Reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu?s major policy address yesterday is running the full gamut from rage and dismay to adulation and relief. The extremes aside, the question really is whether to see Netanyahu’s glass as half full or half empty.

In Israel, the extreme right was divided on its reaction to the speech. Those most concerned about maintaining the categorical opposition to any form of Palestinian statehood were generally dismayed by Netanyahu’s muted concession on this point, albeit in theory and with many unworkable caveats and restrictions. The settlers and their supporters, however, focused on his assertion that “natural growth,” which he did not define in any meaningful way, would continue. Supporters of the settlement movement have taken this as an endorsement of their plans to expand and extend the settlement project. Settlers were also heartened by his warm words about them being simply the “brothers and sisters” of the general Israeli public. The Israeli left and most of the center was generally dismayed by Netanyahu’s belligerence and his complete lack of recognition of any aspect of the Palestinian narrative or perspective, although some of these observers have emphasized that Netanyahu’s acceptance of Palestinian statehood in theory, however couched, represents a breakthrough for him and for Likud.

The range of Palestinian opinion runs the gamut from outrage to horror. The Palestinian Authority has called on the international community to isolate and shun Netanyahu’s government, with many harsh words from numerous Palestinian officials. While understandable, the Palestinian reaction is, predictably, strategically unwise. As I observed yesterday, Netanyahu’s recalcitrance opens significant diplomatic opportunities for Palestinians to exploit the continuing gap between the Obama administration’s firm position, especially on the settlement issue, and Netanyahu’s continued refusal to accommodate American requirements and existing Israeli commitments. A preferable stratagem would emphasize Palestinian alignment with Obama’s goals and methods, isolating Netanyahu, and drawing a contrast between his obduracy and their own willingness to take concrete, practical measures to advance the American approach to pursuing a peace agreement. The danger of digging in their own heels while Netanyahu digs in his is that this response encourages a perspective in the United States that regards progress on Middle East peace as essentially unattainable under the present circumstances, and instead urges the administration to focus on other foreign policy goals such as ongoing tensions with Iran and even the prospect of an Israeli-Syrian peace track at the expense of the Palestinian track.

Most observers acknowledged that Netanyahu’s primary audience was, in fact, President Obama himself. The White House naturally welcomed the Prime Minister?s movements on the question of Palestinian statehood, and accentuated the positive. However, there is little question that the administration must have been disappointed by Netanyahu’s continued refusal to cooperate on the question of settlements. Obviously, there is a proper appreciation of the political difficulties that Netanyahu faces from his right-wing coalition on any concession on settlements and a strong disinclination to push him too far too fast. However, over the coming weeks is likely that American insistence on a change in the Israeli position on settlements, especially “natural growth,” will resume. The inclination to devote more time, energy and political capital on shifting Netanyahu on this issue by Washington would be greatly enhanced if the Palestinians and the Arab states moved quickly to support Obama’s position rather than focusing on their justifiable unhappiness with the substance of Netanyahu’s remarks.

The “half-full” element of the speech — a tepid acceptance of the potential of Palestinian statehood and an acknowledgment that no new settlements would be created in the West Bank — was the easy part for Netanyahu, in spite of the fact that some on the Israeli right didn’t want him to make even these rather limited gestures. The “half empty” part is far more substantial, particularly Netanyahu?s ongoing refusal to accept that Israel’s commitments under the Roadmap requires a freeze to all settlement activity, including “natural growth,” as the Obama administration has repeatedly emphasized. In fact, the settlement issue, as things stand right now, is the crux of the entire matter. Without a meaningful settlement freeze, progress on other aspects essential to peace is virtually impossible. With it, enormous diplomatic and political spaces suddenly open up, and a return to the Annapolis principle that permanent status issue negotiations should be conducted simultaneously with the implementation of Roadmap Phase One commitments on settlements and security will be possible. In other words, a settlement freeze makes it possible to move quickly into substantive discussions about issues like borders, Jerusalem, refugees and security. It is the sine qua non of progress towards a peace agreement, and, as things stand, the veritable whole ball of wax.

