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Course Correction Needed for Mideast Peace

[World Politics Review] Frida Ghitis - President Obama would do well to pay attention to a growing chorus rising from the Israeli left, people who largely agree with the administration's overall goals. Israeli peace activists are all but begging Obama to adjust his course before he destroys the chances for peace. Their principal worry is that Obama is losing the Israeli public. Israelis generally greeted Obama's election as a breath of fresh air. However, Israelis of all stripes have come to believe that Obama is deliberately putting all the pressure on Israel and essentially none on the other side. As worried commentators have noted, he risks permanently losing the support of the Israeli people. And in Israel, unlike many of the neighboring countries, the government cannot make major decisions if the public does not support it. Obama may be hoping that his cold-shoulder, tough-love attitude will prompt Israelis to dump their leader. In fact, his actions are having the opposite effect, weakening opposition to Netanyahu. Israelis want to hear Obama say - and to Arabs - that Israel has a right to exist that goes far beyond the Holocaust. That Jews have lived there for thousands of years, and that for thousands of years of exile - long before the word "Holocaust" came to mean the genocide of the Jewish people - Jews around the globe yearned to return to the land of their ancestors. This is not a right-wing view. That has been a fact of life for Jews across the ages.
2009-07-31 06:00:00
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