You are not alone.

Obama spoke this line to Israelis in both English and Hebrew. Using Hebrew adds emphasis: I AM YOUR LOYAL FRIEND. I WILL DO WHAT I NEED TO DO TO PRESERVE YOUR SECURITY. There are, after all, those Israelis who rooted for Romney and believe that the three billion a year in U.S. aid (pre-sequester) is almost solely a result of  Congressional action. (The standing ovations to  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2011 Congressional sermon-cum-history lesson left a deep impression.) But the audience that would have really appreciated the fealty is a Palestinian one. It’s critical they truly believe that Obama has their back, too.

Political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do.

Au contraire.

Was it “the  people” who demanded Obamacare? Or the New Deal? Or the Great Society? Or Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? 

Well, you get the point.

These presidents didn’t rely on positive polling data to make their plans. They envisioned a better tomorrow (or in one case, better today) and acted.

Real political leaders take risks. They have visions and work to translate them into reality. (Even if certain interns tape their phone calls and save their dresses.) But after 65 years, virtually every poll reflects that Palestinians and Israelis believe in the concept of  two states living side by side in peace; they just don’t believe it’s likely to happen anytime soon.

 Real political leaders work on building that believability.

They acknowledge that the road to peace will be hard, but that traveling that road is a necessary journey. Real leaders don’t let one side’s tactical idiocy destroy their own strategic focus. They continue to look for opportunities  to reinforce the other side’s positive intentions and stress that today doesn’t predetermine tomorrow.

 Unfortunately, Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are less likely to reach a near-term peace agreement  than Dennis Rodman is to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.  Stasis is a more comfortable known.  Both will need to be pushed by the U.S. and Arab League and by a younger generation of leaders who are not wedded to 65 year old narratives.

You must create the change that you want to see.

An applause line best directed to  Abbas, Netanyahu, and all of their acolytes.

You have every right to be skeptical that (peace) can be achieved.

Sixty five years without peace may make doubt the most comfortable choice, but it is not an obligation to be passed generation to generation. Germany, a country literally responsible for destroying half of the Jewish population, is now one of the Jewish state of Israel’s best friends. With peace, trade agreements, and bridge building (literally and figuratively) why not Palestine?

(An end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is the only path to true security.

 A hard sell.

Domestic issues largely drove the last election. And Israeli leadership believes that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict  is a less critical  security priority than  focusing on a potentially nuclear Iran, militant factions in Syria, Lebanon, and (to a lesser extent) Gaza, and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government. 

A better sell?

What if Obama said: Israel’s true security, especially in a world where we are too often your only reliable partner (and U.N. vote), is best preserved when U.S. and Israeli interests are aligned.  As America continues to progress along the path of  energy independence and as  many (including some within your own government) increasingly see Israel as an occupying country engaged in anti-democratic practices, our strategic interests could start to diverge.  At that point, all the lobbying and speech-making (and you are very good at both) would serve as a poor guarantee as to how a future President and Congress will act. 

To suggest you have no one to talk to on the other side is a poor excuse for your inaction. Yes, it takes two to tango and the Palestinian leadership should ideally believe that their negotiation pre-conditions (on ending settlement expansion) aren’t necessary, but they doubt your sincerity. They watch the number of settlement units expand and wonder how Israel will ever muster the courage to move ten to twenty times (or more) the number of settlers you moved from Gaza.  

So make the first move. Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is the best you’ve ever had. If you have to stop adding settlement units to start the negotiation process, then do it.  A final peace agreement with the Palestinians  is clearly in your strategic interest. You remain a democratic, Jewish homeland. You also fulfill an American strategic interest. And responding to American interests is your strongest  long-term security guarantee. 

Given the demographics west of the Jordan river the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a  Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

Ah, the demography argument.  If Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel have more total Arabs than Jews, then Israel will  have two choices to make: Restrict Arab rights (further) to preserve Israel as a “Jewish state.” Then Israel would  no longer be a democracy. Or grant similar rights to Arabs. Then Israel would no longer be a Jewish state. 

But why not have one state for all Arabs and Jews? 

One, Israelis and Palestinians want and deserve their own states and creating a people smorgasbord guarantees continued conflict. Two, the Jewish homeland-democracy issue will be on Israel’s doorstep sooner than most people realize.  If just West Bank Palestinians are allowed to vote, then it would not take 50.1% of the votes for an Arab party to have control. With Israel’s coalition governing system, all it would take would be for Arab parties to unite as a bloc. While this is not something Israeli-Arab political parties have done to date,  all bets are off in a one-state future. And we only have to look as far back as the last Israeli election to see how two disparate political parties led by Yair Lapid and Natalie Bennett coalesced around enough common goals to force significant change to a government led by someone who captured less than one quarter of the popular vote.

