Michael Jansen

Former US president Jimmy Carter’s meetings with Hamas figures from the West Bank and Gaza and his coming encounter with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mishaal are welcome developments.

Carter’s efforts to promote dialogue could break the logjam of US and Israeli prohibitions on contacts with groups and governments these countries call “terrorists”.

Unfortunately, Carter is unlikely to be successful in the short-run because neither the Bush nor the Olmert administrations are prepared to talk to people they consider enemies. Both adopt an “us” and “them” approach to international relations and try to demonise anyone who does not meet their demands.

By making himself a good example, Carter may, however, encourage others to open channels to Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizbollah, surviving remnants of the Iraqi Baath, and the followers of Moqtada Sadr, the regional candidates for dialogue.

If he wins the Democratic presidential nomination and the presidency, Barack Obama has promised to talk to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad, but has ruled out Hamas. Carter’s initiative could also encourage him to review and revise the long US list of fully and partially boycotted and embargoed governments, individuals and territories (Gaza under Hamas).

Unfortunately, Carter’s good example is unlikely to move Hillary Clinton or John McCain, if either is to win the contest. Clinton favours low-level talks with Iran - as does the Bush administration when it comes to discussing Iraq - but also supports the Bush characterisation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a “terrorist organisation”.

McCain, who threatened to “bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran, could be expected to take a hard line towards Tehran and other countries not capitulating to the US.

Both Clinton and McCain are too deeply mired in Washington’s traditional politics of snub and sanction to escape this regime with the aim of transforming the not-so-cold war between the West/Israel and the Arab/Muslim worlds. Both are also too closely identified with Likudnik Israel and its captive US lobby to dare to speak to anyone they dislike.

The Likud “Greater Israel” camp in both Israel and the US is well aware that any lifting of specific boycotts and sanctions could undermine the entire regime.

Neither Clinton nor McCain possess the courage of Richard Nixon who went against the powerful China lobby and years of ostracism and hostility when he visited Beijing in 1972, breaking through the bamboo curtain erected round China when the communists defeated the US-backed Nationalists in 1950. No one can predict what Obama, who comes, as they say in Washington, from “outside the beltway” might do.

Likudnik Israel and its US allies are wary of Obama who, as I mentioned in an earlier column, comes bottom of the list of their favourites for the top job in Washington. There are several reasons they do not like Obama. Last year, he made the “mistake” of saying “no one’s suffering more than the Palestinian people”. He had to take that back rather smartly by claiming that their suffering was caused by their leaders rather than the Israeli occupation. But his pro-Israeli detractors do not believe his qualification. While he has repeatedly declared his commitment to Israel’s security, they are not convinced that he means the security of “Greater Israel”, encompassing the West Bank, East Jerusalem, a swathe of southern Lebanon and the Syrian Golan.

The Likud camp is also critical of his entourage, which includes Robert Malley, a former member of the Clinton team who exposed as lies the accusations of former US president Bill Clinton and former Israeli premier Ehud Barak that Palestinian president Yasser Arafat was to blame for the failure of negotiations at Camp David during July 2000.

Concerned about his image in Israel, Obama has now launched a Hebrew blog to explain his policies. But he still does not go as far as the Israelis and their chums demand. Although Obama said last Friday that he would not meet Hamas officials, he refused to criticise Carter. This less than submissive stance, is certain to upset the Israeli camp.

It is difficult to imagine its reaction to a long article by Peter Wallsten, published on April 10th in The Los Angeles Times. The piece is titled “Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama”. The subhead said: “They consider him receptive despite his clear support for Israel.”

The article describes the close friendship between Obama when an Illinois state senator, and Rashid Khalidi, scion of an ancient Jerusalem family and longstanding spokesman for the Palestinian cause.

Wallsten describes a going away party for Khalidi in Chicago, where he headed the Middle East programme at the University. (Khalidi left to take up the Edward Said chair at Columbia University in New York). On this occasion, Obama is quoted as saying that his many talks with the Khalidis had been “constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases ... it’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation - a conversation that is not necessarily around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table, but around this entire world.”

While Obama called for dialogue and a search for common ground at this event, the very fact that he attended it put him in a different class from Clinton and McCain who have shown themselves to be subservient to the US Israel lobby and Israel itself.

Wallsten cites Obama’s chief handler, David Axelrod, who observed: “Barack’s belief is that it’s important to understand other points of view, even if you can’t agree with them… [he] can disagree without shunning or demonising those with other views.” But that is precisely what Likudnik Israel and its allies want US politicians to do. It is also interesting to note that a new lobby group, known as “J Street”, is being established in Washington by liberal Jews who oppose the policies and actions of the Likudniks.

Among these activists are supporters of both Obama and Clinton who seek to make the point that the majority of US Jews back a land-for-peace policy rather than the “Greater Israel” stand of the Likudniks. Obama would seem to be the more receptive of the two Democratic candidates.

If Obama’s ears and eyes are open even enough for him to see how the Palestinian people live and hear their pleas, he could be the very man the region needs to forge a peace between the Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis and to initiate dialogue with the long list of people Clinton and McCain are likely to continue to shun.