David Suissa

May 23, 2011

Is Obama good or bad for Israel?

By David Suissa

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During this latest episode of the long-running Israel-America reality show – which began May 19 with President Barack Obama’s infamous “1967 lines” speech, followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defiant response at the White House the next day, and, finally, Obama’s more conciliatory address at the AIPAC convention on May 22 — I vacillated between my emotional “Sephardi hothead” side and my calmer “Ashkenazi tachlis” side.

My Sephardi side was fuming at Obama for ambushing Bibi with his explosive “1967 lines” speech just before Bibi got on a plane to fly to Washington. Not a way to treat a guest and a friend. As for the 1967 lines, this was the first time that an American president had explicitly endorsed the green line as a basis to negotiate a border — another unwelcoming thought.

I was also fuming at the fact that Obama had asked Israel to take “bold” steps and make painful concessions without recognizing how often Israel has done so in the past and gotten burned, and without asking the Palestinians to take any equivalent steps, such as compromising on the right of return, which everyone knows is a deal-killer.

My Sephardi side also got upset at how Obama spent so little time on the biggest existential threat to the Jewish state and the real problem in the Middle East today: Iran and its terrorist proxies.

My Ashkenazi side, however, stayed calm and kept repeating these words: Business is business — what’s best for Israel? This made me confront the brutal reality that most of the world is against us, and Israel is holding a very crummy hand.

In a few months, for example, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote unanimously to recognize a Palestinian state along Israel’s “indefensible” 1967 borders. As a result, as Peter Beinart warned in The Daily Beast: “According to international law, Israel will be occupying a sovereign nation. The result will likely be a bonanza of lawsuits, divestment campaigns and cancelled business deals. Israelis will feel more and more besieged.” As if things weren’t bad enough already.

With this “tsunami” right around the corner, I couldn’t help but see President Obama in a different light.

Despite my misgivings, I had to recognize that Obama had said plenty of supportive things about Israel. As Ari Shavit summarized in Haaretz: “He blocked the Palestinian initiative to unilaterally establish a Palestinian state. He condemned the Palestinian effort to delegitimize Israel. He came out against Hamas. He did not demand a total and immediate freeze on settlement construction. He did not embrace the Arab peace initiative. He showed that he has internalized Israel’s security problems and defense concerns. Above all, he adopted the two main principles of Israel’s peace doctrine: Israel as a Jewish state and Palestine as a demilitarized state.”

Love him or hate him, that’s not a bad list. I said to myself: Here’s the most powerful man on earth, leading the most powerful nation on earth, and he’s saying he wants what’s best for Israel. OK, how do I get him totally on my side for the stormy days ahead?

Well, here’s the deal as I saw it: Israel accepts the formulation, “1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps,” and, in return, the most powerful man on earth backs us to the hilt and protects us against a hostile world.

Honestly, I don’t think I would have had the chutzpah to say no.

Instead, I probably would have given a diplomatic and qualified yes: “Israel accepts, as a starting point for negotiations, the president’s formulation of ‘1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps,’ provided this does not preclude secure borders and the retention of key settlement blocks.”

In addition to buying Israel some gratitude (and latitude), this would have given Obama more leverage to garner allies for Israel against the coming Palestinian onslaught at the U.N. and other international forums.

It would also have shifted the pressure onto the Palestinians. Just like the Palestinians used Obama’s “settlement freeze” to turn Israel into the main obstacle to peace, Israel could have used Obama’s anti-Hamas statement to turn the Palestinians into the main obstacle. Just like they made Israel squirm over settlements, we would have made them squirm over Hamas.

But by responding with an emphatic no, Bibi kept the spotlight squarely on Israel and missed an opportunity to turn the tables on the Palestinians.

It wouldn’t have cost us much to play along. Unlike the settlement freeze — which required 500,000 Jews to stop all construction — the latest American request only required Israel to say a qualified yes. Because the Palestinians are always saying no, this would expose them, rather than Israel, as the no people.

In any event, what Israel desperately needs right now is priceless: the unqualified support of the most powerful man on earth.

