Much of the controversy surrounding President Obama's recent Middle East speech has come from his treatment of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And the source of the controversy, as many have noted (see Peter Beinart and Jeffrey Goldberg), has stemmed from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's confounding response to Obama's articulation of America's long-standing policy of using 1967 borders as a starting place from which to build a Palestinian state.
What has largely been ignored, however, are those elements in Obama's speech that have been difficult for the Palestinians to swallow, one of which was articulated in his AIPAC speech yesterday: America's position that Israel should be both "democratic" and "Jewish."
Join me over the fold for as dispassionate of a diary as can possibly be constructed given the title and subject.
Nearly all Israelis desire that Israel be a democratic state with a Jewish majority, and many Palestinians accept this as a matter of practical reality.
I'll say this again, with emphasis: aside from extremists on each side, both Palestinians and Israelis understand that Israel, alongside a newly-established Palestine, will have a Jewish majority.
So why, then, when Obama articulated his support for Israel as a democratic and "Jewish state," did many Palestinians flinch?
The reason: Palestinian negotiators do not anticipate, in any future negotiations with Israel, to secure a "right of return' to the millions of Palestinians who once lived (or are ancestors to those who once lived) on current Israeli soil. Palestinian negotiators understand that such a reality is not conceivable, and that some form of monetary compensation will have to be hammered out in place of a systematic, across-the-board return of refugees to their lands. However, Palestinians have not yet given up on this negotiating card – the right of return – as one of many it holds to play in hypothetical peace negotiations with Israel. Which is why many Palestinians flinched when Obama used the words "a Jewish state."
Why? Because in essence, Obama, by using the phrase, was implicitly saying something else: the United States does not support a Palestinian right of return. Put another way: the Obama administration took a card out of the Palestinians' deck from which to play during negotiations.
What is remarkable is that, in contrast to Netanyahu's loud and petulant behavior toward Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (forget Hamas -- I'm not touching them) has been rather reticent and contemplative. And for good reason: despite appearances to the contrary, Obama's speech was actually much more difficult for the Palestinians to hear, and it is going to take time for Abbas and his governing class to figure out how best to strategically respond to Obama.
For not only did our President take the right of return off the table, he also clearly expressed opposition to another main card in the Palestinians' deck: unilateral declaration of statehood via the UN if negotiations with Israel don't proceed.
I want to make clear: while I disagree with some of Obama's positions, I am incredibly proud of both speeches he made, and marvel at his ability to enter AIPAC and say, directly, to American Jews: 1967 is our policy, and it is a reasonable, long-standing one. For in doing so, he essentially said this: Netanyahu is not reasonable, and this must be known.
I also want to make clear this: I am proud of Abbas and his measured responses thusfar, for his ability to take in Obama's difficult words and consider them without being reactionary.
And this: I am proud of much of the intellectual class and military establishment in Israel, who have backed Obama's speech as a reasonable one.
The one leader who remains unreasonable (again, forget Hamas) is the one who may matter most in any potential peace deal between Israel and Palestine: Netanyahu.