I.
President Obama
The cynics will say that President Obamas speech on behalf of Israel at the UN last week was motivated by electoral concerns he got the message from the special Congressional election in New York, in which a Republican won for the first time since 1922 in a heavily liberal, Jewish district.
Or, the cynics will say that the mess at the UN, with the Palestinian Authority seeking a unilateral recognition of statehood, was caused by Obamas inept handling of the Middle East to begin with.
Or, the cynics will say that Congresss rousing welcome of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus speech to a joint session of Congress last June showed Obama just how persuasive Netanyahus policies and positions are.
Even if the cynics are perfectly correct, President Obamas speech was a dramatic affirmation of Israels right to be, and to be a Jewish state. He said every right thing, and said it powerfully, and to the right people.
At a time when world opinion never overly sympathetic to Israel in the past 29 years (since Israels 1982 invasion of Lebanon) is dangerously demonizing Israel, Obamas pro-Israel stand is especially welcome.
Obama affirmed the historic ties of the Jewish people to Israel (a vital point missing from his outreach-to-the-Muslim world speech in Cairo June, 2009).
Obama opposed the Palestinians application for admission to the UN as an independent state, and lectured it on the need for negotiations with Israel.
Obama called Americas ties with Israel unshakeable and deep and enduring.
Obama told it like it is. He said: Israels children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off the map.
The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied.
Words, of course, mean nothing if Israel does not have the weapons to defend itself. Check this: The delivery of weapons to Israel is more extensive under the Obama administration than under any previous American president.
Other facts that cannot be denied are the mistakes Obama has made with Israel; mainly, hectoring Israel on settlements from the day he took office when settlements are not the root cause of the conflict; enabling the Palestinians to demand a cessation of settlement construction as a precondition to negotiations (something no other American president and no pre-2009 Palestinian leader ever insisted on); invoking what Abba Eban called the Auschwitz borders, the pre-June 1967 armistice lines as the basis of negotiations with the Palestinians; and sending envoys to Israel, with all kinds of demands of Israel, who did not who understand the nuances or the history of the conflict.
We want to believe that with the presidents speech to the UN, and with his steady security support of Israel, he has changed. Surely, Israel needs American military aid and diplomatic support more than ever. Meanwhile, for his speech, the only appropriate response is: Thank you!
II.
Prime Minister Netanyahu
Then came Benjamin Netanyahu. Believe it or not, he actually received a few rounds of applause at the UN. In any case, he told many truths, and told them powerfully:
Israel stopped all settlements for 10 months and the Palestinians did not come to the table.
Israel tried the dramatic, sweeping gesture giving all of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005 for nothing in return just what the world tells Israel to do now.
Actually, Israel did get something in return: thousands of rocket attacks. Israel will not try the grand gesture again.
The Palestinians want their state to be free of Jews. They want a racist state. (Note: the Jewish state has one million Arab citizens.)
Israels airspace which allows a jet to fly across it in three minutes cannot be divided up without lethally compromising Israels security.
The newcomers to the Holy Land are the Palestinians, not the other way around.
The Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel, but not as a Jewish state.
This means, as Israels ambassador to the US has put it, not a two-state solution, but a two-stage solution. Palestinian recognition of Israel empirically, without acknowledgement of its Jewish right to be, is but the first stage toward the Arab destruction of Israel.
The Palestinian refusal to negotiate is silly. Netanyahu and Abbas were in the same building, the same city. Netanyahu invited Abbas to negotiate that day. You can guess Abbas answer.
The UN is the theater of the absurd. The likes of Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now control, or have controlled, UN human rights bodies.
The UN is obsessed with Israel, criticizing it without end.
Benjamin Netanyahu stood up for the Jewish people eloquently, forthrightly, courageously, at the right time, in the right place. He told it like it is.
His words will mean a lot more if they, together with the words and the efforts of the Obama administration, persuade or pressure the Palestinians and their allies to come to the table with Israel and to make a fair deal there.
Otherwise, the show last week at the UN will only turn out to be the latest Palestinian instance of Abba Ebans bon mot: The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Our opportunity, this Rosh Hashanah, is to pray for an infinitely better, peaceful solution.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
