The real obstacle

Michael Slackman reports in Arab States Cool to Obama Pleas for Peace Gesture:

President Obama starts his much anticipated Middle East tour on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, where he is expected to press the Arab nations to offer a gesture to the Israelis to entice them to accelerate the peace process.

But when he meets in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, with King Abdullah, he should be prepared for a polite but firm refusal, Saudi officials and political experts say. The Arab countries, they say, believe they have already made their best offer and that it is now up to Israel to make a gesture, perhaps by dismantling settlements in the West Bank or committing to a two-state solution.

“What do you expect the Arabs to give without getting anything in advance, if Israel is still hesitating to accept the idea of two states in itself?” said Mohammad Abdullah al-Zulfa, a historian and member of the Saudi Shura Council, which serves as an advisory panel in place of a parliament.

Did you catch that? Israel is to make a “gesture” in response to the Arab’s “best offer.” Didn’t Israel retreat from Gaza? Didn’t Israel pull out of seven cities in Judea and Samaria? Didn’t Israel give arms and money to the PA? Why must Israel respond to empty Arab promises with concrete actions?

But Slackman reports, with no trace of irony:

The Saudis are concerned about the potential threat to the coalition should one nation make further concessions on its own. That, they say, could provide the less committed countries a rationale for abandoning the peace initiative, according to officials and regional analysts.

Do you get that? No Arab country must go ahead and make peace with Israel before the right time because otherwise Arab countries who don’t want peace with Israel won’t be willing to stand behind the empty promise of normalization anymore.

The peace initiative has no substance. It is a vague promise offered in exchange for concrete demands of Israel.

It was devised by then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and columnist Thomas Friedman as a way of deflecting blame for 9/11 away from Saudi Arabia. Friedman’s still at it, after telling an offensive joke he writes:

I told the president that joke because in reading the Arab and Israeli press this week, everyone seemed to be telling him what he needed to do and say in Cairo, but nobody was indicating how they were going to step up and do something different. Everyone wants peace, but nobody wants to buy a ticket.

Well Israel has bought a number of tickets. For Friedman to pretend that it is still 1993 is totally dishonest. Israel now has Hamas to its south, Hezbollah to its north and suffered through its worst terror ever as a result of concession it made to an unreformed terrorist. Israel has bought plenty of “peace” lottery tickets and suffered immeasurably for its efforts.

I have a different joke for Friedman:

Once Cairo was flooding and Abdul escaped to his roof and prayed to Allah to save him. As the waters rose, a boat came by and offered him a ride. He said no, he was waiting for Allah to save him. Then a helicopter came by and offered to rescue him. He said no, he was waiting for Allah to save him. Finally the waters rose above his roof and poor Abdul drowned.

When he went before Allah, he asked why he hadn’t been saved despite his piety and his prayers. Allah said, “I heard your prayers and I sent you a boat and then a helicopter …”

Well it’s time for the Arab world to realize that if it wants peace. And it’s time for the Arab world’s enablers to stop excusing the antisemitism that is at the heart of its refusal to accept Israel.

What’s interesting is how far those who pretend that Israel is at the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East will go. Robet Kagan concludes that the Obama administration is really trying to topple the government of Binaymin Netanyahu. (h/t Shmuel Rosner), Kagan writes:

Instead, by insisting that the Israeli government not only put a freeze on new settlements but also halt “natural growth” in existing settlements, the administration has set up an unavoidable and possibly unpleasant confrontation with Israel, precisely at the moment it is importuning a truculent Iran. This sets up quite an image: Unclench the fist at a government that daily calls us the Great Satan, while balling up a fist at a longtime ally.

I’d agree that Israel’s government isn’t that unstable, but why doesn’t the Obama administration view the Arab rebuff of even symbolic gestures towards Israel with the same hostility it views the Netanyahu government’s (just) claim that an agreement with the Bush administration allows for natural growth in existing settlements?

At some point the peace processors have to come to grips with the fact that no matter what Israel does it won’t get peace until the Arab world substantially changes its view of Israel. That’s the real obstacle. Why doesn’t anyone see it?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.