Seen in that light, it doesn’t matter if I think Obama is good or bad for Israel. What matters is that he’s really important for Israel — and I need him squarely on my side.

Like I said, business is business, whether you’re Ashkenazi or Sephardi.

A version of this article appeared in print.

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Were Obama’s comments about the pre-1967 borders different than GWB’s 1949 borders?  Aren’t they the same?

I do not understand how all the Palestinian refugees are going to be able to relocate into the West Bank. How will they live? 

With Hamas in Gaza, will the Palestinians move into this region?

Finally, with the US and EU increasing the sanctions against Syria and Iran make the situation more unstable for Israel?

I just do not have any confidence that a peace deal can be worked out, and if it can, how it could succeed with so much upheaval in the area.

Comment by Petra on 5/23/11 at 6:20 pm

You asked the wrong question: This is the United States of America. The question should be, “Is Obama doing the right thing for the United States?”.

The United States is not the “daddy” for Israel. This is NOT Israel. Israel should stop taking welfare from the U.S., and then do what Israel wants. Period.

Comment by Mary on 5/23/11 at 7:16 pm

Three things right off the bat that Netanahu should have said.

1. We can’t make a move until they cough up Shalit.

2. We have permanently reserved conference room 10 at the Knesset for talks. No matter who the palestinians send. The next round of talks take place in Jerusalem, Israeli flags and all. None of this camp david or sharm el sheik crap

3. Any deal is submitted for a vote. And that includes the palestinians in Syria, Jordan, where ever.

Comment by Bill Pearlman on 5/24/11 at 3:32 am

@Mary—I’m well aware that this is America, however, in this case I believe it is in America’s best interest to have a stable Israel.

Israel gets loan guarantees from the US. 

The country currently receiving billions in aid and in debt relief from the US is Egypt. Does Egypt get to decide its future or does Egypt have to do what Americans want? 

Think about it!

Comment by Petra on 5/24/11 at 9:02 pm

Good, balanced, practical thinking leading to a realistic assessment on a very complicated issue.

Comment by Mort on 5/25/11 at 6:00 pm

It’s funny how history evolves. Just a century ago there was no Palestinian People and no borders of any sovereign entity in the Land of Israel - there was just the biblical promised land of Israel. Here we are now, facing a claim by an artificial people to some artificial borders, inside biblical Israel, as belonging to them. I wrote about it in my blog, explaining how Israelis feel about the promised land of Israel. See: http://about-us-israelis.blogspot.com/2011/05/about-us-israelis-promised-land-of.html

Comment by Dr. Ofer Mazar on 5/25/11 at 10:16 pm

US Pres regularly ignore firm commitments made by their predecessors.

“It is clear that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace,” Pres Johnson affirmed shortly after 6 Day war. Yet Nixon administration Sec/ State Wm Rogers sounded a very different note, insisting “any changes in the [pre-war] lines should not reflect the weight of [Israeli] conquest.” 
Sec of State Kissinger promised-1975 that the U.S. would not negotiate with the PLO so long as that organization did not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Two years later, the Carter admin came into office keen to open a dialogue with the PLO, and almost immediately began doing so through intermediaries.

Comment by LT COL HOWARD on 5/28/11 at 1:57 am

Obama Administration Mideast program…is a policy aimed at ethnically cleansing Jews out of a region in the world, rendering it Judenrein.

the Arab World Hatefully Drove out 700,000 Jews and Confiscated All Their Property and Assets, Even as Israelis Pleaded with Their Arab Neighbors to Remain and Build a New Western Democracy Together

Every Israeli Retreat Has Invited Anti-West Arab Terrorists to Arm and Militarize, Rain Unprecedented Destruction, and Launch New Deadly Battle Fronts of Rocket Fire at Israeli Cities That Previously Had Been Secure

The “Two-State Solution” is nothing but another term for a “Final Solution.”

Comment by LT COL HOWARD on 5/28/11 at 2:05 am

Obimbo is bad for Israel and he’s bad for the US !

Comment by PaulG3 on 6/02/11 at 4:21 pm

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