Tough love from the President who wants to 'throw Israel under a bus'

Obamas challenge to Israels conventional wisdom was coated in support

and sympathy. After this visit, it will be much harder for Obamas rivals to
claim that he has Israels worst interests at heart.
By Chemi Shalev | Mar.22, 2013 | 2:31 AM |
One can only speculate what history might have looked like if United States President Barack
Obama had made his Jerusalem Speech on June 5, 2009, immediately after his Cairo Speech,
and how the Middle East would have developed if his attempt to turn a page in U.S. relations with
the Arab world had been accompanied by the kind of effort to touch the hearts of the Israeli
public that Obama made in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Because theres never been quite such a speech by any U.S. president: dugri and direct,
admonishing words wrapped in thick layers of support and understanding, sympathy and
concern, tough love as it was originally intended. The promos from the White House that had
built up the speech as the centerpiece of the entire visit, turned out, in retrospect, to be grossly
understated.
There wasnt one Israeli button that Obama didnt push during the speech and throughout his
entire visit: from Holocaust to redemption, anxiety to bravery, victimhood to victory, ancient
rights to start-up nation. He embraced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, complimented his
wife, adopted his children and commemorated his hero brother, all in an effort to wipe the slate
clean and start anew, as far as possible. He threatened Iran, warned Syria, denounced Hezbollah,
criticized Hamas and even tried to get Mahmoud Abbas to come down from the tree of a
settlement freeze (which Obama had caused him to climb in the first place).
And he did all of this only as a prologue, a warm up, a pregame show before the main event,
which turned out be just a few paragraphs from a long speech that he made to a few hundred
students in Jerusalems Binyanei Hauma. Irans nuclear weapons and Syrias chemical arsenal
may have topped the agenda behind closed doors, but the high point of Obamas public visit, its
rhetorical and emotional crescendo, was reached in his challenging words about occupation,
settlements and peace with the Palestinians, without which, he suggested, Israels future,
security, and wellbeing are at risk.
Obama posed the kinds of questions that are hardly asked aloud anymore in the Israeli
mainstream, swamped as it is in a steady stream of jingoistic, right-wing rhetoric, associated as it
has become with people who are portrayed as loony liberals and self-hating leftists. He
confronted the conventional wisdom that time is on our side and the status quo is working in our
favor. He asked, blasphemy indeed, that Israelis try and look at the world through Palestinian
eyes. He conducted, how ironic, the kind of values-based peace campaign which so-called center-
left parties were so afraid of in the recent election campaign, because they thought it was toxic.
In this regard, Obama pulled a Bibi on Netanyahu on Thursday: he played on his home field, but
for the rival team. Just as conservative Republicans in America would anoint Netanyahu as their
leader in an instant, so too Obama yesterday became the resolute and persuasive spokesman that
the Israeli center-left so desperately needs; one who could convince the public that his or her
support for a two-state solution along the known parameters does not contradict his great love
for Israel, but quite the contrary.
This is the real Obama, his acquaintances say, no masks and no makeup. Obama, the Jewish
President as Peter Beinart described him in The Crisis of Zionism, whose formative years in
public life were spent alongside liberal Zionist Jews who taught him of the Jewish battle for civil
rights and of the Jewish belief in a just and enlightened Israel, before the occupation started
taking its toll.
This is the same Obama whose nave assumptions and mistakes borne of inexperience served as
fodder for the nefarious jihad of hate and venom and plain old bigotry that his rivals and enemies
have waged against him since his first election campaign, a foul and sometimes deranged
campaign that is without precedent in the annals of relations between Jews, both American and
Israelis, and American Presidents. This is the man who is routinely compared to the worst Jew-
haters and baiters in history, from Pharaoh to Haman to Ahmadinejad, who is hell bent on
throwing Israel under the bus as Mitt Romney repeatedly and recklessly asserted during the
recent election campaign.
In this regard, Obama will henceforth be a much tougher rival for his right-wing conservative
critics. After this visit, they will be hard pressed to convince many Israelis and many American
Jews, for that matter that Obama is a rabid Israel-hater and Muslim sympathizer who has the
countrys worst interests at heart. His admonitions, even if rejected, will be categorized under the
Proverbs saying of faithful are the wounds of a friend.
And contrary to all the learned projections and analyses, it turns out that the U.S. fully intends to
try and reignite the peace process, as Obama made clear in his Ramallah press conference with
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, he said,
intends to spend significant time, effort, and energy in trying to bring about a closing of the gap
between the parties. This may not make much of an impression on cynical Israelis and
Palestinians who expect nothing less than a full-court presidential press in a Camp David style
summit, but in the real world, the announcement that Americas most senior cabinet secretary
will personally engage in Middle East peace efforts amounts to a dramatic declaration of intent.
I recognize that there are those who are not simply skeptical about peace, but question its
underlying premise, said Obama, in words that also apply to a large number of the ministers
who have just taken up their seats around Israels cabinet table. Obama responded to the
cynicism, frustration and resignation to eternal strife that have become the hallmark of modern
Israelese with the American language of hope, optimism and belief in change with which he has
won two elections.
It remain to be seen, of course, whether anything will be left of Obamas brave efforts to confront
Israelis with themselves after Air Force One takes off today, or whether he has indeed planted a
seed of hope or an illusion that yes, we also can. Even if its 4 years too late.