UNISCI - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

More documents

Recommendations

Info

UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206the occupied Arab territories or to expand existing ones. The precedent set by Obama in hisJerusalem speech suggests a predictable pattern: the Obama Administration will expressverbal disapproval, and perhaps even condemnation, of Israel's practical steps to strengthen itssettlers' presence on the West Bank, but will take no effective action to influence the Jewishstate's policies. In turn, this will probably lead to a prolongation of the current situation,including recurrent clashes between Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza with the attendantdanger of a spiral of violence spinning beyond the control of any actor. If Obama succeeds inkicking the ball down the road, he will bequeath the same problem to a successor,complicated by the additional time Israel will have gained to incorporate settlements into itsnational system.On the other hand, it is not yet totally impossible for Obama to reverse his position andcommit himself to rescuing the two-state solution. Although there is but a small chance ofthis—and one that will rapidly diminish as his second term unfolds—the president didmanage to squeeze into the March 21 Jerusalem speech sufficient qualifications to reversehimself. In the unlikely event that this were to occur, history, as well as changes in Americanpublic opinion, may carry useful lessons for navigating the tricky currents of White House-Israeli relations.In 1944, at a time when the acerbic American Zionist leader Abba Hillel Silver hadcome close to entering into a direct confrontation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, themoderate Zionist leader Dr. Nahum Goldmann cautioned his colleagues on the AmericanZionist Emergency Council in these stark words:Antagonizing the president of the United States is a serious matter.... If this fight…andthis policy of attacking the Administration is continued it will lead us—and I choose mywords very carefully—to complete political disaster. 45A key feature of the American political system is what Theodore Roosevelt once calledthe "bully pulpit," the office of the presidency's power to manufacture, and appeal to, publicsupport for White House policy preferences. It was this powerful weapon that PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower employed to force a very reluctant Israeli Prime Minister, David BenGurion, to order the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula following the1956 Suez War. Failing to find congressional support for for his demand that Israel pull backfrom the occupied Egyptian territory, Eisenhower brought his case directly to the Americanpeople. His stand led to Israel's departure from the Sinai the following month. In a majortelevision and radio speech to the American public on February 20, 1957, Eisenhowerrhetorically asked and answered one major question:Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of UnitedNations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its own withdrawal? If we agreedthat armed attack can properly achieve the purposes of the assailant, then I fear we will haveturned back the clock of international order. 4645 Cited in Schechtman, Joseph B. (1966): The United States and the Jewish State Movement, New York, HerzlPress, p. 83; See also Tschirgi, Dan: "The Context of Israeli-Palestinian 'Final" Negotiations," UNISCIDiscussion Papers, no. 26 (May, 2011), p. 18, athttp://www.euromesco.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1731%3Athe-context-of-israelipalestinian-final-negotiations-&catid=88%3Amembers-publications&Itemid=79&lang=en.46 "Eisenhower's Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in the Middle East",Jewish Virtual Library, February 20, 1957, athttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/ikewarn1.html.184
UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206The bully pulpit was also the same weapon that years later—in 1977—anotherAmerican president, Jimmy Carter, refused to use when he clashed with Israeli DefenseMinister, Moshe Dayan, much to the distress of National Security Advisor ZbigniewBrzezinski. On that occasion, the issue involved plans for a general peace conference inGeneva. Brzezinski, along with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Israeli AmbassadorSimcha Dinitz, was in the New York hotel room where the events unfolded. Brzezinskirecalls the encounter in these words:Dayan in effect blackmailed the President…at one instance, Dayan said, 'We need tohave some agreed formula, but I can go to Israel and the American Jews. I have to say thereis an agreement and not a confrontation.' To which the President replied, 'We might have aconfrontation unless you are willing to cooperate. But a confrontation would be verydamaging to Israel and to the support of the American public to Israel.'....In the end, we got a compromise statement [Carter] was quite tough; but he didn't gofar enough, in my judgment, to indicate that if challenged he would go to the country andthere would be an all-out confrontation. 47Public opinion in the United States is now clearly no longer as reflexively pro-Israel asit was once. Alvin Richman, formerly an analyst of public opinion with the State Departmentand the US Information Agency, and now a private consultant, produced a paper in 2010entitled "Attitude Factors in the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A ComprehensiveReview of Recent Polls." 48 Richman's careful analysis reinforces the case that Obama mighthave successfully confronted Israel's right wing government.While a significant majority of Americans retain their long-established preference forIsrael rather than Palestinians (63% to 15%), "most ...prefer that the U.S. not take sides in theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict." 49 When World Public Opinion. Org asked "which side the U.S.should take" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "a majority of those replying said the U.S.should not take either side (71%), compared to 21% who wanted the U.S. to take Israel's sideand 3 percent take the Palestinians' side." 50Since 1994, Gallup Polls have "consistently shown that Americans predominantly favorthe establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza strip.'" 51This is in keeping with earlier studies of U.S. public opinion. Polls taken by the Program onInternational Policy Attitudes (PIPA) going back to 2001 found a solid majority of Americans(77%) supporting the idea of a Palestinian state. 52 Earlier polls further established two majoradditional aspects of public opinion in the United States. The first was the 2003 Gallupfinding that Americans overwhelmingly (87%) considered resolution of the Palestinian-Israeliconflict as an "important goal" for U.S. foreign policy. 53 The second finding of polls taken in47Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1983): Power and Principle: Memoires of a National Security Adviser, New York,Farrar, Straus, Giroux, pp. 108-09.48 Richman, Alvin: "Attitude Factors in the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A Comprehensive Review ofRecent Polls", World Public Opinion, September, 2010, athttp://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/666.php.49 Ibid., p. 10.50 Ibid.51 Ibid.52 "Israel and the Palestinians, Support for a Palestinian State", Americans and the World Digest, athttp://www.americans-world.org/digest/regional issues/israel/palestinians/pressure.cfm.53"Israel and the Palestinians, Importance of the Middle East to the US", Americans and the World Digest, athttp://www.americans-world.org/digest/regional issues/IsraelPalestinians/pressure.cfm.185
Page 1 and 2:
ISSN 1696-2206 Nº 33 Octubre /Octo
Page 3 and 4:
Juan Emilio CheyreDirector, Center
Page 5 and 6:
UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (O
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134: UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (O
Page 183: UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (O
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
show all

UNISCI - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?