Following his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President Obama made it clear that along with security measures, he is expecting Palestinians to do more to combat incitement and hate speech against Jews and Israel. As I observed yesterday, they should certainly do this, as it is strongly in the Palestinian national interest. Not only does incitement damage the prospects for the peace agreement that both Palestinians and Israelis require to cure a decent future, societies in which hatred is tolerated or common find themselves corroded and ultimately poisoned by the distortions that irrational anger and rage create. Of course, occupation is itself the most potent source of Palestinian anger against Israel, so that serious measures to crack down on incitement have a symbiotic relationship with progress on peace: neither can make progress without the other. However, the President’s bold and constructive approach on settlements and other issues vital to the Palestinian interest mandates that Palestinians take all possible measures to restrain incitement both in their own interests and in response to reasonable demands from a United States government that is acting responsibly and playing its part.

However, as anyone who follows Israeli and pro-Israel discourse will be well aware, incitement and hate speech are a two-way street in this conflict. Racism, intolerance and hate speech against Palestinians and other Arabs have been a standard feature of some Israeli discourse dating back to the origins of the Israeli state, and there is no need to recite the litany of hateful comments by significant Israeli figures and organizations over many decades that reflect hatred as vicious as anything to be seen on the Palestinian side. Moreover, some extremist supporters of Israel in the Diaspora have been among the most enthusiastic purveyors of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in the West. Prominent right-wing Jewish websites such as jewishworldreview.com and David Horowitz’s appalling frontpagemag.com spew such hatred on a virtually daily basis. The right-wing Israeli organization Aish HaTorah and its American supporters were responsible for the distribution of millions of free DVD copies of the overtly bigoted anti-Muslim film "Obsession," which argues, in effect, that the Palestinian national identity and cause are nothing more or less than an anti-Semitic Nazi plot. The extremist author Bat Ye’or has constructed a bizarre conspiracy theory about European leaders supposedly "selling out" Europe to "the Arabs" in order to get money and continue an unfinished holocaust against the Jews that rivals anything inspired by the notorious forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Denial that the Palestinian people exist at all, have any national rights, or are animated by anything other than barbarism and an inherently murderous and terrorist mentality are commonplace in certain segments of pro-Israel discourse. Confidence tricksters posing as reformed "Muslim former terrorists," who are both shameless hucksters and fanatical right-wing evangelical Christians who yearn for the apocalypse, have been able to apparently make a decent living going around the country preaching the most extreme intolerance against Palestinians and Muslims. One could go on indefinitely with this theme, but you get the idea.

Even more disturbingly, incitement to anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab violence is to be found on the fringes of Jewish-American rhetoric about the conflict, just as incitement to violence against Israel and Israelis can be found at the extremes of Muslim-American rhetoric. In one scandalous recent incident, an Israeli settler leader called for the murder of Palestinian President Abbas at a fund-raising event at a synagogue in New York City. This disturbing phenomenon has been further illustrated by two additional examples of pro-Israel Jewish-American incitement against Palestinians. Rabbi Sidney Schwarz wrote in the Jewish Week about attending a recent pro-Israel celebration in which young Jewish-American men danced around chanting rhymes alternating “’the people of Israel lives’ with ‘all the Arabs must die.’ It rhymed with the Hebrew. Given the way all joined in, it was clear that this was not the first time it was sung. I leaned over to a young man who was next to me, also wearing a kippah and tzitzit. I nodded at the dancers and asked: ‘Does this song bother you?’ He looked at me with a suspicious look and replied: ‘This is Zionism.’”

Rabbi Manis Friedman of the Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies in St. Paul, MN answered a question from Moment Magazine about “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” by writing: “The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)." The Rabbi subsequently attempted to "clarify" that he was only speaking about how Jews “should act in a time of war.” What a relief! According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, "Friedman, who lives in St. Paul, Minn., is among the country’s most prominent Chabad rabbis. He has appeared on CNN, PBS and the BBC, and been the subject of articles in major national publications.”

It should be noted that Rabbi Friedman’s outrageous remarks have met with considerable condemnation in many Jewish-American circles. However, what these incidents, and scores of others like them, demonstrate is that the important mission of combating incitement and hate speech is required of both Palestinian and pro-Palestinian communities and Jewish and pro-Israel ones as well. President Obama is right to be concerned about the ill effects of incitement, but incitement, in the final analysis, is a symptom of the conflict, not its central cause, although certainly it drives as well as feeds off of the violence and lack of peace that bedevils the Middle East. What this all underscores is the urgent need for responsible and serious voices in all communities to play their part in making it crystal clear that hatred and incitement are unacceptable and that they damage the health, well-being and interests of the communities which they are supposedly intended to serve.

