Opinion: Settlement freeze - Is now the time for peace?

Since President Barack Obama took office, the pro-Israel community within the United States has shouldered much frustration.

The president’s dust-ups with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning issues ranging from the settlement freeze in the West Bank to the Iranian nuclear threat have brought the U.S.-Israeli relationship into its most uncomfortable position in recent memory.

During my recent trip to Israel, a group of Israeli college students told me they were worried the United States no longer fully supported Israel’s existence — a shocking claim coming from a nation that receives more than $2.6 billion in U.S. military assistance funding annually.

But Israelis do not question Israel’s ties with just the United States. The Jewish state’s relationships with notoriously anti-Semitic regions of Europe — specifically France, Spain and Italy — have grown more and more precarious in recent years.

Considering the creation of the state of Israel was largely orchestrated by the diplomatic force of post-World War II Western powers in Europe and the United States, it seems strange that these countries are so eager to distance themselves from Israel’s cause.

But does this de-Zionization of sorts actually put the United States in a better position to craft a lasting peace between the Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis? Is Obama intentionally distancing himself from the Zionist to gain the trust of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and to win the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people?

During a recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Obama challenged world leaders to practice tolerance toward our many faiths and tone down political extremism and violence. If nations took steps to do so, as well as removing obstructions to the Middle East peace process, the president suggested, at this time next year, the United Nations might be joined by a new member country — a free and independent Palestine.

However, during that same assemblage of world leaders, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad eliminated the Americans’ hope for moderation, suggesting, among other outrageously insulting things, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by factions in the United States to “reverse the declining American economy” and “save this Zionist regime” in Israel. This follows past claims that Ahmadinejad wanted to “wipe Israel off the map.”

The United Nations has repeatedly joined Ahmadinejad in condemning Israel for human rights violations while the Israeli Defense Force acts to protect Israel’s citizenry from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Consider that, during the 2006-07 session of the United Nations General Assembly, member nations approved 22 resolutions accusing Israel of violating human rights, all the while passing not a single resolution condemning the Janjaweed in Darfur for their genocidal massacres of
innocent civilians. Sounds fair and balanced.

If Obama can somehow use his moderate position within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to broker a two-state peace agreement suitable for the Israelis, the Palestinians, extremist dictators of Muslim countries and the largely anti-Israeli modern United Nations, he might well come to deserve his Nobel Peace Prize.


E-mail: jkingsol@indiana.edu