More Than Just a Photo-Op

Barack Obama's handshake meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu is not getting nearly the credit it deserves. In fact, Obama's Mideast peace strategy is far more sophisticated than most observers realize.

BY DANIEL LEVY | SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

Headlines are now being prepared following U.S. President Barack Obama's convening of a trilateral Israeli-Palestinian-American peace summit today in New York. Many will seek to belittle the president's efforts thus far. The summit was being dismissed as a photo-op before it even happened.

The right, in the United States and in Israel, will spin this meeting as further proof of the young president's foreign policy naïveté. Prioritizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution, creating expectations in the Arab world, and publicly disagreeing with Israel, on settlements for instance, are all exhibits in the right's case against the new administration (Steven Rosen here on ForeignPolicy.com provided a boiler-plate incantation of this hawkish line).

The spin from the left, in the United States and in the Arab world, is just as predictable. The president blinked on settlements when Israel said boo, the Palestinians have been thrown under a bus, and the U.S. is pursuing more of the same failed incrementalist policies.

In large measure, both of these views are wrong. The contours of a strategic methodical Obama approach to achieving the comprehensive Mideast peace of which he speaks are starting to become visible.

The way in which today's trilateral was announced is in itself instructive. Special Envoy George Mitchell was getting played by the parties last week as they tried to leverage America's desire to see the three-way meeting take place. Sometimes that is the lot of an envoy. It is also an advantage of having an envoy, allowing the president to step in, cut to the chase, and simply announce where and when the parties were expected to report for a meeting with him. The Americans decided that this week's news cycle would not be dominated by the vagaries of Middle Eastern leaders' mood swings or the potentially embarrassing ‘will they-won't they' speculation about an Abbas-Netanyahu meet. Obama decided. The trilateral happened. It's over on Tuesday, now move on to climate change and nonproliferation.

Photo by John Angelillo-Pool/Getty Images

 

Daniel Levy is a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.

PG1923

11:14 AM ET

September 23, 2009

Levy

Mr Levy is just being silly. Israel is not going to talk seriously with anyone until the Hamas problem is settled. They have no one to talk to that can make any deal, let alone one they might accept. Israel attention is fixed on Iran and for that problem they need Obama. But Obama has another much more serious problem. Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of course what to do about Iran. You were right about one thing - Obama has time, unlike Bush, to keep trying. But at the end of today, the real problem is Hamas. At some point, something real bad will happen that pushes this whole tinder box into a big fire. Maybe then something can be done. Obama is right to get involved, but there is no grand plan here. Just stay in the game and hope.

 

MELEKHSHAUL

12:11 PM ET

September 23, 2009

Stealth is the key - and support from US Jews

There is little silly in Mr Levy's analysis. In a context fraught with international issues that would challenge any US President, Obama has set about trying to bring together two very accurately described "dysfunctional polities" not only to commence talks, but as others have said elsewhere, to discover they actually want to talk peace as much as both the President and most others beyond the region desire it.
The backdrop is complicated not by Hamas alone. They have had to mouth platitudes about how they won't stand in Mr Abbas' way if he does indeed negotiate with Israel, just to maintain some credibility, having been battered in the W Bank and having brought down on the innocent civilians of Gaza a vastly disproportionate Israeli reaction.
Netanyahu is promoting a level of Israeli public denial that is hard to credit, and it is this trick - that there's no occupation, that all the Palestinians are terrorists and there's no one amongst them who's a partner in peace, that we can go on like this indefinitely - that he cunningly pulls off. Ask Israelis not whether they want a two state solution, but whether they really believe they can maintain the status quo and consign successive generations to living permanently by the sword, and after the bluster has diminished there'll be an embarrassed silence.
The President has to to persist with his stealth plan to get the talks resumed and I add my voice to those who support him in recognising that this is not going to be a "bang their heads together" and "I'm locking the door and throwing away the key until you talk" effort. This is a gradual process and having spoken directly to the Arab peoples, it is now time for President Obama to address the people of Israel. If he was also shown that there are many American Jews who support Israel and know that talks are essential and are prepared to speak out and say so, it might provide a new impetus and the start of an erosion of denial.

 

JACK DAVIS

5:37 PM ET

September 23, 2009

NOT more than a photo op

Since 1948, the Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity (thank you, Abba Eban). Since 1948, the Arabs have tried to destroy Israel (either directly--wars, or by proxy--terrorist organizations).

Arab nations need to:

Grant full and unconditional diplomatic recognition to Israel.
Stop trying to destroy Israel (through funding or direct action).
Unconditionally acknowledge Israel's right to exist.
Stop preaching hatred of Israel in mosques.
Stop preaching hatred of Israel in schools.
Stop preaching hatred of Israel in the Arab media.

Until then, NO DEALS.

 

JAY GETTY

7:01 AM ET

September 24, 2009

Looks like a bad joke about a Black, a Jew, and an Arab

I wonder who will deliver the first PUNCH...