Therefore, while it’s entirely reasonable to point out that Netanyahu?s speech leaves the glass both half-full, on Palestinian statehood, and half empty, on settlements, it is the half empty part that is far more significant. The most important thing to recognize this stage is that Netanyahu has moved from his original electoral and post-election positions in a way which he would have preferred to avoid. His speech yesterday, while entirely unsatisfactory, must not be his final word on these matters, and, if the other parties play their cards properly, it should not be. The likelihood is that the Obama administration will pocket the gains they have made thus far, and push for more. But they cannot get very far in this without significant Arab and Palestinian support to bolster the sense that at least one party in this situation other than President Obama is playing a sincere, constructive and politically courageous role.

It is absolutely essential that Arab reaction avoids the perception that all parties are simply reactive, defensive and uncooperative. The Palestinians and the Arabs will not strengthen their hands by focusing entirely on what’s wrong with Netanyahu’s positions. Instead, they must draw attention to what is useful and constructive about their own stances. This is the best way to isolate the Israeli Prime Minister and to make it clear that the fundamental barrier at the moment to progress towards peace are the positions he laid out in his speech. The glass they bring to the table needs to be full, and not also half-empty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today delivered a singularly unconstructive and even irresponsible speech, that offered little movement in the direction that President Obama and his administration have laid out. Netanyahu did acknowledge that there might one day be a Palestinian state, although with a plethora of caveats and preconditions that undermine any notion that he is serious about this prospect. In a piece of unintentional dark humor, Ha?aretz?s live ticker on its website misquoted him as saying that a ?Future Palestinian state must be ?dematerialized? if peace is to arrive? ? positively Freudian even if it was done by a spell-checking machine. The acceptance of a Palestinian state in theory while moving away from what is needed to create and sustain one seems a throwback to the era in which Netanyahu was first in the Prime Minister?s office in the 1990s. Apparently, he has not yet gotten the message that times have changed. His rhetoric about a Palestinian state, in this context, was therefore decidedly not reassuring.

The most significant aspect of the speech from the outset, as I noted yesterday, was not his theoretical acceptance of a Palestinian state, but his position on the settlements and the American insistence on a settlement freeze. Netanyahu largely ducked the issue, affirming that natural growth would continue, and that the settlers are not a threat to peace but are ?our brothers and sisters.? He did also not mention the Roadmap, which is the main Israeli commitment to freezing settlements. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that, on this and several other issues, Netanyahu has delivered an anti-Roadmap address. There is no doubt that the White House will be duly dismayed. A deal allowing for a version of ?natural growth? that is not a cover for expansion but rather the cover for an actual settlement freeze is still possible and desirable, but was not advanced by this speech.

By ducking so many crucial issues, especially the question of settlements, and by avoiding any consideration of the Roadmap, Netanyahu has opened a unique and extraordinary opportunity for the Palestinians and the other Arabs. If they move quickly to bolster rather than oppose Obama (as Netanyahu is implicitly doing), they will be able to draw a clear distinction between those who are ready, willing and able to assist the American President move towards peace and those who are not. If they take a sullen or otherwise noncooperative attitude at this stage, there is every danger that the President and his Administration will conclude that they are dealing with two recalcitrant and irresponsible parties that are impervious to reason, and walk away to focus on other matters. If, however, the Arab states in particular take urgent and practical measures to support Obama?s position, especially by committing to operationalize the Arab Peace Initiative short of diplomatic recognition in response to Israeli measures like a real settlement freeze, they will have positioned themselves as serious and committed partners to the American President and isolated Prime Minister Netanyahu, making either his position or his policies untenable. Netanyahu just opened the door. The Palestinians and other Arabs must walk though it without hesitation or delay.

Today on the talking head shows, reaction to the Iranian election was a great example of what is most wrong with TV coverage of foreign policy and international relations. A host of people with no knowledge, expertise or insight on Iran or the Middle East (most of whom do not seem to know so much as the name of Mirhossein Mousavi, referring to some unnamed “opposition candidate”) were invited to give their evaluation of the results as if their views on the matter merited consideration.

