Obama planned “ambush” of Israel at U.N.? Fat chance.
A rumor email smear, originally published at OneJerusalem.com, accused President Obama of planning to “ambush” Israel at the UN General Assembly opening in late September by announcing, in the presence of “the anti-Israel nations of the world,” a comprehensive plan for Israel and the Palestinians “demanding that Israel…recognize a terrorist state on the West Bank.” “Israel will be isolated from the rest of the world in a very dramatic manner” by this “insidious plan.” This would amount to “an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally,” charge commentators recycling the smear. [1]
The email campaign attempts to stoke Jewish fears with sensationalist charges that are based on no identifiable sources or hard evidence whatsoever, totally contradicting Israeli, US and European press reports.
When President Obama actually gave his speech at the United Nations on September 23, it became clear this attack was politically motivated and simply untrue. [2]
An excerpt of President Obama’s U.N. speech on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
I will also continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world. We will continue to work on that issue. Yesterday, I had a constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. We have made some progress. Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security. Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians. As a result of these efforts on both sides, the economy in the West Bank has begun to grow. But more progress is needed. We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.
The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem. And the goal is clear: Two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.
As we pursue this goal, we will also pursue peace between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, and a broader peace between Israel and its many neighbors. In pursuit of that goal, we will develop regional initiatives with multilateral participation, alongside bilateral negotiations.
Now, I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us — not just the Israelis and the Palestinians, but all of us — must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we will only lend it lip service. To break the old patterns, to break the cycle of insecurity and despair, all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. And — and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security.
We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It’s not paid by politicians. It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It’s paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are all God’s children. And after all the politics and all the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land. And that is why, even though there will be setbacks and false starts and tough days, I will not waver in my pursuit of peace. (Read the full text here.)
The fundamental factual errors in the smear don’t simply end there.
The claim that the Obama Administration would demand that Israel recognize a “terrorist state in the West Bank” distorts the anti-terror efforts of the Obama administration and ignores the important security and economic achievements which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have brought about in the West Bank over the last two years in close cooperation with Israel and the U.S.
Three-time Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times foreign affairs correspondent Thomas Friedman reports that:
“…[F]or the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential…to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again. The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority.”[1]
Israeli columnist Ari Shavit reports in Ha’aretz that:
“The quiet [in the West Bank] is maintained by unprecedented cooperation between the IDF and the five Palestinian security branches. The coordination among the branches, and between them and the Palestinian Authority and Israel, has never been so close. Unlike the Oslo era, this time there is no whitewashing, overlooking and pretending. There are no revolving doors. Two Israeli field commanders…and five Palestinian field operators have achieved a security miracle in the West Bank…[T]he overwhelming majority in the West Bank [has] finally started functioning as a secular-pragmatic public. Many Palestinians [have] stopped acting and thinking as victims. Under Fayyad’s leadership they have taken their fate into their own hands and started building their future.”[2]
Friedman concludes:
“The only way the Palestinian leadership running this show can maintain its legitimacy is if it is eventually given political authority, not just policing powers, over the West Bank – or at least a map that indicates they are on a pathway there. America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank…”
Shavit concurs:
“If U.S. special envoy George Mitchell develops a creative peace plan for his president, it may be possible to avoid past mistakes. This new plan must be based on Fayyad and his way. It must bring the Palestinians closer to a state in a decisive but realistic way…it must establish a practical dynamic of hope. Obama’s challenge this autumn is to give the West Bank revolution a peace horizon…”
Critics of the two-state solution worry that if Israel withdraws from the West Bank, a “terrorist Hamastan” could arise there as in Gaza following Israel’s evacuation of that territory in 2005.But if a peace deal is reached, the creation of the new state will be carried out by agreement, with full Israeli-Palestinian security coordination, and US-led monitoring on the ground – none of which was done when Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza. What’s more, the political strength of Fayyad, Abbas and other Palestinian moderates rests to a large degree on their ability to deliver on their promise that peaceful negotiations with Israel – not Hamas terror – will yield an independent Palestinian state. Helping Palestinian moderates to fulfill that promise is the best insurance against a Hamas takeover in the West Bank and the “terrorist state” predicted by critics.
[1] OneJerusalem, “ALERT :: OBAMA PLANNING ISRAEL AMBUSH AT OPENING OF UN ASSEMBLY!”
[2] President Obama’s speech to the United Nations, September 23, 2009
[3] Thomas Freidman, “Green Shoots in Palestine II,” The New York Times, August 9, 2009.
[4] Ari Shavit, “A Peace Horizon,” Ha’aretz, August 20, 2009.