US Policy

By Meretz USA Executive Director, Ron Skolnik

Proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians are set to begin next week.  Now hit the snooze button.

I don't mean to be snide, or to belittle the sincere efforts of President Obama and his team.  And I don't even mean to say that no talks are better for the Middle East than the upcoming indirect ones.  Communication trumps violence any time.

In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Obama assured the American people that he would continue to aggressively pursue his domestic agenda in 2010. He summed up his determination at the end of the speech with a rousing, "I don't quit" guarantee.

But does the same tenacity and steely resolve apply to his Middle East peace initiative? Is the President still in it for the long haul? Or is Mr. Obama getting ready to let Israelis and Palestinians "stew in their own juices", as Israeli political analysts are fond of saying? Will he throw them off like excess baggage, weighing down an Administration already saddled with challenges enough for the next 3 years?

The first month of 2010 has provided several alarming signals.

On Tuesday, June 9, 2009, Ambassador (ret.) Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, addressed a crowd of Meretz USA supporters in New York. His wide-ranging remarks included a history and analysis of the Israeli, Palestinian and American approaches to the peace process. The summary below focuses primarily on the American aspect of his discussion.

Ambassador Wilcox termed Barack Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo as "stunning", and he praised the President for showing an equal measure of compassion for Israelis and Palestinians, without diminishing America's "unbreakable" bond with Israel.

I arose early yesterday to watch Barack Obama's much-awaited speech in Cairo. Unsurprisingly, I was impressed by the dexterity of the writing and the superb quality of the oratory. And, by and large, I found myself in agreement with everything the President had to say.

And yet, I came away feeling a vague sense of discomfort as well, a slight queasiness that at first defied explanation. After all, wasn't Barack Obama's clear enunciation of the illegitimacy of West Bank settlements and the non-negotiability of the two-state principle the best news since penicillin?

On Friday, February 20, 2009, outgoing Meretz MK Avshalom ("Abu") Vilan spoke to Meretz USA supporters in New York. His remarks were also carried by conference call. The following is a summary of his talk.

Opening on a personal note, MK Vilan noted that, as of February 24, he would no longer be a Knesset Member, since the Meretz party would have only three seats in the new Knesset, and he had been ranked number six on the party list. Vilan noted that he would continue with his effort to promote the One Home initiative for bringing West Bank settlers back to Israel.

MK Vilan first analyzed the results of Israel's February 10 elections, including the setback suffered by both Meretz and Labor. Pointing to the trend shown by the public opinion polls, he reported that the balance between Israel's right-religious bloc and its center-left bloc (65 vs. 55 seats) had been essentially stable - before the Gaza War, during the war, and after it as well. On the other hand, the election campaign saw major shifts within each of these blocs.

Vilan indicated that, in the last weeks of the campaign, the leaders of the two largest parties - Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud - had coordinated their strategy, in an effort by each party to grow at the expense of its natural allies. This strategy worked, he said: In the final run-up to the election, Kadima rose by seven seats at the expense of Labor and Meretz. Likud rose at the expense of Yisrael Beiteinu, whose Knesset result of 15 seats was much less than the polls' prediction of 20.

Meretz USA is proud to take part in this gathering of "Jews Uniting to End the War & Heal America." The US misadventure in Iraq has not only been a bloody disaster for the Iraqi people; it's also been bad for the US, bad for Israel and bad for the Jews. As a progressive Zionist organization, Meretz USA wishes to address how bad the war has been for Israel and the American Jewish community.

The five-year US occupation of Iraq has harmed Israeli interests - emboldening the enemies of Israeli-Arab peace and impeding the progress of peace talks between Israel and its neighbors. With America bogged down in Iraq, the war has expanded the influence of Iran in the region, as well as its rejectionist allies within Lebanon and Palestine. Additionally, the occupation has created new US-Syria antagonisms that have prevented Washington from taking any positive role in the reemerging peace process between Damascus and Jerusalem.

Meretz USA warmly congratulates President-elect Barack Obama on his electoral victory, and wishes him every success in what will literally be an effort at tikkun olam - the need to repair the many ills that are having a deleterious effect on both the United States and the entire world.

When it comes to the question of the Middle East, one must not only hope, but also demand, that the Obama administration will learn from the tragic mistakes of his predecessor, who left Israeli-Arab diplomacy to atrophy for almost seven full years.

There is ample reason for optimism. Standing before an AIPAC audience in June, Mr. Obama clearly committed himself to reversing President Bush's head-in-the-sand approach and being a proactive President when it comes to the Middle East: