Obama's Middle East Speech Did Not Measure Up to the Occasion

Newspapers and TV commentators are reporting extensively today on the Middle East speech given by President Obama yesterday.

The bombshell contained in the speech was the suggestion by Obama that Israel negotiate peace with Palestine based on the pre-1967 war borders. This is the first time an American president has made such a suggestion, and in the United States, many were shocked and dismayed that he chose to “abandon” Israel. Most Americans believe that the 1967 borders, which are actually the 1949 ceasefire lines, are not defensible as borders today.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was equally unimpressed. He stated afterward that “the viability of the Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.” Netanyahu noted that many Israeli citizens would be outside Israel if parts of the West Bank were to be put under Palestine control.

Obama added that the Palestinian state should be “non-militarized” and that some trade-offs of territories should be made to accommodate large Jewish settlements.

He left the fiercely debated questions of East Jerusalem and the right of return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees off the map for now, saying that the border negotiation would set the stage for resolving those two difficult issues.

The President also called on Arab governments to carry out democratic reform, and suggested that as for Syria, President Bashar al-Assad should “…lead the transition or get out of the way.” But, these principles were lost in the noise created by his 1967-border statement.

The speech was received coolly by Americans and Arabs alike.

The Arab Spring has clearly gotten out ahead of the President, and its leaders will probably not be satisfied with his small idea of forgiving two billion dollars worth of loans to Egypt or working to get multilateral lending institutions to aid in the transition to viable economies.

If there is to be a Marshall Plan for the Middle East and North Africa, it will not have Barak Obama’s name on it. His speech was rather ordinary in its half-way proposals and lacked the vision required to lead in the region’s renewal.