Given the march of technology, the only way to truly protect the Israeli people is through the absence of war — because no wall is high enough, and no Iron Dome is strong enough, to stop every enemy from inflicting harm.

One hundred years ago planes dropping bombs in the general area of a target were the newest technology. We can’t even imagine where war-fighting technology will take us one hundred years from now. Iran is today’s focus. In one hundred years, everyone Israel has a disagreement with could be a threat to Israel’s existence.

Look at the world through (Palestinian) eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settlers … goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their own home.

Now look at the world through Israeli eyes. Is it fair that Israelis live under the fear of missiles and rockets? Of course not. But here are other Israeli eyes, courtesy of several settlers I met: Housing is cheaper on the other side of the Green Line. There is good Israeli infrastructure. That army controlling Palestinian movement is the settlers’ security support. Occupation? No, what the world calls a settlement, they call their homes — in Israeli suburbs,  ten minutes from Jerusalem. They doubt any Israeli government would ever force them or any other settler to move. Where would they move? There is no housing built in Israel for them. Who would reimburse them for their move and get them other jobs? Israel’s economic condition isn’t great and where will all the money come from? It will be years and years even following an agreement (which they don’t see as happening soon) before anyone  even has to consider moving.

Neither occupation or expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.

To which Israeli Economy and Trade Minister Natali Bennett (third place in popular votes) responded: “A nation cannot be an occupier in its own land…A Palestinian state is not the right way.” 

Methinks it best to leave Bennett off of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiating team.

 (Arab states must seek normalized relations with Israel, and Palestinians must) recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state, and that Israelis have the right to insist upon their security.

To which Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri responded: “(Calling Israel a Jewish state is a racist approach….and an indication that Obama has adopted the) Zionist position regarding the right of return.”  And Senior Hamas leader Salah Bardawil unhelpfully added: “The only way is to exercise the right …to struggle until the liberation of the land, self-determination, return of refugees and the release of prisoners.”

So are these Hamas views mainstream? Swing on your confirmation bias swing and land where you’re pre-disposed. I land with Saeb Erekat and Fatah, the Palestinian political party in control of the West Bank. As Israeli Minister of Justice and designated peace negotiator Tzipi Livni has suggested on many occasions: Israel can negotiate with Fatah, get peace on the West Bank as a first step, and then watch Hamas either reform or suffer weakened control over Gaza.

 Israelis must recognize that continued settlement activity is counterproductive to the cause of peace, and that an independent Palestine must be viable — that real borders have to be drawn.

To which Palestinian Authority peace negotiator Saeb Erekat responded: “President Abbas welcomed (Obama’s speech) saying that achieving peace and the option of two states on the 1967 borders are the way to bring security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”

A nice diplomatic response to a speech that won’t mean anything more than the thousands of other Israeli-Palestinian speeches, unless the U.S. is prepared to push and the Israelis and Palestinians are prepared to move. A sprinkle of leadership dust would also help.

Some things change because it is their natural arc. Some things change because there is something else better. The Israeli-Palestinian contretemps will finally change when each side sincerely believes that peace is the natural arc that will vastly improve their shared futures.

More on this vision in the next column.

The post Obama’s Jerusalem Speech: Will Anything Ever Change? by Jeff Pozmantier appeared first on Middle East Post.

Root for programs like Hand in Hand, an Israeli, U.S. and privately-supported network of schools that educates Israeli Jews and Arabs together in the same classrooms.  Root for Generation Why, the upcoming generation of social media-connected Israelis and Palestinians who will increasingly gain the wisdom to realize that history lessons may inform us about what has been, but not what has to be.

Why should anyone be fated to live out their parents’ and grandparents’ Faustian nightmare?

Too many Israeli and Palestinian leaders have the title, but not the will.  They do their best to put the “oxy” in”moron.”  It matters not which side’s leadership vacuum is the widest, because this is a competition with no possible winner. Unless winning is defined as an undemocratic Eretz Yisrael, a country that retains its Jewish majority by disenfranchising Palestinians and further restricting their civil rights, or a Palestinian state in control of virtually nothing, pockmarked with checkpoints, unemployment and misery.

We don’t need to ponder whether  a tree falling in a Palestinian or Israeli forest really makes a sound if  no one is around to hear it. Leave that to U.N. delegates who will likely pass a resolution blaming Israel for the tree rot. Focus solely on this query:  If an  Israeli or Palestinian leader makes moves that only entrench or worsen the possibility of a near term two-state solution and fewer and fewer people  in Israel and Palestine In Waiting  seem to care, is there really a solid base of support behind  a peace process?

Polls that show Israelis and Palestinians support two states living side by side in peace are legion. But you can lay those against the polls that show neither side believes it will happen.  Why is that?