More evidence emerges today of the change in the American political scene regarding settlements and occupation that I have been writing and speaking about in numerous forums for more than a year now. This dramatic shift is the essential backdrop to President Obama’s Middle East trip that begins today.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency notes that, “Even as it publicly stakes out a hard-line position against Israeli settlement expansion, the Obama administration is avoiding serious criticism from most U.S. Jewish groups and pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers. Key pro-Israel Jewish Democrats have backed the president on the importance of an Israeli settlement freeze while also suggesting there is room for a compromise between the Netanyahu government and the White House. Meanwhile, the major Jewish centrist organizations — including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC — have refrained from issuing statements criticizing the Obama administration on the issue."

Nathan Guttman of Ha’aretz has a similar story today, observing accurately that, "For the first time in America’s decades of jousting with Israel over West Bank settlements, an American president seems to have succeeded in isolating the settlements issue and disconnecting it from other elements of support for Israel.” He writes that when Prime Minister Netanyahu visited members of Congress following his meeting with President Obama, " he was ‘stunned,’ Netanyahu aides said, to hear what seemed like a well-coordinated attack against his stand on settlements. The criticism came from congressional leaders, key lawmakers dealing with foreign relations and even from a group of Jewish members. They included Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee; California Democrat Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and California Rep. Henry Waxman, a senior Democrat.” Guttman adds, "according to the congressional aide, lawmakers rejected Netanyahu’s call for Palestinian reciprocity on terrorism as a precondition and kept pressing him on the need to stop building in settlements.”

And Ha’aretz also reports that, " The U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, will arrive in Israel next Monday night. He will meet with Netanyahu the day after in a bid to obtain clarifications regarding the U.S. demand to stop construction in the settlements and on the principle of two states for two peoples.”

These gestures by President Obama and the members of Congress in question are not cost-free. They are significant, bold and serious steps, breaking with traditional approaches and eschewing both the lowest common denominator and the siren song of doing nothing. As the President has his meetings in Saudi Arabia today and his speech in Egypt tomorrow, everyone in the Arab and Muslim world who deals with or listens to him should bear in mind that this is someone who has changed the political landscape in very short order and entirely for the better. It has been years if not decades since the Arabs and the Palestinians, and everyone who is interested in peace and stability in the Middle East, has been presented with such dramatic opportunities to work with American policy and achieve important results.

Obama is acting in the American national interest, but he is doing so in a more enlightened manner than some of his predecessors. The Palestinians, the Arab states, Israel and the other key actors need to do the same: proceed now on the basis of their rational self-interest over the long run. Obama has laid down a new standard for being constructive and serious in pursuit of long-term national interests with regard to peace in the Middle East and it is up to everyone else now, not sometime in the future, to live up to this new standard of responsibility.

Ibishblog received a question from a reader who begins by taking issue with my characterization that Ali Abunimah these days seems to be saying different things to different audiences. I strongly stand by that characterization. He then asks a substantial question regarding my opinion about the right of return for Palestinian refugees and how it has evolved or remained consistent over the years.

The substance of the question was:
“In your recent conversation with the LA Israeli consul general, you were willing to jettison the Palestinian’s right of return, a right you very ably defended in an ADC publication not so very long ago; a paper co-authored with the same Abunimah. So what happened? Do you, as you assert of Abunimah, write different things for different audiences, or are you no longer persuaded by your own argument regarding the right of return? If the latter, can you explain what you now find unconvincing about that argument?”

Thank you very much for this question. I very much appreciate the opportunity of being able to clarify what is an important issue and the source of a good deal of confusion, especially online. First, I wish to state plainly that in the radio program with Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, Jacob Dayan, I most certainly did not “jettison” the Palestinian right of return; nor am I in any position to do so. The way in which the refugee issue is dealt with in terms of the national agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, that is to say between Israel and Palestine, is a matter for government negotiators and must be subject to popular approval in a referendum. Individual refugee rights, which are inviolable, can be pursued through legal and political means other than continuing the conflict and the occupation.

Moreover, in the radio program I insisted that the right of return was a principle that ought to be recognized by Israel as part of an end-of-conflict agreement. However, I also recognized that, as a sovereign state, Israel has the authority to determine who will be entering its territory, and that the logic of a two-state peace agreement is not consistent with the return of huge numbers of Palestinian refugees to live in Israel. I also said that, in my view, Israel should agree to allow some refugees the option to return, but that if it refused to do so in agreement that would end the occupation and end the conflict should not be “broken on those rocks.”

