Obama's Scandinavian impatience

  Hanne Foighel

The other day a young Dane called me. An eighth grade student, he was writing on the solution to the Middle East conflict, he told me, and could I please help him clear a few murky points.

I am a great believer in students doing their own homework and not only parroting "experts", so I asked the young gentleman to present me with his analysis and only then pose his questions.

The boy had both studied and understood that there were problems to be solved over the West Bank, ownership of water, settlements, Jerusalem and the refugee situation. I complimented him.

We then spoke about the current problems of the new US president, the new Israeli government, the uncertainties about the future Palestinian government and the fears each side has of the moves of the other.

When I cited to him the Israeli claim that each centimeter of occupied land given up would be used for rocket attacks just as had happened in Gaza, the young student interrupted and asked rhetorically: but if Israel withdrew from the occupied territories there would be peace, wouldn't there?

The simple assumption that if there were no more occupation, a peace agreement would be imminent and peace would break out is very typical of the Scandinavian understanding of the conflict. A Danish politician a few years ago wrote a comment under the title "How difficult can it be?" wondering aloud how come the parties "just don't sit down and solve the problems".

Indeed, how is it going now with the sitting down and agreeing on the small print, be it Binyamin Netanyahu with his coalition partners, Fateh with Hamas, Fateh's old guard with Fateh's young guard and the members of the Arab League among themselves, not to mention the Israeli and the Palestinian side?

No matter what one otherwise might think of the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, one cannot but compare him to the little boy in the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale "The Emperor's New Clothes". When Lieberman says, "For 16 years the so-called peace process has not brought any solution to the conflict", he is like that small boy shouting, "the emperor is naked".

Lieberman has offered his suggestions for alternative solutions but rumors have it that Netanyahu has told him to shut up until the official policy of the Israeli government has been presented--and possibly amended--after Netanyahu's recent visit to Washington.

The big question hovering over the situation is what path US President Barack Obama will choose to walk. No one should doubt that Obama has some of the Scandinavian impatience in his approach to the conflict. He wants things to move forward toward a two-state-solution. Now.

In the last weeks, several members of his administration including Vice President Joseph Biden have outlined details of the president's vision. At an AIPAC meeting, Biden demanded a complete end to Israeli settlement building, immediate dismantling of the so-called illegal settlement outposts that even Ariel Sharon promised George W. Bush to dismantle but never did, and freedom of movement and economic opportunity for the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Just a few days before the Netanyahu visit, an Israeli newspaper ran a story about Obama having sent envoys to Jerusalem to explain clearly to the Israeli government that Washington expects Israel not to attack any target in Iran whatsoever and not to disrupt the American effort to hold a serious dialogue with the Islamic Republic.

In certain EU circles there is a feeling that the Obama administration is prepared to put pressure behind its demands on Israel. Some believe that Washington is thinking of using economic pressure to make the Netanyahu government understand just how urgent Obama views these matters.

It will take some time until the bits and pieces leaked from the private meeting between Obama and Netanyahu make it to the public. And even then it might take a while before a clear picture of just what Obama demanded and what Netanyahu answered will emerge.

In the longer term, the question is whether President Obama will be able to keep up the pressure he seems to want to apply both to Israel and the Palestinians, or whether he will end up feeling, as did a number of his predecessors, that he should have stayed far away from the Middle East beehive.- Published 21/5/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Hanne Foighel is a correspondent for the Danish newspaper Politiken.