President Obama's decision to open his itinerary of foreign tours during his second presidency with a visit to Israel was very much expected, given his party's keenness to correct the 'mistake' of offending the powerful Zionist lobby and in order to restore normalcy to his rocky relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Beyond that it was to be mainly a listening exercise, and that it has turned out to be. Israeli government and its public had expected some concrete results, which were not on President Obama's mind.
He had ruled out either presenting a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, or to ask Israel to freeze illegal construction of settlements in the occupied territories. But eloquent word-monger that Barack Obama is he was not short on that - to his welcoming hosts he pledged an "eternal" alliance with Israel, because 'America's national security interests mandated a strong defence of Israel, which makes us both stronger'.
And in return, he expected of his host government and the Israeli public to reach out to their Middle East neighbours which of late are going through a changing dynamic. On this he was a little more specific, particularly after his meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas, who would think of resuming peace parleys with Israel only after a complete freeze on illegal construction of Jewish settlements. He knew before hand that the Israeli government's reluctance to agree to halt settlements, which to him is the best appetizer to resume stalled peace negotiations between the two sides. So this time he directly addressed the Israelis from the platform of Jerusalem University. His message was: Israelis must realise that continued settlement activity is counterproductive to the cause of peace and that an independent Palestine must be viable with real borders that have to be drawn. If his latest approach would work nothing can be said at the moment. But it did mean to the Palestinians that President Obama has retreated from his earlier position. Unlike the past when he was clearly for the rollback of settlement policy he was now asking his Palestinian host to drop demand for freeze-first, holding out the hope that once talks resume this issue too would be resolved. To this President Abbas was not agreeable. From this point on it would be US Secretary of State John Kerry's task to explore if there is some common ground to work on and expand.
If the Israeli leaders were listening to him, there is not much in evidence. They remained stuck to their mindset. In his welcoming statement President Shimon Peres though expressed 'trust' in Obama's policy of first trying non-military means to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, but was more emphatic about 'other options on the table', which means pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. But President Obama didn't buy any of it, at least as of now. In his joint news conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the US president reiterated his stated position that he would prefer "diplomatic solution" to the Iran nuclear issue. Regardless of Israeli perspective on Iran's nuclear potential, the United States seems encouraged by the gains made at the last month's Almaty conference, and would like to preserver in that mode. Last but not least. Brokered by the visiting Obama, a 20-minute telephonic talk between Netanyahu and Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyib led to a profoundly important development in the region. Tendering apologies for a botched naval raid in 2010 that resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard an international flotilla bound for a besieged Gaza, Netanyahu agreed to restore full diplomatic relations with Turkey in a surprising turnaround. It may be recalled that also on board that aid ship, Mavi Marmara, were the crew members of Pakistan's Aaj TV. They were providing extensive coverage of that major humanitarian initiative. Israeli armed forces arrested and later deported them to neighbouring Jordan from where they managed to reach Pakistan. Their experience was more of an ordeal than they had expected. The government of Israel, therefore, also owes them an apology.
Comments
Comments are closed.