Why is Obama hassling Israel on settlements when Israel already ceded the point nine years ago?

One image sticks forever in our mind: The lush greenhouses of Gaza, erected and nourished by Israelis, turned over to the Palestinians in 2005, and promptly burned to the ground by Palestinians.

Reality must govern diplomacy. The Palestinian reality is no more forcefully encapsulated than in those burning greenhouses.

So when President Obama comes down hard on Israel to stop all settlement growth — the diplomacy — he must let the reality govern. Translation: Any Palestinian (or purely American) demand for a cessation of settlement activity must answer this question: Why?

The Palestinian answer is: Settlements prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state. That’s the stated answer, the overt claim. The incinerated greenhouses suggest a different answer: Israel should not exist as a Jewish state and getting rid of settlements is a first step.

Is that really the Palestinian position, or just Jewish paranoia?

Is that a tone-deaf throwback to the George Bush years, oblivious to the reality of a new presidency?

Actually, that is the Palestinian position articulated brilliantly and forcefully nine years ago.

Already in the year 2000, the thorny issue of Israeli settlements came to a creative solution. It is exactly the kind of solution Obama prefers — built on compromise and the search for common ground.

At the Camp David talks between the head of Israel and the head of the Palestinian Authority, shepherded by Obama’s Democratic precedessor, Bill Clinton, Israel said: The exact square mileage of these Israeli settlements, Israel will cede to a Palestinian state from land in the Negev. A trade. Even Steven. Israel told the PA: You’ll get your territory.

The Palestinian Authority rejected the offer hands down.

It wasn’t land for a Palestinian state that the PA wanted; it was the end to Israeli settlements. Sounds like the same thing, but it isn’t.The Palestinians wanted to build something of their own less than they wanted to tear down something that Israel had built.

Like the greenhouses.

The Palestinian search for a state, as the philosophers like to say, has an entailment. And that entailment is the end to the Israeli, Jewish state. Piecemeal. Settlement by settlement, one at a time. Witness: Since the Israeli withdrawal from its settlements in Gaza, the Palestinians there have not built their own state or even the beginnings thereof. Again, burning greenhouses, Kassam rockets. That’s the image. That’s the reality. That’s the desire.

So, what is an American president, earnestly and forcefully trying to force a real peace, supposed to do? In a word, fight winnable battles. Instead of telling Israel to do something it cannot do — insist that the residents of, say, Karnei Shomrom stop having babies, i.e., stop “natural growth” — tell Israel this: The Palestinians need territory for a state. If you must keep your settlements, be prepared to give up territory elsewhere, such as the Negev.

Guess what. If Obama said that, it’s not that Israel would agree. Israel already has agreed.

We know the counterargument. The Palestinians need contiguous territory for a viable state of their own. For that, Israeli settlements must go.

Any ride through the West Bank will show that this is simply not true. Israeli settlements, and their connecting highways, take up a tiny fraction of the West Bank, most of which is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, but empty. That’s the myth: that Israel has come to dominate the West Bank. Take a look. Go there yourself. You’ll see, it’s a myth. Obama should have his special envoy, George Mitchell, survey the entire West Bank. He’ll see that what we’re saying is the geographical reality. Plus, land in the northeast Negev is continguous to the West Bank.

So why is Obama so insistent on Israel ending all settlement activity? One cannot escape the conclusion that his agenda is not strictly an Israel-Palestinian peace. If that’s all he desired, he would:

(a) stop hectoring Israel on settlements and start telling both Israel and the Palestinians that the Palestinians will be compensated — in actual territory;

(b) admit up front that any Israel-Palestinian peace will be limited, since Hamas rejects peace with Israel on any level. The only possible peace deal now is between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, i.e., Israel and the West Bank (plus the putatively ceded territory from the Negev).

With some difficult work, no doubt, both (a) and (b) could come to fruition. There would be a partial Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu would be the first to embrace it, Abbas the second.

So why is Obama not doing this? Why is he choosing to focus on the inherently divisive issue of settlements? One cannot escape the conclusion that he is speaking to a larger Middle East or Islamic audience — larger than the Israelis and the Palestinians. He seems to have bought the idea that the reason why Pakistan and Afghanistan are fighting, the reason why Saudi Arabia is on high alert against Iran, the reason why Lebanon is torn apart by pro- and anti-Hezbollah forces, the reason why pro- and anti-democratic forces rile Egypt is . . . Israel. To see in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the root of all conflicts in the Middle East plays well in the Arab world, and indeed around the world. It’s poppycock. Pro-democratic forces in Cairo would be just as upset at Mubarak even if Israel and the Palestinians lived in perfect peace. Likewise, around the Middle East.

Subtly, Obama seems to have signed on to the claim — stated overtly or covertly by everyone from  the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah —  that something in Israel must be torn down for peace to proceed. Torched greenhouses are a necessity.

Israel tried tearing down settlements in August, 2005 when she withdrew from Gaza. Israel is not likely to try again.

Obama can make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. All the elements were articulated nine years ago. The question is, what is Obama’s agenda? Is the Israeli-Palestinian piece merely a launching pad for a larger vision of American-Islamic (or American-Arab) cooperation — and if Israel needs to lose homes, people, families and security to make it work, well, that’s just a price it will have to pay?

Israel did not cause the other conflicts in the Middle East, nor can it solve them. Keep it simple. Ask just this: Since the US last witnessed an Israeli destruction of her own settlements, in Gaza, 2005, are Israelis and Palestinian better off, or worse off? The Palestinian are worse off. Their post-greenhouse arson strategy — shooting missiles into Israel —brought them the Gaza war and massive destruction last December and January. Israel, too, is less secure, more vulnerable, both in the north and the south.

Obama needs to understand that to focus on settlements is to focus on what, for the Palestinians, is a  symbol, not an obstacle. The Palestinians want those symbols destroyed. They want the greenhouses burned. They speak with disdain of Israel as a Jewish state. They want destruction as a precondition to, or a necessary accompaniment of, their own state. And when we say “they,” remember it was the Abbas’ PA, not Hamas, which controlled Gaza after Israel withdrew,  and which torched the greenhouses. Obama needs to see beyond the symbols to the substance and act accordingly.