Obama should listen to Palestinian views

The consensus among Americans is that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a centrist-leaning cabinet and not a left-of-centre Government which can bring about the real change that he has promised in the election campaign.

Moreover, he is now seen following in the footsteps of his predecessors, whereby he will continue "the decades-long trend of White House advisers asserting more authority over Cabinet departments."

A former White House aide attributed this to his concern over the serious economic crisis the US is facing and thereby "most of the major policy decisions are going to be made in the White House".

Nevertheless, there remains widespread concern that his administration's foreign policies, especially toward the Middle East, where the Arab-Israeli conflict is a key issue, may play second fiddle to his immediate objectives.

More to the point, the Obama transition team has been mum about those much-awaited special envoys who are expected to shepherd US policies in the region. The speculation in the media about those who may occupy these positions, especially that some had served ineffectively in the Clinton administration, has been met with great disappointment.

Reminded

Among the likely candidates are Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Egypt and later Israel, and who is now at Princeton University. He is expected to be the top Middle east envoy. Dennis Ross, described as a close Obama adviser, would be named a special envoy to Iran but his portfolio may include the Middle East.

Others mentioned were Martin Indyk, who served two tours as his country's ambassador to Israel and now is head of the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institution, and Richard C. Holbrooke, who may be the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"There is no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here," is how Aaron David Miller, a former State Department aide and now with the Wilson International Centre for Scholars, put it.

Dr Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine, who was well-connected to the Bush administration, was more direct. "Obama needs to be reminded that the Arab-Israeli conflict has the inherent capacity of getting worse if neglected," he stressed.

The Obama administration needs to tackle the issue of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, he added, and "it is the one factor that physically can derail the two-state solution and which no Israeli leader has been able to confront."

Deteriorating situation

In a well-argued paper on reviving the Arab Peace Initiative (API), announced in March 2002, and which has belatedly attracted Israeli and American attention, Ali Abunimah underlined that the "Arab states could learn from their experience with the API that diplomacy without credible action behind it is just talk."

Abunimah, who is a fellow at the Palestine Centre in Washington, DC, went on to argue that "without a serious reassessment of strategy and willingness to exact a price from Israel for its intransigence, the API will remain dead on revival no mater how often an Arab summit endorses it."

Although Obama is said to have been attracted by the Arab initiative Ross has denied that two serious Mideast issues are bound to land soon on his desk even before Hillary Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state.

The deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip, which has been facing a long and cruel Israeli siege, as well as the forthcoming Israeli elections, which may result in the election of a hawkish Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyaho, are issues that cannot be put on the back burner.

What may somewhat help Obama, who is obviously overwhelmed by the economic crisis at home and its far-reaching consequences across the country, is the growing interest of the American Jewish community in the Arab Peace Initiative, and the role of General James L. Jones, who will be Obama's national security adviser.

An unusually broad spectrum of 29 Jewish groups met last week with senior Obama aides, reported one blogger.

"I've been to a lot of Jewish meetings that the Bush administration has done, and Peace Now, the IPF [Israel Policy Forum], J Street, and Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, were never at those meetings," one attendee was quoted as saying in reference to the peace-oriented groups who are seemingly supportive of the Arab initiative. (Arab-American groups have yet to be invited by Obama's staff).

Appealing

But the presence of General Jones in the White House is more appealing to all. He reportedly gained deep insight into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict while he was supervising the training of Palestinian security forces on the West Bank. (One detractor, Steve Rosen, a senior official of the Israeli lobby [AIPAC] in Washington, who was recently indicted for passing national security information to Israeli diplomats, describes him as "harshly critical of Israel".)

Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, puts it most succinctly in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. Under the headline, "Change they can believe in," Mead writes:

"What the Palestinians want from peace is, first of all, an acknowledgment of the injustices they have suffered. Israeli and Palestinian scholars have documented many incidents during Israel's War of Independence in which massacres or threats of violence caused Palestinians to flee.

"Most Palestinians who left their homes and villages to protect themselves and their families were never allowed to return, and much of their property was confiscated by the new Israeli government. It is not a crime for civilians to flee combat, and international law recognises the right of such people to return to their homes."

This is what Obama needs to know.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.