As to the paper to which the reader referred, it is a monograph entitled, “The Palestinian Right of Return” (ADC, 2001), written eight years ago, before the start of the second intifada. I’m not sure if that’s "not so long ago" or not, but that is indeed beside the point. During the negotiations that were taking place eight years ago, the right of return was a significant issue that needed to be fleshed out in its full political and legal significance. I think it’s perfectly obvious that the diplomatic and political landscape has shifted a good deal in the intervening period, but I also think that the essential principles laid out in the document remain relevant, and that they are, in my view, not inconsistent with the position I took on the radio program.

The most important point on this issue, from my perspective both at the time and now is that, as we wrote, “For Palestinians the recognition of the right of return is an essential element of a reconciliation with Israel and a just resolution to the conflict.” This is precisely what I continued to call for on the radio last month: a recognition of the right of return as a legal principle. As a bottom line, Ali and I concluded our analysis by stating flatly, “Israeli concerns and questions about the right of return are understandable and must be addressed, but Israel’s absolute rejection of the rights of refugees cannot be the final word.” Again, this is not in any way contradictory to the position I outlined in the radio program with the consul general, since I called for a recognition of the right of return by Israel and the actual return of refugees as well.

I am strongly in agreement with ATFP’s Statement of Principles on the Palestinian Refugee Issue, which I played a role in drafting. It states:

The objective of ATFP is the establishment of a Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel, and an end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. ATFP is opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, but is not opposed to the state of Israel in its internationally recognized borders.

5) As part of any comprehensive settlement ending the conflict, Israel should accept its moral responsibility to apologize to the Palestinian people for the creation of the refugee problem. Palestinians should accept that this acknowledgment of responsibility does not undermine the legitimacy of the present-day Israeli state.

I do not believe there is any fundamental inconsistency in these two documents, although the emphasis is certainly different, reflecting changed political contexts and imperatives. I suppose it might be possible for someone else to argue that the change of emphasis is so significant that it amounts to a change of position. Certainly, the ATFP statement of principles above characterizes everything I have said about the issue for the past six years, at least, which ought to be consistent enough for most people. Insofar as this kind of change in emphasis from a paper written eight years ago is perceived by some to be an inconsistency eight years later, at least there can be no doubt that it is an improvement.

This was absolutely inevitable. Some members of Congress who are sympathetic to the Israeli settler movement and/or overly skeptical of Palestinian intentions, and therefore unenthusiastic about serious efforts to reach a peace agreement in the Middle East, have begun to push back against President Obama. The Politico cites two of the most predictable of such voices: Shelley Berkley and Eric Cantor. The pushback represents part of the normal ebb and flow in political life, and the nature of the controversy demonstrates the significant change that has occurred in discourse in Congress on the occupation and the settlements, especially from some well-placed Jewish-American members such as Howard Berman, Gary Ackerman and Robert Wexler. These well-positioned and credible Jewish-American congressman, along with prominent senators such as John Kerry, have been increasingly forthright in their view that the occupation generally, and the settlements in particular, are not in either the American or the Israeli national interest, both of which depend on a peace agreement based on the creation of a Palestinian state to live alongside Israel.

That the Politico was able to find some members of Congress who would be critical of the President’s approach is not at all surprising. Neither is the fact that some of his supporters might wish to keep some distance from his rhetorical pressure on Israel regarding settlements, which is unprecedented in living political memory, not by defending settlements but by urging him to keep up or increase pressure on the Palestinians regarding security and incitement. None of this obviates the fact that there has been a dramatic transformation in rhetoric in Congress about settlements and the occupation over the past 12-18 months, which is reflective of a broader shifting in American attitudes on this issue across the board.

What this strongly suggests is that the time is fast approaching in which Obama’s policies will require, and deserve to receive, practical Arab and Palestinian support. Obama was clear after his meeting with President Abbas about what the Palestinian Authority needs to do: security measures and combating incitement. Since increasing security, maintaining law and order, and taking responsible measures to combat incitement and hate speech are all in the Palestinian national interest, these steps can and should be done and there are grounds to be optimistic that the Palestinians are going to do their part. The Palestinians can and should ask for much more active support to develop the means and the institutions through which they can meet these responsibilities and obligations, but it is vital that they take strong action on these issues, in their own interests.

