Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a clear message to President Obama when he ignored the US request to extend the settlement freeze to keep the US-sponsored negotiations going. It was "drop dead."
His statement came in his decision to end the settlements freeze which the Palestinians have said must be extended if they were to keep negotiating.
Prime Minister Abbas says that he has not decided what to do now.
As someone who favors negotiations (including with Hamas), I have a hard time arguing that Abbas should walk away.
However, it is hard to imagine Palestinians negotiating while Israel is gobbling up the land they are supposedly negotiating over.
Moreover, Israel's position is utterly hypocritical.
Israel is notorious for establishing conditions on negotiations. For instance, it says it won't negotiate with Hamas unless and until Hamas (1) ends all violence, (2) recognizes Israel, and (3) accepts all agreements previously agreed to by the Palestinian Authority. In the 15 years since Oslo, it placed condition after condition even on actions it had pledged to implement. One could write a book on the history of Israel's conditions on...everything.
Abbas, on the other hand, has one condition. It is that Israel not build on the very land they are negotiating about. And Israel says "no way."
This is ridiculous. The United States should step in with a map and tell the two sides that Israel can build whatever it wants in the areas that will remain Israel (pre-'67 lines with modifications and landswaps) and that Palestinians should start building their state in the rest: West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem.
Why should they listen?
Simple. Israel receives more aid from the United States, by far, than any other country in the world and cannot survive without our aid and support.
Palestinians will never have a state if the United States opposes Palestinian aspirations.
It is time for the United States to act like the superpower it claims to be. This conflict is jeopardizing our interests: most significantly the security of our men and women in uniform throughout the region, the long-term survival of Israel, our access to Middle East oil, and our relations with the entire Muslim world. The US cannot afford to continue to treat Israel the way a guilty parent treats a spoiled rotten child.
Yes, the lobby will scream and so will its cutouts in Congress. So what.
The President of the United States cannot be rolled on foreign policy without his consent. A President who sticks to his guns (as Obama did not do the last time he fought Israel over settlements) will prevail. Remember, Ronald Reagan. Late in the 1982 Lebanon war, he finally was appalled by Israel's saturation bombing of Beirut. He picked up the phone and told Prime Minister Menachem Begin to "end it now." Begin started arguing. But Reagan said, "now." Begin immediately called off his bombers.
Right-wing Israelis think that they can cross Obama because he is in political trouble. They are wrong.
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Even if the GOP takes Congress, and even if Obama is only President for two more years, which is unlikely, Israel will need the support of its ally and lifeline for those two years.
Obama holds all the cards, if only he acted like it.