TBC

Obama's passivity could lead to the loss of a Palestinian partner

To realize the extent to which the lame-duck candidate has regressed from the positions of the new and promising President Obama, the speech to the United Nations in September 2011 should be compared to one he gave in Cairo in 2009. At that time he pledged to "personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires," and said "... it is time for all of us to live up to our responsibilities." Yesterday he sent the occupied and the occupier, the strong and the weak, to solve the core issues on their own.

In Cairo he recalled, along with Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, the "daily humiliations ... that come with the occupation." And he added: "Let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable." He even compared the struggle of the Palestinians for freedom to the struggle of black people in the United States for equal rights. On Wednesday, Obama paid pursed lip service to the legitimate aspirations and forgot to mention the occupation.

In June 2009, Obama spoke of "the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map." He meant, among other things, and perhaps mainly, Israel's obligation to completely stop construction in the settlements and dismantle the outposts built after March 2001. To remove all doubt, he stated resolutely: "It is time for these settlements to stop."

On Wednesday, not one word of criticism was heard about Israel creating unilateral physical facts on the ground. To the 2011-model Obama, only the Palestinians' approach to the United Nations is unilateral, objectionable and meriting the death penalty. Only the very best navigators of the endless maze of the "peace process" could find in yesterday's address an indirect mention of Obama's support for negotiations based on the 1967 borders and an exchange of territories - in a general reference to his speech last May.

Obama forgot to mention that in July he demanded that the Quartet release a statement of support for the annexation of the settlement blocs to Israel and recognition of Israel's Jewish character. Yesterday he was a bit more cautious and made do with the declaration that "Israel deserves recognition." To whom exactly was the statement directed? To North Korea? To Iran? How many countries among those whose leaders were listening to his remarks do not recognize Israel? True, none of them, including the United States, recognize the occupation, nor the annexation of East Jerusalem.

 But the abrupt 180 Obama's pulling right now makes sense in the current political climate. He's obviously courting the all-important American Jewish vote while simultaneously dodging charges from both the left and right that he's not pro-Israeli enough.

The following observation:

"Obama's graceless courting of the Israeli government is unlikely to attract Jewish votes or financing; those who believe in the perpetuation of the conflict will prefer a Republican candidate who recycles the hollow vow to bring the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. "

  ...is somewhat true, but misses the larger point that in order for Obama to win reelection, his policies concerning Israel must be in line with the American voter's, and for historical reasons far too nuanced to go into here, the American masses have always been strongly pro-Israel.