Like many observers I thought Obama's speech in Cairo was excellent: brave, reasoned, and direct. Of course he paid routine tribute to "all of the children of Abraham", underlining the values they hold in common, and so on. That was the easy stuff. The hard part was to transcend those platitudes, get to grips with the issues, and say things he knew would fail to please his audience.
He did. He affirmed "America's strong bonds with Israel" and called on Palestinians to abandon armed struggle: "Violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered." He also attacked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Holocaust deniers, calling their views "baseless", "ignorant" and "hateful". There was no equivocation in these parts of his speech. But he also recognised the justice of the Palestinian cause. "America will not turn its back on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own... The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. It is time for these settlements to stop."
The challenge in fact is not merely to stop new settlements, which will be hard enough, but also to evacuate existing ones. David Ignatius has a good column on the long history of US exhortation on the matter. Experience says that deflecting Israel from its current policy is likely to require more than mere words. Words have been tried before, but if they count for anything, give Obama his due. This was an outstanding speech, one that paid tribute to the intelligence and goodwill of his audience. He addressed the world's Muslims frankly but respectfully, as a would-be friend and partner. He achieved a tone and sophistication that few other politicians--to say nothing of his predecessor--could even attempt, let alone match. I think we have a test case for the efficacy of soft-power diplomacy. We will see what difference, if any, the Obama factor makes.
I think on balance that the speech was a good one in many respects. A little (actually maybe a great deal of) fatuous moral equivalence, a little too much of we are both in the wrong here in equal amounts, but as massive attempt at group therapy on the whole probably successful. On the point emphasized in the post, however, the issue of settlements, he has made a strategic blunder. FIrst, to be clear, I believe that Israel should agree to halt all new settlements and limit building to the sites that would expect to he held in any peace agreement. This should permit any building in Jerusalem that is planned since this is one area that should never again be subject to limitations on Jewish habitation. That is the minimum price to be paid for the exclusion from East Jerusalem of Jews for nearly thirty years and the wanton destruction of Jewish religious sites during that period (1948-1967). At the very least, however, the Israeli government is foolish not to pay lip service to the need to ultimately eliminate the bulk of the settlements over time (although one could ask why Jews should not be permitted to live in those areas under Palestinian jurisdiction if a true spirit of peace is abroad in the holy land).
Second i think it is moronic for the current government of Israel to try at this late date to distance itself from the goal of a palestinian state. i think the real issue is the nature of the state and the date of its creation. There at least, people can differ over whether a fractured polity, with what to this very day is a culture poisoned with decades of hideous anti semitic propaganda, is ready to assume the responsibilities of a fully sovereign state.
But the President's blanket condemnation of the legitimacy of all settlements which includes Jerusalem,
is misplaced and is a huge breach of faith with our ally. In an attempt to appear even handed he has in fact handed a huge propaganda victory to the less moderate elements of palestinian society. If something is illegitimate it must be yielded with no cost to the other side. it puts the burden of proof on Israel to justify its presence in Jerusalem and in surrounding neighborhoods including ones like Gush etzion which were Jewish towns before the 48 war. What exactly converted so called Arab east Jerusalem into a fait accompli: the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish presence there after the 48 war at a time when that presence was substantial and had continued for centuries. The initiators of three wars with annihilation as their goal and rejection of the right of the Jews to their own state to this very day should put a substantial burden on the Arab side to explain why they are entitled to any benefit of the doubt.
If the President wanted to show real even handedness and demonstrate the courage of truth telling he should also have challenged the audience to accept that at two state solution is not just a recognition of two separate geographical entities but the recognition of a state for the Jews and a state for the Arabs. Can any fair minded person honestly say that the failure of the Israeli government to uproot settlements is the a real impediment to peace as compared to sustained rejection of the right to a Jewish state, the hideous anti-semitic culture of the Arabs or the wilful refusal for over 60 years for the Arab community to even try to integrate the refugees. Had the world devoted the UNRWA resources to that purpose rather than sustaining the refugee camps for 60 years the problem would have been solved long ago.
A very realistic and perceptive analysis. As the president himself stated a speech isn't going to change anything in isolation but it can frame the debate and establish its tone. This is clearly act 1 in a major effort to achieve a settlement in the middle east. It will be a long and winding road but if it is executed with a fraction of the sophistication and skill of these speech it has has a fair chance of success given the effective stalemate that exists in the region. Finally a word about the neocon/extreme Israeli reaction within the US. It's smallness and lack of imagination are staggering. To be fair it's not universal, even in neocon circles some are grumbling about equivalency but recognizing just what a tour de force this was. Regrettably it's not universal. The right are essentially panicked by anything that redounds to the credit of the president.
It was a good speech, but so far, only that. It will need to be followed by something concrete or it will only be so many pretty words.