I Quit

It appears as though President Obama has largely given up on making any progress towards resolving the difficult issues in Israel/Palestine. After a much publicized start which included the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy and Obama’s Cairo speech to the Arab and Muslim worlds, the whole situation has deteriorated into a stalemate.

In a recent Time magazine interview Obama acknowledged that he had overestimated his ability to get the Israelis and Palestinians to move the peace process forward. He should have realized that to achieve any results, he was going to have to spend a lot of political capital to take on the Israel lobby in the US.

Once Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu realized that he had the upper hand, he stonewalled Obama on every initiative. When it was rumored that Obama would send a letter to the parties outlining a framework for a settlement, Netanyahu immediately preempted it by declaring that Jerusalem would eternally be part of Israel and that Israel would retain control over the border between any Palestinian state and Jordan. Last week’s last ditch effort by George Mitchell to rescue the situation was rebuffed by all parties.

It has long been clear to many observers, this one included, that a two state solution is no longer possible and a single state in Palestine for all its citizens will be the only way out. As Israeli activist Jeff Halper recently pointed out to me, “You and I can say a single state is the best solution, but only the Palestinians can decide that it is what they want”. Until they decide, there is little that the international community can do to help.

Israel is more being seen, not as the only democracy in the Middle East, but as the only apartheid state in the world. In response to this, the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement to pressure Israel to change is growing, particularly in Europe. The US, as it was in South Africa, will be late to the party. The fact that only 9 minutes of a 70 minute State of the Union address was devoted to foreign relations shows that the US is turning inward. Someone else will have to take the lead.