Give Us Netanyahu. Please.
By Steve Clemons on February 8, 2009 at 2:50 PM in Benjamin Netanyahu, Current Affairs, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Obama Administration, Palestinians
Editor’s Note: Steve Clemons’ blog is The Washington Note; read more about Steve below.
Peter Berkowitz’s essay in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard provides good insight into what I think is the strategic irresponsibility of those in Israel’s leadership who think that they can hold steady on a course that justifies failure on an a Palestine-Israel deal using Hamas and Iran as excuses.
As things look today, the Likud Party and its chief, Benjamin Netanyahu, look like they are about to be given a stronger hand in the coming elections. And Netanyahu is pro-settlement, and in my view the continued expansion of settlements is the most toxic activity that is undermining the negotiations process and actually, in the long term, will assure a deterioration in America’s support for Israel.
Berkowitz points out:
The major difference between the candidates went unaddressed at Herzliya. It concerns the future of Israeli settlements, the towns and cities built and populated by Israel in the territories it gained control over in 1967 in the Six Day War. While he almost certainly would not build new settlements, Netanyahu remains unlikely, without pressure from the United States, to freeze the natural growth of existing settlements. In contrast, both Livni and Barak would probably impose a freeze on all new building beyond the Green Line. Livni and Barak recognize, however, along with Netanyahu, that the settlements are far from the fundamental obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.
Indeed, the journalists, political analysts, and current and former national security officials to whom I spoke were in striking agreement that Livni and Barak as well as Netanyahu all see that the fundamental obstacle to progress in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is Iran. Indeed, the case for Iran’s centrality is convincing.
I respect Peter Berkowitz but disagree with his take on things — and find the perspective of many he is interacting with strikingly narrow when it comes to a serious strategy that will secure Israeli democracy and security in the coming years.
I share Zbigniew Brzezinski’s view that both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide have proven themselves completely unable to solve an arrangement on their own. A Palestinian state is still possible — and Israel democracy without apartheid within its borders is also still possible.
However, it is time to move negotiations out of the weeds and re-engage various stakeholders on all sides of the equation - including the U.S., Europe, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and the United Nations.
Israel’s bravado over Gaza and the massively disproportionate deployment of force in which so many innocents were killed or injured — and lives seriously disrupted on so many levels — is the type of potentially transformative act that can either radicalize a great many more Arabs against the current equations of power in the region or more optimistically, could transform the perspective of the White House to finally realize that Israel’s zero-sum game approach in the region is something that needs to be curtailed and changed.
Folks in the U.S. are hoping for centrists, reasonable, rational negotiators to emerge. Some on Obama’s National Security Council team think that if they only can now. . .finally. . .make Abbas and Fatah the winners in the eyes of Palestinians by showering on them goodies to deliver to their constituents, all will be well. This is well meaning “earnestness.” But it is flawed sentimentalism. Taking this approach with Abbas is “too much, too late.” I think that despite recent drama, Tzipi Livni falls into this “earnestness” hope — though she has a class of detractors larger than Maureen Dowd has.
But “earnestness” in trying to move the Rubik’s Cube of the region into alignment is flawed. Israel and Palestine together don’t work. They can’t come to a responsible deal on their own.
It doesn’t matter if Livni is Prime Minister, or Ehud Barak — who I think is the most monstrous of recent Israeli political players for his role in tightening the noose around Palestinian mobility and movement after the Annapolis process started. And yes, I said monstrous - to borrow a term from Samantha Power. And it doesn’t matter if Netanyahu is PM.
Likewise, Mahmoud Abbas is essentially irrelevant at this point — and all leaders in Palestine are with the exception of those who might be able to think strategically in a Gandhi-esque way and match the flamboyant absolutism and inhumanity of Israel’s occuptation behaviors with non-violent civil disobedience on a communications scale that Gandhi achieved. Mustafa Barghouti comes to mind. . .possibly.
In fact, the more irresponsible both sides are about their situation, the more achievable a “new equilibrium arrangement” may be — because the US and other regional stakeholders simply can’t afford for the recklessness, immaturity, and sheer stupidity of leadership on all sides of the conflict to continue.
Given that. Give us Netanyahu. Please.
His re-ascension will help Americans realize that the false choice approach the Bush administration has been taking in Israel-Palestine affairs was flawed — and that Obama’s team must change the game or face a serious rebuke from Middle East watchers in the US and around the world.
– Steve Clemons
More about Steve Clemons:
Steve’s blog was one of the finalists for “The Best Very Large Blog” in the 2008 Weblog Awards. Steve Clemons serves as Senior Fellow & Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and, in his spare time, as Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute.)
(Release: November 13)
on sale for only $16.95.
has a spatula.)
8% Off at $11.95, with a rare five-star ranking by 294 customers: 
And check out these: 
("This crazy redhead is on to something. Her pink Rambler story alone is worth the price of the book," writes 
- “Richard Sale’s reportage on Washington, the CIA, the American armed forces, and foreign intrigue has created a perfect background for this account of the steady growth of President Clinton as a master of the game of nations.”--W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle East Operations, DIA
"Anne C. Heller's stunning biography of Ayn Rand" uses a "plethora of newly unearthed research and fresh insight."
Are you sure that you want to be “given” Netanyahu?
If not fascism, what is?