The worst of the lot was John King’s show on CNN, during which the insufferable “power couple” James Carville and Mary Matalin were asked what they thought about the results and their implications for US-Iranian relations. The answers were predictably tinned, and represented the maddening tendency on cable TV for all complex foreign policy issues to get reduced to a partisan political debate between GOP and Democratic party hacks aimed solely at spinning the issue for what are ultimate electoral purposes. It is, in the final analysis, interesting to see how the two parties and other domestic political factions are positioning to use these issues in their sub-ideological power struggles. But surely those questions must be a corollary to a proper and informed analysis of what is actually going on overseas and not a substitute for it, as it so often is in TVland.

On NBC’s Meet The Press, which has still not recovered from the tragic early death of Tim Russert, Joe Scarborough fell into the trap of welcoming the re-election of Ahmadinejad as “good for the United States” in the long run. Perhaps he simply means that, from his GOP-centered perspective, this result will be bad for Obama, and hence good for the United States, but it seems more likely that he actually thinks that our country benefits from the public face of Iran remaining this malevolent clown with his apocalyptic rhetoric and no ability to conduct a constructive foreign policy for his own country. This only makes sense if one has concluded that war is inevitable and the challenge now is making the case for it to the American people and international public opinion. As I noted the other day, extremists tend to like other extremists and seem to feel threatened by even a hint at moderation. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz makes the same mistake from their own point of view. I would also note that the AP is now predicting, as I did yesterday, that Netanyahu will probably be making the most of Ahmadinejad’s reelection in his major foreign policy speech which is to be delivered later today.

I was once on a major financial news network to discuss stereotyping against Arabs and Muslims in the entertainment industry. I was fully made-up, IFBed and sitting in front of the camera, waiting for the interview to begin. Then word came through that the Fed had made a minor adjustment to the prime interest rate. For the next 45 minutes I was assured that we would be coming to segment soon, but that this story required immediate attention, which was perfectly reasonable. I was then informed, also perfectly reasonably, that the story on the prime required uninterrupted focus at that time, and that I would be invited back the following day to discuss stereotyping. Unless, it was added, I cared to comment on the adjustment of the prime myself. It was an interesting, but ultimately simple, ethical and practical choice: I could have commented on something I essentially know nothing about and thereby have acquired two, instead of one, valuable opportunities to promote the organization I worked for at the time, which was employing me precisely to do so; alternatively, I could have honestly declined and simply returned the following day to talk about something I actually know about. It was an easy choice to do the latter, as I did, but also oddly tempting for a fleeting moment and a representatively absurd situation. Ever since I have had an even greater appreciation for the sheer shamelessness of those who agree to pontificate on subjects about which they are utterly unqualified and the fecklessness of the producers and stations that give them the chance.

By contrast, C-Span, which is often a bastion of substance in this landscape of dross, featured an excellent interview with Karim Sadjapour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on its Washington Journal program. Sadjapour pointed to the extremely suspicious “fact” that Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri, was supposedly trounced in Iranian Azeri areas, which he compared to the idea that McCain would have sounded beaten Obama in African-American districts. He also deftly navigated a reasonable space between those callers who simply accepted the official account of the election results and blamed the US for all problems in US-Iranian relations and those who indulged in Islamophobic rhetoric, which he properly and frankly described as “asinine.” Not being a noted, all-purpose talking head, or a GOP or Democratic party apparatchik, Sadjapour (like most other real experts) was sadly missing from the more well-watched cable channels. As usual.

So, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has, by hook or by crook, been returned to a second term of office in the Iranian elections, albeit with a suspiciously large majority. This means that the public face of Iran will continue to be an apocalyptically minded fanatic with a fetish for Holocaust diminishment and denial. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not make much of this in his major policy address tomorrow, and his allies in the United States do not make much of it in the American policy conversation, I will be very much surprised. Of course, power in Iran over foreign and military policy, among other things, as always rested squarely in the hands of the supreme leader, presently Ayatollah Khamenei. However, core diplomatic realities are exacerbated by the grotesque demagoguery to which Mr. Ahmadinejad appears in no common measure addicted. I don’t know about Iran, but in the United States and the Arab world, the war parties and clash-of-civilization types are certainly celebrating.