The Arab states are going to very soon be called upon to step up to the plate, and deliver, probably by beginning to operationalize the Arab Peace Initiative. This would suggest reciprocal gestures between Israel and the Arab states involving elements such as a settlement freeze on the one hand and diplomatic overtures short of full recognition on the other. Such steps would not only lay the practical groundwork for advancing a broader peace agreement, they would go a long way in demonstrating the credibility and seriousness of both sides. Most of the Arab states have a clear and compelling national interest in helping to secure a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, and they have a crucial role to play. The time of reckoning is coming when the Arabs will be asked whether their Initiative was in anyway a genuine overture, or whether it was empty rhetorical posturing. Their answer had better be the former, if they know what’s good for them.

It is essential that the Arab states and the Palestinians move quickly to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity that President Obama has opened up. The Politico article makes it clear that supporters of the occupation and peace-skeptics in Congress are somewhat desperately looking for grounds on which to oppose the President’s initiative, especially his pressure on Israel regarding settlements. If the Palestinians fail to take significant measures on security and incitement, and if the Arab states fail to demonstrate their openness to operationalizing their own Initiative, it is they who will give opponents of peace and defenders of the occupation the ammunition with which to shoot down Obama’s bold steps. Obviously it’s true, as many have rightly observed, that if the Netanyahu Cabinet in Israel persists with its settlement building, as it presently assures the Israeli public it intends to, it may be hard to avoid some sort of confrontation with the United States government. At the moment, the solution for avoiding this is not obvious. If they bungle or neglect this opportunity, the Palestinians and the Arab states may themselves be the ones to save Netanyahu’s bacon (assuming it will need saving) and enable the settlement building project and the occupation to proceed apace.

A reader kindly asks the following question regarding the upcoming election in Lebanon:
?What are your thoughts on the up and coming election in Lebanon? Winners, losers, implications on the region etc…? Will US FP towards Lebanon change drastically if Hizb is perceived to be in power? What will the reaction be on the Hill vs. the Administration? How do you think the election (if march 8th wins a majority) will effect the Presidents agenda towards the Middle East, and more specifically towards the Arab-Israeli Peace Process??

Thank you so much for this excellent question.

It?s very difficult to judge how the election will come out, and I think one is foolhardy to make it confident prediction. A couple of months ago, many people were confidently predicting a strong opposition victory. But that seems less likely these days.

It does seem that support for General Aoun, who appears to be a mentally unbalanced subject, has eroded in recent years for numerous reasons, including his alliance with Hezbollah. It seems as if the General, who once commanded a solid majority support among Lebanese Maronites, is now something like on par in communal support with the coalition of most other Maronite groupings in the March 14 camp. This alliance, which is a complete reversal of his position from the early 1990s until the removal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and his return to the country a few years ago, seems ideologically strange to many observers, but those familiar with Lebanese politics understand that the dynamics of sectarian alliance have nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with narrow self-interest, and that given time everyone will eventually have found themselves to at some point have been allied with and against everyone else.

It strikes me that there are only two plausible explanations for the Aoun-Hezbollah alliance. First, the General appears to be monomaniacally and megalomaniacally obsessed with making himself the president of the Republic. However, during the period between his ouster from the country and the ?Cedar Revolution,? he managed to adopt the only position that would categorically preclude him from attaining that position: an anti-Syrian stance. Following his return to the country, he immediately again adopted the only position that would still categorically preclude him from it: an effectively pro-Syrian stance. It strikes me that the General is one of the most astonishing case studies in pathological self-defeat I have ever witnessed.

The second reason might be a shared antipathy to constitutional reform. Hezbollah?s main task since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 has been to avoid being disarmed, thereby losing its main coercive power in domestic Lebanese politics (which was, for the first time, used in an internal power struggle at the national level in May last year). General Aoun and his supporters may fear that any serious domestic effort to politically arrange for the disarmament of Hezbollah?s militia, which is absolutely necessary for Lebanese stability and security, would undoubtedly entail constitutional reforms to address the serious underrepresentation of Lebanese Shiites in the ?confessional? constitutional system and other measures that have historically discriminated against that community in a most unfair and indeed outrageous manner, and that these reforms would mainly be at the expense of Lebanese Maronites, especially in terms of parliamentary representation (also, possibly, in terms of traditionally reserved government positions including the presidency, chief of staff of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and head of the Central Bank). In other words, it is entirely possible to see the Aoun-Hezbollah alliance as a pro-status quo coalition that intends to resist constitutional reforms in order to avoid disarming Hezbollah?s militia and revisiting political gerrymandering and some other indefensible privileges for the Maronite community.

