Dan Ephron checks in on Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas:
[Abbas] told me bluntly that Obama had led him on, and then let him down by failing to keep pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank last year. “It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze,” Abbas explained. “I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.”
I feel his pain. Sadly, placing a moratorium on illegal, counter-productive fundamentalist provocations is both supremely obvious and utterly unacceptable to Israel and its supporters in the Congress and the administration. They are against settlements (for the most part) but far more opposed to any effective attempt to remove them. Obama went out on a limb, not realizing that he would be given one chance to climb back down. He did, leaving Abbas in the lurch.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu's pincer movement against the duly elected president of the United States is intensifying with an alliance with the House GOP to gut the president's ability to conduct foreign policy with respect to Israel. I see no reason it won't work. The key principle of Washington's Middle-East policy – never, ever pressure Israel – remains intact. So Abbas's only hope, having been checkmated – along with Obama – by pro-Israel voices on the Hill and White House, is to try for a U.N. vote this September to declare a Palestinian state. Ephron raises doubts:
U.N. votes don’t make 500,000 Jewish settlers suddenly disappear from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And Netanyahu is unlikely to just hand over the keys. … For the statehood resolution to have more than just symbolic impact, Abbas would have to come back from New York and assert sovereignty over the territory the U.N. just handed him. But that would entail confrontational measures—for instance, ending the security cooperation with Israel. Abbas told me that’s a path he will not take.
Game, set and match to Israel's far right government and settlers. And the public humiliation of Obama for daring to cross the pro-Israel lobby will reverberate for years if he does not find a way forward. Obama is usually so cautious. On this he showed courage. That'll teach him, won't it?
(Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting on April 17, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel. By Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.)
The Dish 