Olmert works with Abbas to support Obama

August 18 2008

U.S. Secretary of State Rice has visited I$rael 21 times in the last three years.(1) By now especially we should be seeing some results in the talks over a Palestinian state.

Instead, what we see is that I$rael does not honor the terms of its agreement over the cease-fire with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.(2)

These kinds of failures are nothing new for the Mideast. What is disturbing is the trend of events in recent months. Rather than accelerating toward solution, impasses are becoming more difficult.

When the current round of negotiations over a Palestinian state started, I$rael's more conservative of two major newspapers said there was "a proposal being drafted to release several hundred prisoners per month after the Annapolis conference."(3) Instead what has happened is that I$rael released 400 prisoners early on and clamped down later. The four hundred ended up quickly replaced by new prisoners not reported by the mainstream papers.

The I$raeli Cabinet's most recent proposal demonstrates the politics of this moment as discussed in the August 17 2008 Jerusalem Post. I$rael proposes releasing 200 prisoners to Fatah, as "a gesture to Abbas," the leader of Fatah.

The number and types of prisoners released are not big enough to impress anyone in Palestine and create an atmosphere for further advances. Instead the right and left in I$rael both see such a release as "for nothing."(4)

What the release proposal does is show that Olmert and Abbas are working together. That is all. Previously the papers had said there were secret negotiations going on between Olmert and Abbas, again, nothing new for diplomacy or the Mideast.

There was another curious and very representative action of the moment. I$rael threatened military action against former British Prime Minister's Tony Blair's sister-in-law and her family if she tried to enter Gaza.(5)

In other words, there is a terrible hardening of I$rael's arteries as time goes on, the opposite of the direction we would expect. What accounts for this increasing I$raeli intransigence is that Olmert is working with Abbas to support Obama.

Finally, on August 17 2008, we received two indications that there is a reason that I$rael has become more intransigent. The New York Times Opinion Page reported its strategic view of the U.$. presidential campaign. Although on the 18th the New York Times blamed parties opposed to a two-state solution in I$rael, in fact, it also whitewashed Prime Minister Olmert for getting less and less done over time.

Olmert's motivations for doing less over time are not hard to see. He faced pressure to stand tall against the Palestinians, of course, as usual. That is always true. What changed is that Obama became more and more certain as the Democratic Party nominee since Annapolis. Obama would like to see the Mideast talks fail.

Usually a challenger running against the party in power comes up with policy changes he would like to see. In Obama's case and I$rael, there is no new challenger element for the Palestine question. At least on Iran, Obama said he would like to "talk to" Iran.

The second of two concrete indications that the Democrats are the problem is that Obama himself is threatening McCain's base among evangelicals if there is progress toward peace in the Mideast. Obama's standard political tactic is to prevent an attack on himself by preparing the counter in advance. So in this case, he says that McCain has called him the "antiChrist."(6) Of course, McCain did not call Obama the "antiChrist," but the word "antiChrist" in the U.$. Bible Belt has the specific meaning of someone who attacks I$rael. McCain did not call Obama "antiChrist," but what Obama is saying is that if the Republicans take a more pro-Palestinian position, Obama is going to throw the word around and remind evangelicals of their religious teachings and thereby cause them to vote against McCain. When Obama campaigners attack McCain on the "antiChrist" question, they are supporting I$raeli intransigence from the right of Bush.

Notes:
1. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331076815&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2. Hamas as reported in a Jewish publication: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3573158,00.html
3. Yaakov Katz, "Give nothing unless summit a success," www.jpost.com, 16Nov2008.
4."Prisoner release faces widespread criticism," http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=SimpleSite/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1218710379205
5. "Israeli 'Threats' Against Tony Blair's Sister in-law Over Free Gaza Trip," http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20080817114615318, 17Aug2008.
6. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2008/08/15/cnn-forwards-idea-mccain-ad-hints-obama-antichrist