June 15, 2009--The Obama Effect?

Since President Obama’s speech in Cairo less than two weeks ago a lot has happened in the neighborhood of the Middle East.

First there was the election in Lebanon, which produced a surprising and hopeful result. Unexpectedly, Hezbollah did worse than expected. An American-backed coalition of candidates and parties won enough seats in the parliament to make it certain that they will have the votes they need to form a new government. One likely to be less threatening to Israel and thus to a wider peace. This might also mean that Syria’s influence there will continue to erode and that they will succumb to U.S. efforts to distance them from Iranian influence and at some point a deal might be brokered between Syria and Israel. If this were to happen it would be quite a good thing.

Then there was also hope that the upcoming election in Iran, which took place on Friday, would unseat the Holocaust-denying, nuclear saber-rattling Mahmoud Abadinejad. There was a plausible opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who was attracting huge crowds of followers, at least in Teheran, and until the votes were counted—or intentionally miscounted—many thought (me included) that he had a good chance to be elected.


And since he campaigned against Abadinejad by accusing him of being too hard line and bellicose in his rhetoric toward Israel and the West, his possible election suggested that perhaps the ruling clerics wanted to reach some sort of accommodation with Israel and us. Otherwise why would they have allowed Moussavi to run and campaign so boldly? Their economy is in shambles, there is a restive population of reasonably well-educated young people and maybe, we thought last week, that they would allow Moussavi to be elected to take some pressure off their own regime. All authoritarian governments see self-preservation to be their highest and only goal.

But here we are on Monday morning with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad having won reelection in a supposed landslide. So much for the so-called Obama Effect in the Middle East. Right?

But then also on Monday we have to digest the content and subtle subtext of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech yesterday in Israel in which he outlined his “vision of peace” for his troubled region.

Also feeling pressure from the new Obama administration (Obama in Cairo called for a two-state solution in the region, one for Israel and one for Palestine, and for a total halt in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank) Netanyahu announced he would deliver a major speech of his own. He saw it to be so important that he reportedly called Obama personally to ask him to be sure to watch it since it was scheduled, I think, at the same time as the basketball game between the Orlando Magic and Los Angles Lakers and he knew what Obama would prefer to be doing. Thank God for TiVo!

The prime minister in his long political career had never uttered the phrase “two-state” nor has he ever agreed to a halt in settlements in the land Israel captured in 1967 from Jordan during the Six-Day War. So at halftime, Israelis and Obama tuned in to hear what he had to say.

Scrutinizing the text, on the surface it looks as if there might still be at least some remnant of the Obama Effect at work in this troubled region. Netanyahu said:

In this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other. (See linked New York Times article for more details.)

This sounds like two-states to me though he didn’t quite use that ladened phrase. But he did use the word “two” when referring to “two peoples”; and since he said each could have its own flag, for him that sounds pretty radical.

But there is a “but”--there is always a “but” in the Middle East. That though the Palestinian entity would have its own flag and there would be “mutual respect,” in Netanyahu’s vision they would have to be demilitarized while Israel presumably would be allowed to keep its modern weapons systems that include nuclear bombs and the means to deploy them.

As might be imagined, Netanyahu’s offer was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians even before the Lakers wrapped up the championship.

And if we turn to his vision for the West Bank, we need to do little more than look at how he referred to it—to him, and his orthodox supporters who form the core of his political base it is still and for all time will be “Judea and Samaria.” The lands of Greater Israel which, they claim, were promised to them by God.

There he promised that no new settlements would be established but that “normal life” must be allowed to continue, a phrase he has used to mean that limited building would be allowed to continue within existing settlements to accommodate for “natural growth.” This natural growth in the past has been quite extensive and thus has been a thorn in the side of Palestinians who want the land of the West Bank to be returned to them if they are to agree to a deal.

So where, post-Cairo, does this leave us? Things still look bright in Lebanon and I suspect Syria. But bleak, no, in Iran and Israel?

Who knows for sure?

We are early in the process and what we have seen there may be the kind of posturing that all sides engage in before entering into talks, outside of public view, that might over time result in various kinds of accommodation. It is disappointing (though to have thought anything else was naïve) to discover that Barack Hussein Obama cannot simply wave a magic speech in front of all contesting parties and peace would break out in the region.

So we are left to look for signs in Iran of a loosening up of rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To preserve their prerogatives the mullahs may pull on his strings and tell him to cool his language and concentrate more on improving economic conditions at home. And in Israel, perhaps with right-wingers somewhat placated by the clear subtext of Netanyahu’s speech it will give him a little space within which to cooperate with the Obama-initiated peace process.


Above all, remember this is the Middle East and the very concept of how to bargain and make deals was invented there,