Israeli Settlements – the failure of Obama’s policy

For many years, Israel and the Palestinians have “negotiated” for peace with the assistance of the US. In the last years of the Clinton administration, these negotiations got the farthest. Israel offered Yassir Arafat 99% of what he was seeking, so that Arafat did the only thing left to him. He refused the Israeli offer and started the Intifada that led to many Israelis dead from terror attacks, many more Palestinians killed in fighting stemming from those attacks, destitution for large segments of the Palestinian people who were isolated along with the terrorists, and separation of the West Bank from Israel by a wall that limits the freedom of movement of the Palestinians and hobbles their attempts at commerce. As the eloquent former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban said, “The Arabs never miss and opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Over the years, the Israelis were also able to negotiate peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and some other Arab countries. There was also cooperation between Israel and the Arabs in dealing with the First Gulf War. During all these negotiations, Israel continued building homes for its people in Israel proper and in some of the territories won in the Six Day War. This construction was never an impediment to the negotiations.
All that changed once Barack Obama and his advisors took over. Suddenly, Israeli “settlements” could have no further construction in them. The hundreds of thousands of Jews living in these neighborhoods (most of which were part of Jerusalem) were no longer to be allowed to build homes or schools or workplaces. Indeed, obama announced this construction as a great obstacle to peace.
I have often wondered which of the “geniuses” surrounding Obama came up with the idea of calling for a settlement construction halt. My guess is that it is one of the leftists who do not view Israel as a sovereign nation but rather who buy into the nonsense that it is just a western outpost imposed upon the native people of the region. There are a sufficient number of these folks in Obama’s foreign policy establishment that there are a fair number of suspects for the idiot who came up with this policy.
Of course, the Obama policy was a total failure. Icy relations between the US and Israel were the result when Obama went ballistic when some new construction began when Biden was in Israel for a visit. Obama put massive pressure on Israel and the Israelis finally relented and put in place a temporary freeze of construction in all settlements but not in Jerusalem. That freeze has now expired.
So what has Obama done now? The Israelis and the Palestinians were back talking. Obama could easily have announced that those discussions should continue with no interruption since the Israelis had already made their good faith clear by the prior freeze. But no, Obama had to go back to the original flawed policy. (is there some proverb that says you need to dance with the moron who brought you?) Obama asked Israel for and extension of the freeze.

Not surprisingly, Israel refused. After all, Obama has been revealed as a weakened leader who cannot even swing a majority in the recent elections. In almost every foreign interaction by Obama in the last few months, there has been a failure by the US to get its position approved by the other side. This was no exception. (And no surprise) So what has Obama done next? He has offered a bribe to the Israelis for a three month extension of the freeze. The latest news reports say that the US will sell Israel 20 additional advanced fighter planes and will support Israel in certain votes in the UN. There may be other items that Obama has given to get this three month extension. (the UN voting issue leads one to think of that other famous quote from Eban, “If Algeria introduced a resolution [at the UN] declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”)
For its part, Israel will probably give the extension for every place other than Jerusalem. A three month extension will no change much of anything in the negotiations with the Palestinians. They have no desire for peace and Abbas cannot deliver peace in any event. Israel, however, will get a bunch of “presents” from the US, and not much else will change.
So Obama and his geniuses will have managed to incur the cost of the goodies given to Israel and obtained nothing meaningful in return. Is there nothing that Obama can do right?