Could it be that each side’s leaders constantly stress the impure motives of their future peace partner and rarely work to build support for the benefits of a real peace process?  Instead of selling their visions of  jail cells emptied, road blocks eliminated,  bomb shelters rendered obsolete, mandatory military service ended, taxes decreased, or vastly improved economies, Israeli and Palestinian leaders choose to engage in the tactical fecklessness of blame-storming.

But if the next generation of Jewish and Arab Israeli youth I enjoyed dinner with in East Jerusalem is any indication, there is reason to hope the cycle of hopelessness will end.  While the majority of Israeli and Palestinian leaders I spoke with  traveled on autopilot at thirty eight thousand feet, mostly in  jet streams of mindless platitudes, these kids, and the Arab-Israeli father accompanying them, traveled at ground level. What was real to them was the mindless idiocy of continuing policies and actions that have demonstrably failed.

Over a classic Middle East dinner of shared pizzas and beer we discussed what it’s like for Arab and Jewish kids to do all of the things American kids get to do. But first, the appellation.  It was made very clear to me that everyone considered themselves Israelis, not Israeli Palestinians, Arabs or Jews. Just Israelis.  Adding a qualifier further entrenched the idea that somehow their lives were as unequal as, well, their lives actually seemed to be.

Consider neighborhoods and schools.  Most Arabs and Jews  live within their own communities and go to separate schools. In addition to Arab schools, Israel has state, state-religious, and ultra-Orthodox schools, which are all seen  as better funded and  superior to the Arab schools. Community and school-based segregation quite naturally leads to kids and their families staying within their own social groups.

High school graduation leads to military service for Jews and work or further schooling for the vast majority of Arab teens, who are not obligated or expected to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), even though a small number do volunteer for national or military service.  (The Druze, who speak Arabic but are considered a distinct community, are a prominent exception.) Because the military track offers Jewish kid’s social benefits and abundant connections that they can then use to secure a better job after their two or three year term ends, a small percentage of “brave” Arab teens volunteer to serve.  I was told that this was politically unpopular within the Arab community.  Its leaders ask, Why serve the state that doesn’t serve you?  It is also evidently not too popular within the IDF — no Arab citizen is reported to have ever served as an IDF pilot.

I didn’t understand, and said so.

What possible benefit was there to “message sending” that risked social connections and economic enhancement or policies creating Arab-free military positions that send a “we don’t trust you as an equal citizen” message?  We passed the pizza and agreed that while neither was wise, both were products of generational mistrust.

Take  decades of Jewish-favored state policies, from immigration to schools, housing and even policing. Throw in intifadas, missiles, rockets and bus bombs. Mix in a barrier, checkpoint, and settlement. Sprinkle in a quasi-state on Israel’s border led by a Palestinian militant group that still calls for Israel’s destruction, actively supported by a country close to building a nuclear weapon. What you have is a problem that even an esteemed diplomat like Dennis Rodman can’t easily fix. An Obama phone call and HBO-produced basketball game might tickle Kim Jong-Un’s fancy, but Palestinian and Israeli leaders need a third party’s adult supervision and many more Generation Why Israeli and Palestinian adults to offer hope for change.

One story told me all I wanted to know. Ahmad (not his real name) speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic. He can pass as a Jew. Go to a party with Jewish friends and no one suspects any different. Tell someone at the party he is an Israeli Arab with many friends in the West Bank, and, too often, after a few moments of awkward silence, he becomes the  Arab with many friends in the West Bank. When that happens, they become the Jews. Ahmad said it’s unavoidable — one reaction triggers the other.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Ahmad is determined that he and other future Generation Why leaders will be able to make a difference, although it will be a gradual process as one positive action reinforces another.  It will take more real leaders and far fewer historians wrapped in their practiced narratives.  It won’t be easy. But it has to happen.  There is no other choice if Israel is to remain a democratic country with a Jewish majority.  There is no choice if a fully functioning Palestine is to be born.

Next week I’ll discuss my meetings in Ramallah with Salaam Fayyad and Hanan Ashwari, two very frustrated Palestinian leaders who desperately need more Israeli and American cooperation if they are to fulfill what are mutual Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace goals.

The post First Impressions: My Trip To Israel and Palestine Part 2 by Jeff Pozmantier appeared first on Middle East Post.

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Sderot,  the Gaza border, a cluster of settlements in Gush Etzion, and many points in between, are tough to fully cover in six days and five nights, but if the world can be created in seven days, who am I to complain about my busy schedule?

Think Israel; think layers.

