Hillary’s peculiar speech

Yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton addressed the AIPAC conference. A number of points she made were questionable.

In her speech to AIPAC, she said:

The inexorable mathematics of demography are hastening the hour at which Israelis may have to choose between preserving their democracy and staying true to the dream of a Jewish homeland,” Clinton said. “Given this reality, a two-state solution is the only viable path for Israel to remain both a democracy and a Jewish state.”

This is dishonest. Charles Krauthammer observed in August 1997:

Let’s be clear. This guerrilla war is not about Israeli occupation. Ninety-eight percent of all Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza now live under Arafat’s rule. These are tactics in an enormous subterranean struggle underway between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the shape and details of a final settlement.

At stake are the borders of Arafat’s future state and Jerusalem. Every bomb, every threat, every riot (like ones Arafat had been orchestrating in Hebron) is pressure. The goal is to see which side has more nerve, more will to hold out against making preemptive concessions.

This is what underlies the unending violence and instability. It is not “frustration,” as many in the West fatuously claim. It is strategy.

For all practical purposes the occupation is over and has been over for more than a decade. Except out of military necessity, Israel stays of the PA controlled areas. The only question is how much of the territory from Judea and Samaria will make up the Palestinian state. Besides the so called “demographic threat, is exaggerated, if not bogus.

But this pretension of knowing what’s better for Israel than Israelis themselves. If she thinks back to her husband’s term in office she’d remember that the initial success of the peace process led to a series of terror attacks in early 1996 and that the failure of the Camp David summit convened by her husband was followed by the so-called “Aqsa intifada” in 2000. The Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 allowed Hezbollah to arm itself leading to the 2006 war and the withdrawal from Gaza led to Operation Cast Lead three years later. Israeli sacrifices for peace have invariable led to more threats not less. And those same folks who are telling Israel now that they know what Israel needs to do were telling Israel that they needed to recognize the PLO twenty years ago. What they forgot to do was insist that the PLO recognize Israel in deeds not just in perishable words.

Another questionable remark she made was:

When a Hamas-controlled municipality glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis, it insults the families on both sides who have lost loves ones in this conflict.

But as Elder of Ziyon points out:

But the naming of the square was purely a Fatah initiative and a Fatah celebration. Mughrabi was a Fatah terrorist. The entire episode was a damning indictment of Fatah – the party whose leader happens to be so-called “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas has nothing to do with it.

Which means that the US government is knowingly misinterpreting and downplaying the glorification of terrorism by Fatah.

Barry Rubin pointed out another problem with the speech.

What is unacceptable, however, is the point that every reporter and observer should be making: The United States, as we have seen recently, is willing to attack construction on settlements (even construction the administration has previously agreed to let happen!) at the highest level and in the loudest voice. It is willing to make this issue the number one issue in the world, a basis for pressuring Israel and verbally attacking it.

I have yet to hear a single word spoken by this administration on the subject of the bloodthirsty incitement to murder that goes on every day. For this incitement not only produces violence a lot more directly than construction on settlements (which also provides stability by employing thousands of Palestinian workers), it also prevents progress toward peace.

The Palestinian Authority’s failure to undertake any educational or media campaign in 16 years to promote compromise with Israel has been almost completely ignored in the West. And while such an effort wouldn’t be easy, only by building a public base of support for compromise and conciliation could the Palestinian Authority (even if it wanted to do so) make peace with Israel.

Bashing Israel over construction on settlements while doing absolutely nothing about Palestinian Authority incitement is not going to persuade Israelis of the administration’s credibility or make any advance toward peace. Forget about asking this administration for a “pro-Israel” policy, how about just having a truly evenhanded policy?

I would add that “settlement” building is an obstacle to peace only because the Palestinians say it is. By focusing on Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the administration (and much of the media and academia) is saying, “We accept the Palestinian grievance.” Knowing that the Palestinians have no reason to compromise. On the other side, the incitement is an obstacle to peace by any objective standard and yet it is ignored.

Still with all this Dana Milbank insists:

Clinton, the former senator from New York and one of the strongest supporters Israel has in the U.S. government, deserved better. The cool treatment of an old friend is something AIPAC can ill afford at a time when there are so many actual foes to deal with.

Well, yes. As Senator, Hillary Clinton honored Yochai Porat and presented Itamar Marcus to the Senate to present his findings on the incitement – she now denies – in Palestinian textbooks. But she’s now in an administration that sees fit to lean on Israel and ignore bigger threats to the United States (and world) than apartment buildings. This administration is hardly friendly to Israel and Secretary of State Clinton has been very much a team player in this regard.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.