It would appear, however, that for a number of reasons, the General?s support has been slipping, especially among the more educated and urbanized Lebanese Maronites. He still commands enormous support, but this erosion has led many to question the extent to which the opposition can hope for a clear victory. Another area of concern for the opposition must be the rapprochement between Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, who is both an ally of and a rival to Hezbollah. This renewed warmth between these two figures suggests that Berri may not be as solidly a part of the March 8 opposition in practice following the election as he has been in recent years.

Of course, Hezbollah still commands enormous support in the south of the country and among Lebanese Shiites generally. That the March 8 opposition will have a strong showing still seems likely, but there is no longer any consensus that they can look forward to a clear majority. As for March 14, they continue to be bedeviled by serious problems including continuous significant internal tensions and contradictions, and the inordinate burden of being perceived as being a major US ally without receiving concomitant practical American support (the same problem that has plagued the Palestinian Authority leadership for many years). The United States has been asking some of its Arab allies, particularly in the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority leadership, to accept the costs of being perceived as an American ally domestically and in the region while receiving limited benefits (probably because Israel and its supporters in the United States do not necessarily feel comfortable with the Lebanese and Palestinians who have adopted positions consistent with broader US foreign policy goals). This phenomenon of being damned with faint support is compounded by the fact that Iran, Syria and others have no compunction about giving all possible aid to their allies without reservation. The consequences of this were on full display on the streets of Gaza in 2007 and Beirut in 2008.

If the March 8 coalition and Hezbollah are perceived as the clear victors in the upcoming election and also perceived as dominating the next Lebanese government, obviously this will not sit well with Washington. Certainly, there will be significant pressure from Congress for a serious change of policy towards Lebanon, although the administration will face a more difficult set of choices. The United States has already made a distinction between governments in which Hamas and Hezbollah have been a part. When Hamas was a major part of the Palestinian government between 2006 and the first half of 2007, the United States and most of the international community imposed a significant and thoroughgoing policy of isolation against the entire government, which was a disaster for the Palestinian people. However, when Hezbollah has been part of Lebanese cabinets, American officials did deal with the government generally but declined to meet directly with any Hezbollah cabinet ministers. Therefore, a mixed government that is not perceived as dominated by, but does include some elements of, Hezbollah would not be an untenable situation for Lebanon. However, if the government is perceived as Hezbollah-dominated, it is entirely possible that a change of policy would be strongly considered by the Obama administration.

This is particularly likely if the administration continues its strong push for progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace, which suggests the need to identify and isolate those that will be unequivocally uncooperative and resistant to progress towards an agreement. Hezbollah?s current policies place it squarely in that camp, and any Lebanese government that is perceived as being guided or heavily influenced by those policies may find itself placed in the category of the uncooperative rejectionists who are to be isolated and pressured in order that they are not able to thwart progress and laying the groundwork for a significant breakthrough in the future. Obviously, this would be a disaster for Lebanon. International isolation would strike at almost everything the country depends on for its well-being, stability, and potential for development and continued resurrection from the various wars on which it has been wracked since 1975. An inconclusive election victory does not necessarily mandate this eventuality, but a clear opposition victory would make it disturbingly plausible.

Thanks very much to all those readers who have written in with questions.

A number of people have asked why we ask for questions and not comments on the Ibishblog, a perfectly reasonable and predictable query. I understand that some people really want comments, and for many people, there would be no problem with that. However I have been keeping a close eye on many blogs for many years, and paid attention to the tension between allowing comments and not allowing comments. It strikes me that those sites which are most similar to this one that do not allow comments have it more correct than those that do.

Indeed, I can think of a number of sites that have had to ultimately disable comments entirely in order to continue functioning properly. In every single one of those instances, I think they did the right thing. I also know many sites that function extremely well with comments, and many that absolutely depend on comments for any serious conversation or discussion. I don?t think this is going to be one of those sites.

I?m happy to answer anyone with a serious question, and all questioners will remain anonymous. There are numerous other sites and options available to those who want to take issue with what I have to say here, and they?re most welcome to do that. So, for now, this blog is going to remain structured as it is, with questions, which for the most part will be answered, but no comments.

In reference to another question, we will certainly be adding RSS enabling in the near future. This is definitely coming in the next week or two, at the latest. There will continue to be updates and improvements on this site both in terms of content and in terms of functionality in the coming years.

In the meanwhile, please keep the questions coming ? I will be answering some of the more substantial ones shortly. I appreciate them, and they offer a very good mechanism for exchanging views without the very significant problems that can be attached on sites like this one to open comments sections (or even moderated ones).