Layers of complexity heaped upon layers of contradictions.  Best embodied  in  three miles of Tel Aviv beach stretching from the Hilton Hotel down to the ancient city of Jaffa, where my jogging route took me past a gay-friendly beach area, a modestly dressed ultra-Orthodox couple engaged in a traditional dating ritual led by their shadchan; immodestly dressed runners preparing for the Tel Aviv marathon;  soldiers;  Jewish and Arab residents out for an evening stroll;  a large group campaigning for assistance to Eritrean refugees and a smaller group campaigning to send them back;  American, British and Chinese tourists, all taking pictures at sunset; a wedding party posing for pictures, many in their finest Nimrod sandals; Israelis demonstrating for social and economic justice and Arab rights; someone who seemed to be yelling about settlers’ rights (my Hebrew is poor); a lone fisherman who appeared to be sleeping as his line dangled in the water; and  a Muezzin  calling  for evening prayer.

Prayer that the entire Middle East, and certainly Palestinians and Israelis, could unquestionably benefit from.

Israel is  where the  fierce urgency of urgency is, well, urgent. How many years have we heard someone on the pro-Israel right or left announce that this must be the year that their pet urgency is finally resolved?

Have you heard? The settlement enterprise has to end or Israel will soon: 1) lose Diaspora support, 2) lose U.S. support, 3) lose Diaspora and U.S. support, 4) lose its Jewish character 5) lose its democratic character or 6) lose its Jewish and democratic character and force non-Jews to exist under South African-like apartheid.

Have you heard? The Palestinians 1) have no leaders that are able to say “yes” to anything, 2)won’t ever recognize a Jewish state, 3) don’t believe Israel is legitimate, 4) don’t really want peace, and 5)  refuse to negotiate.

Plus, have you heard about Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group? How can Israel reach peace in the West Bank as long as Hamas runs Gaza?

Have you heard? The Jewish people have lived in this narrow strip of land longer than the Palestinians, and —  just ask Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Caroline Glick or any number of people who think today’s issues can be resolved by history lessons — there is no such thing as a Palestinian.

Have you heard? Jewish militants engaged in attacks on British soldiers (and sometimes local Arab residents) so they could win their own country, and now Jewish leaders of the country they won cite Palestinian militant actions in Gaza as a reason Palestinians in the West Bank can’t have their own country.

Have you heard? Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett,  a likely coalition member, doesn’t want a two-state Israel-Palestine solution at all. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, also a likely coalition member, doesn’t want to divide Jerusalem. But they both agree that the ultra-Orthodox should be subject to the draft. All the easier to end Israel’s ultra-Orthodox hegemony. And punt peace negotiations further down the settlement road.

Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become so Rube Goldberg-like because several generations of supporters now have so much vested in their talking points that the past is now seen as the only future.  But we’ll deal with the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine major and minor league fans in subsequent columns.

Today, let’s just focus on my visit to Gush Etzion, a settlement near Hebron, a regular and recent  site of often violent protests, a place where approximately six hundred Israeli soldiers guard eight hundred Israeli settlers located in the middle of over two hundred thousand Palestinians.

Gush Etzionians view the the term “settlers” as a pejorative, just as many non-settlement residents view references to Judea and Samaria, instead of to the West Bank or the “occupied territory”, as  indicative of opposition to a two-state solution.

Settlement residents see themselves as no different than those who to choose live on the other side of the Green Line — they are Israelis, without need of appellation,  the same as the residents of  Haifa, Eilat, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Only their home is in an area most of the world wants to cede to the Palestinians.

At a lunch meeting I heard a range of views: Settler-citizens don’t want to be forced to move if Israel reaches a two-state agreement. (But they also don’t want to be forced to live under Palestinian authority.)

Israel has no housing to move anyone to if they are forced to move.  (If anyone knows how to figure out how to quickly build housing, these settler-Israeli residents certainly do. Give them a hammer and a few nails and an entire community could be relocated almost overnight. Whether they own the land they build on certainly hasn’t proven to be an insurmountable obstacle before.)

The true goal should be a one-state solution. (That’s certainly an ingenious way to solve the incredibly complex issues. Make a wish, and throw everyone together, under Jewish leadership of course, and all of the right of return, security, settlement, border, water rights and checkpoint issues magically disappear.)

The demographic studies suggesting that Israel will have to choose between being a Jewish state or democracy just aren’t true. Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Israeli Arab citizens — this argument requires  ignoring  Gaza  — will never outnumber Jewish citizens. Jewish birth rates  are  actually higher.

(I suppose Jewish Israelis could continue to rely on eight to ten-person state supported Orthodox litters, but it is perhaps an inconvenient fact that Israeli Arabs and Palestinians could form a solid ruling coalition with well under 50 percent of the vote — Netanyahu formed his last government with under 25 percent.)

Hearing views I didn’t always embrace (but tried very hard to understand) was a recurring theme of my visit. Just as with my trip to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders like Salam Fayyad and Hanan Ashrawi. More on that dialogue in the next column

The post First Impressions: My Trip To Israel And Palestine (In Waiting) Part 1 – by Jeff Pozmantier appeared first on Middle East Post.

The post Invisible Obama Is Still Angry (And This Time It’s About Settlements) appeared first on Middle East Post.