Question for the US administration

This is my $64,000 question to the Obama administration, echoing yesteryear’s popular television programme where if you correctly answered the first question, you got your first dollar and then would go doubling the preceding prize all the time, until one would earn $64,000: Why has it failed so far to twist Israel’s arms for failing to reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians since 1967?

In his just published memoir, Robert Gates, former secretary of defence in the Obama administration, revealed that he had once a heated discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the $60 billion US arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu asked Gates: “How about a counterbalancing investment in our military? How do we compensate on the Israeli side?”

Gates writes: “Exasperated, I shot back that no US administration has done more, in concrete ways, for Israel’s strategic defence than Obama’s.”

He goes on: “I used the line that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Netanyahu, Gates says, “replied acidly. ‘In the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my frenemy.”

According to Bloomberg News, Gates also has some criticism for Israel in his book titled “Duty”.

He writes: “I believe Israel’s strategic situation is worsening, its own actions contributing to its isolation.”

Well and good. Gates hit the nail on the head.

Secretary of State John Kerry will be facing serious problems in his upcoming talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders over the so-called “framework” agreement.

As already indicated publicly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cannot possibly accept the Israeli demand that Israel be recognised by the Palestinians as a Jewish state. 

Since one-fifth, if not more, of Israel’s population is Arab, Muslims and Christians, recognition is most unlikely. If, as assumed, some 200,000 Palestinians in neighbouring Arab countries intend to return and live in their usurped homeland, now Israel, if they are granted the right of return, that would obviously tip their ratio in the country.

Another serious obstacle is the Israeli demand that its troops maintain a presence in the Jordan Valley, which will be serving as that natural borderline between the West Bank, that is the state of Palestine, and Jordan, which is irrational since Israel already has a peace treaty with Jordan so it would need no protection from any cross-border penetration.

Although there was no public mention of the fate of Jerusalem in the “framework” draft, there is no doubt that the Palestinians would not forgo their right to maintain a serious presence in Jerusalem, certainly East Jerusalem, where many Christian and Muslim institutions have existed for centuries, and which would hopefully serve as the capital of the state of Palestine.

It is most unfortunate that the Obama administration dispatched last week Vice President Joe Biden to participate in the funeral of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli military leader and former prime minister who was scorned worldwide even by some Israelis since his name, to quote The Washington Post, is “more curse than blessing”.

President Ronald Reagan described Sharon in his diary as “the bad guy who seemingly looks forward to war”.

Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, wrote: “Sharon’s wanton disregard for civilian life was most pronounced in 1982 during the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in [Beirut] Lebanon. Israel, which had invaded and occupied southern Lebanon at the time, effectively controlled the area. In the camps, Israeli-allied Lebanese Phalangist entered and committed large-scale killings of the Palestinian civilian population, while Israel forces guarded the perimeter. Sharon, who was then minister of defence, was once again at the centre of a massacre of Palestinians.”

Thereafter, an Israeli commission led by the president of the Israeli supreme court ruled that the Israeli forces were indirectly responsible for the massacre and that Sharon himself bore responsibility. The commission recommended that Sharon be removed from office and never again hold a ministerial position. But he did.

Well, the consequential question for the Obama administration is: Isn’t it time to start twisting Israel’s arms so that it can live peacefully in the region instead of continuing its usurpation of Palestinian land? Or else, gone will be the $3 billion in annual US assistance.

Palestinians, on the other hand, ought to seriously consider seeking help from the United Nations and other international organisations.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.