As for Netanyahu’s speech, there are already signs of dissatisfaction among Obama administration officials with what has been advertised in advance. Ha’aretz reports that, "The proposals to be outlined in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday will not be enough to satisfy the Obama administration, a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying.” The same report suggests that the outcome of the Iranian election can only intensify interest in moving towards an end-of-conflict agreement between Israel and Palestinians since, "U.S. President Barack Obama says containing Iran’s nuclear aspirations — which Israel considers a major threat — would be helped by progress toward a Palestine deal.” Indeed, US Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has continued to emphasize the seriousness of Washington’s new engagement, most recently by declaring that the US "supports the creation of a Palestinian state ‘as soon as possible.’” Meanwhile, signs are increasing that some members of Congress who have been increasingly critical of settlements and the occupation and supportive of President Obama’s peace initiative are beginning to feel the pressure from Jewish constituents in their districts. Movement by all deeply committed parties was always likely to be of the 3-steps-forward, 2-steps-backward variety, and entirely contingent upon momentum for progress.

Even though it’s very likely that Netanyahu’s speech will not fully satisfy the Obama administration, it’s also quite possible that they may cautiously welcome his remarks, in order to encourage further moves and out of an understanding that Netanyahu is constrained by his own coalition partners. It is essential that the administration not waver on the fundamentals of its position on a settlement freeze and a two state solution. However, as I noted recently, giving Netanyahu the time, space and political cover to adjust to the new American attitude is infinitely preferable to any sort of avoidable confrontation.

It is likely that Netanyahu is going to give way, at least in theory, to a Palestinian state, possibly with conditions. The conditions are not as important as they might first appear, as they represent the opening bargaining position from the present Israeli government, and not any fait accompli. The more crucial issue, and the thing to be listening for, is what language Netanyahu will be using to describe his policy on settlements. The Obama administration has been clear, consistent and extremely firm in ruling out all forms of settlement activity, although some kind of accommodation that allows for a degree of "natural growth" of structures but does not increase the size of any existing settlements in territorial terms is possible. However, it is unlikely that, over the long run, Netanyahu is going to be able to sell the administration on anything less than a real settlement freeze, no matter what kind of window dressing he can arrange for his right-wing allies.

The reason the administration is so firm on this issue is that Israeli compliance on Roadmap commitments, especially a settlement freeze, and Palestinian compliance with security commitments, sets the stage for revisiting the innovation to the Roadmap introduced in Annapolis, whereby phase 1 commitments such as settlements and security take place simultaneously as the beginning of negotiations on phase 4 permanent status issues. In other words, if a settlement freeze is achieved, and security measures are being taken by the Palestinians, it should be possible for the administration to begin to insist on convening permanent status talks and returning, at long last, to the fundamental issues. There are signs that the administration is very keen on beginning a serious negotiation on the question of borders, that being perhaps the most difficult and important of all permanent status issues.

The administration’s entire approach suggests a determination to actually achieve the outlines of an agreement, and perhaps even an agreement itself in the foreseeable future. If Netanyahu shows a willingness to go along with the essence of this by agreeing to a de facto settlement freeze with some obfuscations designed to mollify Israeli extremist sentiment, this will be a major step in the right direction, and certainly enough for the administration and the Palestinians to work with for the time being. At that point, it will be all the more important to bring the Arab states in to play a responsible role in building the conditions for peace. However, if Netanyahu falls radically short of the administration’s firm position on settlements, we will have moved one step closer to a confrontation between his government and the Obama administration, in which everyone could end up the loser. Except, perhaps, Ahmadinejad.

A reader asks, "I noticed that you’re affiliated with The American Task Force on Palestine. After googling them, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re heavily criticized in certain Arab-American circles, but don’t understand why. Can you please explain?” Thanks for that question.

