On the surface it appears that President Obama has given up on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and, given the evidence, it is difficult imagining that there is something different beneath the surface. To wit:
Special Envoy George Mitchell resigned, clearly angry at the lack of support his peace efforts received from the White House. (His resignation letter was about as curt and cold as any in recent memory).
The announcement of his resignation followed reports that the president's Thursday speech on the Middle East will, amazingly, say virtually nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A day after Mitchell's resignation came news that the president has decided that he will speak at this month's AIPAC conference, the traditional setting for pandering to the Israeli government and, more significantly, to Israel-centered political donors. (This just in -- the typically one-sided AIPAC-drafted Hoyer-Cantor resolution that AIPAC will be pushing hard at its conference and afterwards. AIPAC expects 400 House members will co-sponsor it. AIPAC has also written a Senate companion bill).
The most significant sign that the president has abandoned any pretense of being an "honest broker," in favor of gung-ho support for the staus quo, came in February when Obama instructed UN ambassador Susan Rice to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion. The resolution incorporated Obama's own policy on settlements so the decision to veto it -- the U.S. cast the only veto -- sent a clear signal that, at least until after November 2012, the Obama administration intended to avoid deviation from the AIPAC/Netanyahu blueprint.
This seeming decision to go all-AIPAC-all-the-time would be jarring even if 2011 were not the year of the Arab Spring. Just weeks ago the administration was celebrating Arab democracy, even the fall of our long-time ally President Hosni Mubarak. Now it is blatantly adopting a policy that deeply grieves the very Arab democrats it supposedly champions.
The lobby's (and, supposedly, the administration's) response to that would be that the Arab Spring was not about Israel/Palestine, that not one demonstrator took to the streets to protest Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as the de facto occupation (and blockade) of Gaza.
And that is true. All the Arab revolutions were local. But, as the administration surely knows, the one non-local issue that all Arab democrats care about is the continued occupation. And why not?
After all, the ultimate in non-democracy is not having one's life controlled by a domestic despot but by a foreign government.
The president knows that hatred for the occupation is common to all Muslims -- Iranian, Indonesian, Egyptian, Iraqi, whatever and with good reason. (Add to that list Israeli moderates, who hate what the occupation is doing not only to Palestinians but to their country.)
Beyond all that, any American president has to consider what the U.S. military thinks about the occupation. It's not just General Petraeus who believes that the occupation is a threat to U.S. national security, that it endangers our personnel throughout the Muslim world and our energy supplies, that is a common view among the brass and the civilians too.
In short, there is nothing good about perpetuating the occupation and President Obama knows it. On the contrary, the occupation (and the illegal settlements that are its symbol) is a dangerous blight on Arabs, Israelis and the United States.
So what accounts for President Obama's seeming policy of indifference?
That is a question that doesn't need any answer beyond the fact that at the very moment the White House is abandoning peace-making, the president is rushing to AIPAC to deliver the news in person. America's Middle East policy is all about appeasing a few dozen AIPAC-connected donors. (No, it is not about the so-called "Jewish vote," which is consistently Democratic -- average 75% -- based on domestic issues, not the Middle East.)
The president seems to be going out of his way to make sure everyone understands why he is doing what he's doing. It is as if he were saying: "what choice do I have between AIPAC donors and Democrats in Congress who get their marching orders from AIPAC. I'm boxed in."
But why would he want to send the message that he can't implement the policies he wants to because he is trapped by a special interest? Just maybe, it is because he he wants our help.
In 2007, the day after Obama declared his candidacy for president, I met with him in his office (I was then working for Israel Policy Forum).
Obama listened carefully while I explained why it was critical that he be an "honest broker" on Israel-Palestinian issues. Nothing I said, including my opinions of AIPAC's influence, would surprise anyone who reads my columns. My bottom line was that the occupation was terrible for the United States, for Israel and, most of all, for the Palestinians and that he should understand that the status quo lobbyists who defend everything Israel does are not representative of the Jewish community or anyone else.
Obama listened, cupped his ear, and said, "I can't hear you."
I didn't understand; I was sitting right next to him.
He then said:
No, not literally. I mean that I don't hear from people like you. But I hear from AIPAC (he then named the local AIPAC leader in Chicago) every week. I'm going to be president and, when I am, it is your job -- you and all the people who feel the way you do -- to make sure I hear that message. You cannot simply rely on the belief that you are right. You need to raise your voice so that I hear you and not just them.
So maybe, just maybe, the president wants us to shout and holler about, what appears to be, a sellout to AIPAC. After all, he is making no attempt to cover up what he's doing or why he's doing it. He only hears one voice.
Maybe Obama's latest actions are a cry for help.
Yes, it's just a theory. But it is infinitely better than believing that President Obama actually believes that AIPAC's status quo is in America's interest. It just is not possible that this president could believe that.
It's time to raise our voices so Obama can hear us, whether he still wants us to or not.