President Obama has wasted no time doing something in the Middle East. He dispatched the Peace-meister with explicit instructions:
In an interview with Al-Arabiya television, Obama said he felt it was important to "get engaged right away" in the Middle East. He said he directed Mitchell to talk to "all the major parties involved" and that his administration would craft an approach after that.
"What I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating," Obama said in the interview.
Obama reiterated the US commitment to Israel as an ally, and to its right to defend itself. But he suggested that Israel has hard choices to make and that his administration would press harder for it to do so.
Whoa. You mean Mitchell is going to listen when he gets here? What's he going to listen to? It's election time in Israel, which after all IS a democracy.
So, at least Obama has got something correct. Israelis will have to make some hard choices to make in the next several weeks. Perhaps the most important factor facing the Israeli electorate is how much they can trust Obama to support them. Right now, Israelis aren't in too much of a trusting mood. Since 1993, trading land for peace has been shown not to work and no one appears to be listening.
If Mr. Obama is seriously interested in furthering the democratic process in the region, he might spend some time listening to the political conversation currently in play. It's a lot like Chicago. Lot's of backroom fights; police investigations; and lots of movement in the polls.
Seriously, this election will serve as an important indicator of Israeli electorate sentiment. With the emergence of the Right and the decline of the Left, Israelis are going to want substance from Mr. Obama.
In that sense, Mr. Obama is correct: Israelis are tired of Fauxto Ops. If the US is serious, they really do need to listen up. A good first step would be to ask Jimmy Carter to hush up for a while so that someone else can be heard.
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Did you catch this?
>>"What I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating," Obama said in the interview.
>> ... But he suggested that Israel has hard choices to make and that his administration would press harder for it to do so.<<
So Obama is going to "listen," then tell Israel what to do.
I hereby invent a new word for the new administration's foreign policy: "fauxplomacy."
Here is the full text of the interview.
Well, it can't be "cowboy diplomacy" with Barack Obama as President. Maybe this is "arugula diplomacy", where "listening" is preceeded by a demand to make "hard choices".
Perhaps he could also tell the wider Arab world that the US is ready to listen, but that they too have to make hard choices between continuing to support covert terror against Israel or work to make a fair and lasting peace. Don't hold your breath.
-David
Curiously, he did not indicate the Palestinians also have to make "hard choices." If I were a cynic I'd say the prevailing mood all over the west is "we need deeds from the Israelis and words from the Arabs."
However, Israel could take one major confidence-building step: unilateral, complete withdrawal from Gaza, letting the Palestinians demonstrate a model of what their state would look like.
Oh, wait...
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