One result of the back to back speeches of Barack Obama and Benyamin Netanyahu is a revival of assertions that Barack Hussein Obama is an overt or secret Muslim, and is turning the United States against Israel. Widely distributed messages to that effect have reached me in recent days, after several months of quiet.
Are the campaigns harmless?
Not if some of the people propagating the myths feel they must do more of God's work by funding the purchase of homes for Jews in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, or some other mission that will fan embers of hatred.
It is not illegal for Jews to purchase homes in Arab neighborhoods. There are more Arabs moving into Jewish neighborhoods than Jews moving into Arab neighborhoods. However, Jews making themselves neighbors of Arabs arouse hatred and violence. My Arab neighbors in French Hill do not require squads of soldiers guarding them 24/7.
Obama is contributing to this upsurge in nonsense by pressing Israel to halt settlements. This will produce nothing beyond Jewish insecurity. The American president is playing the peace game backwards. He should be pressing the Arabs to deal reasonably with Israel. That is the best way to halt the growth of settlements and bring peace to this land.
Let me explain.
Israel is a strong state. Its government can stop the growth of settlements if that is part of a decent deal, and will remove some settlements if the deal proves to be working. On two prominent occasions, in response to the peace agreement with Egypt and in the case of Gaza, Israeli governments removed thousands of settlers despite considerable opposition. On numerous other occasions it has frozen the flow of funds and construction permits needed for expanding settlements.
I doubt that any Israeli government, whether tilted to the right or left, will stop all construction within the sizable settlements near Israeli cities, no matter how fiercely Hillary Clinton shrieks.
The Palestinians currently governing their people are not strong enough to keep any kind of a bargain. More than half of the leadership (Hamas and other extremists) is not willing to accept Israel's existence. The aging men currently hanging on in the West Bank are either corrupt personally or close relatives of the corrupt, and otherwise unreliable. Their idea of political activity is traveling the world, meeting before the cameras with one or another leader, expressing the same old platitudes in favor of peace, and criticizing Israel as the stumbling block.
If the Palestinian leadership changes, there may be a chance for progress, and a reason for Israeli leaders to deal with those who feel that nothing is more important than pressing on with the expansion of settlements.
Sadly, my great idea has a fatal weakness.
There is no chance that Barack Obama or anyone else can to press hard enough on the Palestinians to produce a useful change in their leadership.
The task is hopeless in the context of the support given the status quo as a matter of habit and faith by religious and political leaders of Muslim states. Almost all of them resemble the Palestinian leadership in age, attitudes toward Israel, and a lack of concern for changing their societies.
What is the solution?
There is none on the horizon.
If President Obama wants to go down in history as a leader of change, he should put all his energies into reforming the developed world's most regressive health system.
What about all those aides working on schemes for Israel and Palestine?
We'd all be better off if they return to the think tanks where they spent the Bush administration.
As always, I welcome comments sent to my e-mail address, below.
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
email: msira@mscc.huji.ac.il