I’ll try to answer, although I agree the vehement anger directed against ATFP by some segments of the Arab-American community is difficult to explain given that most Arab-Americans agree with ATFP’s mission of advocating that an end-of-conflict agreement that allows for two states, Israel and Palestine, to live side-by-side in peace and security is in the American national interest. It should be noted at the outset that ATFP does also enjoy considerable support among the other segments of the Palestinian and Arab-American communities, has seen a steady increase in the support over its six years of existence, and has a large board of directors composed of noted and significant Palestinian-Americans. ATFP’s premier annual event, our October galas, have grown in size and stature with every succeeding year, and our website recently passed the milestone of 1 million hits in a single month. Obviously, while there are indeed vehement critics, there is also a strong bedrock of support.

Criticism of ATFP emerges mainly from the far-right and, especially, from the ultra-left of the Arab-American community. It primarily reflects the split between those who agree with ATFP’s peace-oriented mission and its dedication to the aim of ending the occupation on the one hand and those who believe that ending the occupation is either impossible or undesirable, or both. In other words, there is a constituency in the Arab-American community that simply does not accept the Palestinian national goal of seeking a negotiated agreement with Israel allowing for two states. These include one-state advocates who seek to replace Israel and Palestine with some other, as yet largely undefined, single state, by means as yet unarticulated. It also, more quietly, includes Islamists dedicated to the idea that all of historical Palestine must be dominated by Muslims. Obviously, those who adhere to these two alternative visions that abjure the only plausible means of achieving peace and an end to the occupation find ATFP’s position completely unacceptable. The feeling is mutual.

However, there is also some unease about ATFP’s methods even from some of those who agree with the goal of seeking an agreement with Israel to end the occupation. This is because ATFP has deliberately abandoned a deeply-rooted historical approach by the Arab-American community and other advocates of Palestinian rights in the United States that sees Palestinian-Israeli relations as a zero-sum equation in which everything good for one party is bad for the other, and vice versa. Since its inception, ATFP has been pioneering a new attitude that foregrounds the necessary role Palestinians and Israelis play for each other as indispensable partners in a potential peace agreement, and advocates not only dialogue with pro-Israel Jewish American organizations, but also a national coalition for Middle East peace with all pro-Israel organizations that agree with the aim of a genuine, reasonable two-state agreement. This has been difficult for many Arab Americans to accept because of the deep-seated suspicion the two communities have for each other, and a history of opposition, rivalry and bad blood.

The same attitude is readily to be found in some segments of the Jewish American community as well. It is an extraordinary element of the present discourse on US foreign policy towards the Middle East that Arab and Jewish American organizations that take the same positions in favor of peace are often well-regarded by the other community but viewed with suspicion within their own. This suggests that the ethnicity of any speaker is as important to the reception of what they have to say as their positions are, and that deviation from what is considered to be a normative community perspective is greeted with either approval or disdain based on the extent of this perceived deviation. This explains why some Arab Americans who are well disposed towards Jewish American groups such as Americans for Peace Now or the Israel Policy Forum are nonetheless uncomfortable with ATFP, whereas some Jewish Americans well disposed towards ATFP regard APN and IPF with suspicion. Asking people to move beyond deeply entrenched, familiar and comfortable attitudes, however dysfunctional and counterproductive they may be, is not always easy.

Another source of confusion and suspicion regarding ATFP’s methods, even among some who agree with its goals, has been the Task Force’s serious commitment to working within the political system of our country as it exists today and its determination to join the policy conversation in Washington. Many Arab Americans are used to a perspective of extreme skepticism about the potential of the community to seriously engage with the American political system and to empower itself through the normal processes of American civil society. There is an irrational and erroneous, but widespread, belief that the system is somehow closed to us and that nothing Arab Americans do will gain them greater political empowerment or a seat at the policy table on questions regarding Israel and the Palestinians. The truth, of course, is that this is a self-reinforcing and self-defeating attitude that must be overcome and defeated if Arab-American perspectives are to become more a part of the national conversation, especially on foreign policy.

