Israel-Arab Conflict

Obama's Grand Plan for the Middle East, Gidon D. Remba, Jerusalem Report, May 18, 2009

Netanyahu and Obama With newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Obama for the first time in the White House on May 18, to be followed by meetings with the Egyptian and Palestinian presidents and a major speech to the Arab and Muslim worlds in Egypt on June 4, the contours of Obama's grand strategy for Middle East peace are beginning to unfold.

Obama's aim is the creation of a new regional political architecture in which Israel’s vital needs, and American national security, will be more firmly anchored than ever before. How does Obama hope to set in motion this tectonic realignment?

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The Case For a Soft Intervention, by Sari Nusseibeh

Veteran Palestinian peace advocate Sari Nusseibeh–who was among the first to advocate the two-state solution and who early in the second intifada led a campaign condemning Palestinian suicide bombing–has written a ground-breaking and as-yet unpublished op-ed, “The Case for Soft Intervention.” He calls on the Obama administration to abandon attempts to “engage the two sides in renewed negotiations,” dismissing them as “more of the same… stellar Annapolis-style international charades… where world leaders can gratify themselves with illusory achievements….” Nusseibeh despairs of the prospects for negotiating peace with the current crop of Israeli and Palestinians leaders, and warns: “But let there be no mistake: the sure product of all this meandering and inevitable procrastination is the failure of the two-state solution.”

Instead, the US and the Quartet should, Nusseibeh believes, “present a summary of a pre-drawn blue-print of such a settlement to the leaderships on both sides. Then, rather than ask those two leaderships to enter a new marathon of negotiations over this blue-print, or even to accept or reject it, the Quartet should simply request that this be put to the democratic test: both leaderships should be asked to elicit their constituencies' response to the proposed settlement, the Israeli side through a referendum, and the Palestinian side through an electoral process.” The balloting should take place, suggests Nusseibeh, with the US and the Quartet making clear to both publics the negative consequences of a nay vote–and the positive ramifications of an affirmative one. “If the U.S. wishes there to be a two-state solution, then there really is no other option but to impose it, softly, and now, on the two sides,” he argues. “At this stage, it will not happen any other way. And at a later stage, it will just be too late for it to happen at all.”

Is Nusseibeh’s proposal the shape of Obama’s Mideast policy to come?

Click here to read Nusseibeh’s “radical” proposal.

Bibi and Barack: A Chance for Peace?, by Doni Remba
Plus: A New Paradigm for Israeli-Arab Peace

Is the new hardline Netanyahu government in Israel on a collision course with the Obama administration – and the rest of the world? What can President Obama do to advance Israeli-Arab peace even if the Israeli government is led by a man who refuses to endorse the two-state Palestinian-Israeli solution backed by the U.S., previous Israeli governments, the Palestinian Authority, the Arab states and the international community?

Read more here.

Which Strategy to Heal the Middle East?
A Conversation Between Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Naomi Klein

Rabbi Arthur Waskow explains why “boycott, divestment and sanctions,” as proposed by some on the left, will not help bring about Israeli-Arab peace, and why the most effective path is to build an “Abrahamic Alliance” of American Jews, Christians, and Muslims organizing to bring real change to US Middle East policy.

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Senator Joe Biden at AIPAC Policy Conference, Washington, D.C., March 2007 (photo by Gidon D. Remba)

Biden in 2007 interview: I am a Zionist
ynet, August 23, 2008

Barack Obama's new running mate praises Israel in 2007 interview with 'Shalom TV'

Senator Joe Biden has previously declared himself to be a Zionist. Calling Israel “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East,” he also revealed a Jewish family connection in an interview last year.

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Watch the Shalom TV interview:

Biden Blasts Bush Comments in Israel on Obama: “Outrageous!”

“He [Bush] is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It's his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.” Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies. “If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?”

View the video:

Biden and the Jews
Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut, JTA, August 23, 2008

Senator Biden has a sterling voting record on pro-Israel issues and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has helped shepherd through key pro-Israel legislation. Biden's longstanding relationship with the Jewish community should reassure Jews who still feel anxious about Obama, said Cameron Kerry.

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Republicans and Our Enemies
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2008

Because of the policies Mr. Bush has pursued and Mr. McCain would continue, the entire Middle East is more dangerous. The United States and our allies, including Israel, are less secure.

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Syrian peace will yield regional stability
Shai Ben-Zvi and Alon Liel, JTA, May 27, 2008

If Israel makes peace with Syria, it will quickly see newly normalized ties elsewhere in the Arab world and a new era of regional stability, say Shai Ben-Zvi and Alon Liel.

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Peace Is Worth the Risk Of Withdrawing From the Golan
Martin van Creveld, The Forward, May 29, 2008

A withdrawal from the Golan Heights, therefore, would arguably strengthen Israel’s defenses, not weaken them.

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