Obama sets stage for another Middle East war
Robert Sibley SUNDAY OP-ED Robert Sibley, a veteran Ottawa journalist, holds a PhD in political science from Carleton University, where he occasionally lectures on political philosophy. He wrote this for the Ottawa Citizen.
Presumably Barack Obama will return his Nobel Peace Prize now that he’s created the conditions for another Middle East war.
Obama’s betrayal of Israel in allowing passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution that declared Israeli settlements to be illegal reveals his bitterness at being denied historic status as the president who achieved a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Obama the Peace Prize, claiming he’d “created a new climate in international politics.”
Seven years later, there’s no denying this new climate. Only it’s not one that provides much hope for the future.
On Obama’s watch the Middle East descended into anarchy; millions of migrants fleeing the chaos have destabilized Europe; Russian and Chinese leaders, emboldened by Obama’s redline retreats, have grown increasingly belligerent; and Iran’s theocrats were allowed to pursue their nuclear ambitions.
And then on the eve of Hanukkah, Obama capped his legacy of failure by setting up the diplomatic lynching of the singular liberal democracy in the Middle East. In having the U.S. abstain from voting on Security Council Resolution 2334, he allowed the council to approve a non-binding resolution that “reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”
This means, as some commentators have noted, that even Jews who pray at the Western Wall — the holiest site in Judaism — are to be regarded as criminals.
Late last month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave only the briefest nod to Palestinian terrorism while claiming that Israel’s settlement-building policies in the West Bank are the biggest obstacle to peace.
Perhaps a brief history lesson is warranted. What many forget, or ignore, is that the settlements in the West Bank — known to the ancient Kingdom of Israel as Judea and Samaria — are on lands granted to the Jews by the League of Nations under the 1922 Mandate for Palestine. The mandate affirmed the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their homeland” on land west of the Jordan River, or “Jewish Palestine.” The land east of the river — basically, modern-day Jordan — was “Arab Palestine.” These Jewish territorial rights were reaffirmed after the Second World War when the United Nations upheld the terms of the mandate, inserting “the Jewish People’s clause” into the UN Charter.
None of this stopped the Arabs from attacking the newly founded state of Israel in 1948. Jordan occupied much of the West Bank while Egypt seized Gaza. Only in 1967, during the Six Day War, did Israel retake the land intended for a Jewish state.
In the decades since, the Palestinians have used every means at their disposal — war, diplomacy, murder and terrorism — to deny Israel’s right to this land. They have rejected numerous peace deals, including ones that gave them more than 90 per cent of the West Bank and a capital in Jerusalem.
The reality is, the Palestinian leaders ultimately want nothing less than to see all the land west of the Jordan River “Judenrein.” They refuse to accept Israel’s existence. This is the real obstacle to peace, not the settlements. Obama ignores this reality.
And therein lies the seeds for war. The Israelis learned the hard way that land for peace doesn’t work. In 2005, responding to international pressure, they pulled a small Jewish settlement out of Gaza. Instead of making peace, though, Hamas moved mortars and rockets closer to Israel.
If there is any hope to be retrieved from Obama’s historical naiveté, it is with his replacement. Donald Trump appears to be less tolerant of Palestinian terrorism. Who knows, if George W. Bush could scare Moammar Gadhafi into giving up his nuclear ambitions, maybe Trump will wring peace from the Palestinians. That’ll be worth a Nobel.