pressure, and even if he did, it is unclear on whom he
would apply it, since on the Palestinian side there are no leaders
ready, willing and able to carry off a second Oslo-style fraud
against their people.

Obama reportedly believes peace in Palestine is the key to
transforming US relations with the "Muslim world." If he were
serious about this, the US would have to break with all its past
policies and support peace based on democratic and universal human
rights principles and equality -- something incompatible with a
commitment to Israel as a "Jewish state" practicing legalized
discrimination. All the signs are however that the Obama
administration will push to try to force Palestinians and Arabs to
accept and normalize Israel as it is and that the US will continue
to underwrite a morally and politically bankrupt Zionist
settler-colonial project with a permanent American military,
economic and diplomatic bailout.

The real problem for US-Israeli relations is not to be found in
whether Netanyahu utters the magic words "two-state solution."
Rather it is that after Gaza it is impossible to keep peddling the
fiction that Israel is a brave, self-reliant liberal democracy
deserving of unconditional support. No matter what this
administration does, this will eventually result in pressure on
Israel -- such as growing American public support for the global
boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
(Metropolitan Books, 2006). This article was originally published by
bitterlemons-international and is republished with permission.



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