WASHINGTON, D.C. (Monday, May 18, 2009) – Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has just had his first meeting with President Barack Obama. The two Obama issues are non-issues for the Netanyahu government, talking to Iran and a fast-track toward a Palestinian state.
Curiously, Obama did not hold a full-dress press conference following their summit, which focused on Iran. Was this because he feared Netanyahu might use the opportunity to appeal to Israel’s strongest base in America – some 52 million Bible-believing Evangelical Christian Zionists?
The Obama government is trying to make things move in the Middle East and there are fears this will come at Israel’s expense – even if it means bringing down Netanyahu’s government.
Obama has embarked on a peace crusade. He has invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Washington. Next month Obama will speak from a podium in Cairo in an effort to restore America’s image in the Muslim world. He apparently believes this cannot happen nor peace be achieved until Israel accepts a Palestinian state.
Last week the United States voted for a UN Security Council resolution reaffirming support for a two-state solution. Ambassador Susan Rice said the US wants to integrate the Saudi–sponsored peace initiative into the process.
It would be absurd for Obama to think that Netanyahu – who went into politics inspired by the heroic death of his brother, Yonatan, in freeing terrorist hostages in the 1976 Entebbe rescue mission – would ever reward an Iranian-funded terrorist regime by redividing Jerusalem. He would never shrink Israel as a goodwill gesture to help restart the so-called peace process, not in the absence of a genuine goodwill gesture by the Palestinians and Muslim world of recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Netanyahu wants the US to reaffirm its support for Israel’s right to self-defense against the looming threat from Iran. During the last three years Israel fought two bitter campaigns to halt the bombardment of its civilian population by thousands of terrorist missiles – fired by the Iranian terrorist proxies Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Meanwhile, Iran denies the Holocaust while threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map, as it develops nuclear weapons and tests long-range ballistic missiles.
Israel’s prime minister takes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his apocalyptic word, as must the leader of a country that has suffered unrelenting Islamist terrorism for 61 years. In terms of Jewish history, Netanyahu considers Iran to be a threat similar to that posed by the Israelites’ Biblical scourge, the Amalekites, and more ominously by Hitler’s Germany. President Obama, on the other hand, thinks Iran can be won over with patience and reason and is no real threat to America or world peace.
Obama’s advisers reportedly consider the sole obstacle to peace in the Middle East to be the lack of a Palestinian state. The problem with this Pollyannaish vision is that it lacks hindsight. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition British Mandatory Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab. The Jews accepted the resolution and the Arab states did not and invaded Israel in the first of many unsuccessful attempts to destroy it. The Palestinians could have had their state 62 years ago, but preferred to deny the Jews their own state. The only state the Palestinians have been capable of living in since then is the state of denial.
If a Palestinian state came into being tomorrow, this would not solve the conflict in the Middle East or the problem of Islamist terrorism, for the Hamas charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and for a jihad against Jews wherever they live.
I was so moved by the Netanyahu family and Benjamin’s moral clarity at the anniversary of the death of his brother in 1981, that I asked Prime Minister Begin to give Benjamin a government job.I said “I believe this man will be prime minister some day”.Begin did the following evening.
President Obama has said he does not support regime change. Will this apply to Netanyahu’s government, if Washington spins it as an “obstacle to peace”? A possible indication is that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s spouse, former president Bill Clinton, is advising the leader of Israel’s opposition, Kadima Party head MK Tzipi Livni.
Obama made his feelings about Netanyahu’s Likud Party clear during the recent election when he said, “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”
The president wants speedy action and hinted so at a recent press conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah. “I agree that we can’t talk forever,” Obama said, “that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground.” He said he expects such progress to take place in the coming months. If that is going to happen, Obama must first change the Palestinian regime to recognize Israel.
Dr. Michael David Evans is a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is Jimmy Carter, the Liberal Left, and World Chaos.