Without censure, a growing current in Israeli politics is calling for the outright killing of Palestinians
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=51609&s2=08
Netanyahu Advises Obama on Iran
http://tinyurl.com/cu6r8y
Netanyahu: Time is running out to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons
http://tinyurl.com/cnwa8f
Israel set for another coalition
http://tinyurl.com/bfbzch
Netanyahu missed these:
NIE: Iran ‘Halted’ Nuclear Weapons Program In 2003, Unlikely To Develop A Weapon In This Decade
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/03/nie-iran/
IAEA confirms the “peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities”
http://tinyurl.com/2za69y
Looks like Bibi is going to win big and the Israel-Palestine war is back to square one. I’m looking forward to see Obama travels to the Muslim world and give major address on the US policy to the region and the Mideast crisis. Where is he going to make his speech from? Which country, which city?
With Bibi is charge, anyone wants to bet there will be a Mideast peace deal with Obama in the WH?
things can’t look worser for peace than Nate Yahoo (NY) in office. the population of both Israelis and Palestinians is very young, and very cynical. NY isn’t a good man, and he ought not be elected by anyone. Where are the peace candidates, the ones that understand you can’t displace people and run resorts in their front yards and expect to be greeted as fellow humans.
I don’t know why those Jews just don’t take a few little rockets hitting their homes like men. Come on, when rockets fall on my house, why, I just laugh it off, mop the blood off the floor, and move on with my life.
Yeah, and those Palestinians should be happy to live in their reservations and stop whining about their homes and land, or go to any other Arab country, after all it’s all the same, right?
If my home was taken and I was kept in a bantustan and my family teated like dogs, because some Germans, Poles and Russians say my land was given to them by God, I just laugh it off, wipe the blood off my nose and move on with my life!
Do you know where and how Palestinians live in Lebanon ? Refugee camps. And Jordan? Do you know why Jordan isn’t giving the East Bank back to the Palestinians and noone is asking? Do you know what was the Hama massacre in Syria (where Hamas spun off)?
Ah…all those inconvenient little “details”…
Hey I am with you on Palestinian’s having its state, dignity and prosperity and that Israel should seek peace and negotiate. But please, keep it real. The Arab countries mistreat and yes, hate the Palestinians. They don’t want them.
But Israel, well Israel is always the perfect excuse for them all.
so you’re furious about what happened to the jews in WW2, and are fully supportive of them starting a terrorist campaign in Germany to get their land and personal property back? and, well, we know they can’t get back all the people who were murdered, so would you support them, maybe say, dropping a nuclear bomb on Berlin, just to even the score?
oh uh, yeah, i suppose not. the JEWS can just move on with their lives (which they have), but arabs are coddled and treated like martyrs when they continue to destroy they own lives and their children’s lives over a few square miles of land.
why is it that those who are so outraged about what happened to the palestinians 60 years ago couldn’t care less about what happened to the jews (which was much worse) just a few years earlier??? i’d say it’s a combination of the squeaky wheel getting the grease and leftist groupthink.
You don’t know what you are talking about. If all the Palestinian’s need is land, then why haven’t they asked Jordan? More of their land is located in Jordan’s territory than the disputed land in Israel. The lands in Israel is miniscule compared to the land that they could demand from Jordan.
What the Palestinians ultimately want is to remove Israel. This is about religion, and nothing else.
Be careful what you wish for:
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 7, 2008
http://www.prisonplanet.com/no-change-in-israeli-manipulation-of-us-foreign-policy-under-obama.html
Obama ‘Will Give Green Light for Iran War’
Saturday, Feb 7, 2009
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/02/06/analysis-israel-to-obama-hold-irans-feet-to-fire-or-else/
The Nightmare of Netanyahu Returns
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-nightmare-of-netanyahu-returns-1547608.html
this is a no braier. i predicted this would happen. and of coure hamas knew it also. they need an enemy to keep power. simple and sad really!
Obama Signs Presidential Determination Allowing Palestinians Loyal to Hamas to Resettle In US
Posted on Sunday, February 08, 2009
President Barack Obama has signed an executive order presidential determination allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to resettle in the United States. Sure, what can go wrong when we allow hundreds of thousands of people who have been, as Mark Steyn memorably described, “marinated” in a “sick death cult,” who voted for Hamas, and 55% of whom support suicide bombings live here and at the American taxpayers’ expense:
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.
The “presidential determination” which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
President Obama’s decision, according to the Register, was necessitated by “the urgent refugee and migration needs” of the “victims.”
Few on Capitol Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.
Let’s review some of Barack Obama’s most recent actions since he was inaugurated a little more than two weeks ago:
* His first call to any head of state as president was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.
* His first one on one interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.
* He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.
* He ordered all overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
* He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and 9/11.
* Today we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to and live in the US at American taxpayer expense.
Anyone else seeing a pattern here?
Yees, but not the one you’re thinking of.
ROTFLMAO
And the link to the Federal Register is here:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
I wonder why the MSM hasn’t picked up on this pretty??
Any guesses? So, for those who are having intermittent “hug a terrorist” moments, this should be right up your alley. And in your back yard, too.
I’m so excited, feel warm and fuzzy inside. Aren’t you???
Peggy Sue…I am HORRIFIED. Yeah, really, WTF? Why is the Lamestream Media ignoring this? I am violently ill about this?
I agree, Alexis. We should all be horrified. Twenty + million dollars to bring our enemies to the homeland. Yes, yes, I’m sure there are Gaza residents who have not signed on with Hamas.
But who will make that determination? What screening will be put into place? It’s like opening the door and inviting the snarling wolves in.
Humanitarian aide? Rebuilding and reconstruction services, medical aide, etc, etc. I can buy into all that. But on site. Opening the gates to hell is not a good plan. Unless you’re totally delusional.
God help us all!! I thought I’d heard it all, but this is beyond the pale.
Wow.
Thought it was a great article, Steve, very thoughtful and perceptive, highly intelligent.