Some Arab-American critics of ATFP’s methods object to its engagement with the government because they reject the American political system and believe that there is no benefit to seeking such an engagement but rather advocate what amounts to a revolutionary attitude seeking radical change that is extremely implausible. Others are simply uncomfortable with ATFP’s constructive approach to dealing with our national leadership, and our commitment to advancing the American national interest. Many Arab Americans are emotionally invested in a traditional approach to pro-Palestinian advocacy that emphasizes human rights, morality, and international law, and have yet to fully appreciate the necessity to articulate why ending the occupation is in the American national interest. To some, this smacks of instrumentalizing what, in their view, ought to be a purely moral and ethical argument that is entirely self-evident, and arguments that emphasize practical benefits to the United States of ending the occupation seem to debase what they would prefer to be a more "high-minded" approach. ATFP, on the other hand, strongly argues that it is no slight against our fellow Americans to recognize that they would, naturally, ask what the American national interest is in actively pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace and an end to the occupation.

For a detailed response to many specific criticisms of, and calumnies against, ATFP from other Arab-Americans, please see my issue paper on the subject here.

A reader questions my assertion that ?moving quickly towards an agreement that will end the occupation by definition means moving towards a resolution of Israeli violence against Palestinians,” and notes that, ?You may have heard that the settlements in Gaza were removed some time ago and the thugs residing therein sent packing. I am not aware that these actions have relieved the citizens of Gaza of Israel’s kind attention.? The reader asks, ?Why do you suppose that a retreat from the West Bank would have a better outcome?? Thanks very much for this interesting question.

First of all, it should be noted that I am not advocating an Israeli “retreat” from the West Bank, but rather a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinians which includes an end to the occupation. The unilateral redeployment of troops in Gaza and removal of settlers, in spite of frequent disingenuous claims to the contrary, was not connected to the quest for peace, but rather was a function of the continuation of the conflict. For more than a decade before it actually happened, most senior figures in the defense and military establishments in Israel had been strongly considering the move because of the serious burden attached to defending a small group of settlers in a very exposed situation and in an area generally not considered strategically, religiously or historically important to the Israeli national project. It was an action taken by the Israeli military on behalf of the Israeli military without consideration for the Palestinian people, their national aspirations or rights, or in anyway connected to peace gestures with or towards them.

The fact that the situation in Gaza degenerated to the point that it has following the redeployment is, to a very large extent, a predictable consequence of the fact that Israel’s withdrawal to the peripheries of Gaza was done unilaterally and was not pursuant to any kind of understanding with the Palestinian people. The reader doubts whether ending the occupation would really end Israeli violence against Palestinians, because of the experience of Gaza. However, this very same experience leads some Israelis to question whether ending the occupation would lead to an end to Palestinian violence towards Israel. What both of these arguments miss is that there was no agreement connected to the Gaza redeployment. It was not the function of a peace treaty, reflective of a mutual decision on the part of both Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to make a change that would benefit both peoples. It was a unilateral Israeli decision made exclusively by and for the Israeli government. And, of course, the fact is that Gaza remains under occupation until today, and under siege to boot.

I do think that ending the occupation is the key to ending both Palestinian violence against Israel, which is primarily motivated by a desire to end the occupation, and to ending Israeli violence against Palestinians, which is primarily motivated by the desire to enforce the occupation. The occupation is the context and proximate cause of most of the violence on both sides, although of course there are some extremists in both societies that conceptualize their violent acts in broader terms. Such extremists will have to be dealt with by the police of both Israel and the Palestinian state, but I do not believe they will be a major problem if there is an agreement that ends the occupation. Therefore, ending the occupation through a negotiated agreement that serves the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians would, in fact, end the cause and the context of violence, and therefore bring an end to most violence.

Philip Weiss reports that John Mearsheimer, although he is not optimistic about the prospects of Middle East peace, has urged Muslim Americans to form an alliance with Jewish Americans in pursuit of a two-state agreement in the Middle East. Mearsheimer notes that there is no prospect whatsoever of Israel agreeing to a single state in the foreseeable future, and that therefore a two-state agreement is the only possibility for peace and ending the occupation.

According to Weiss, Mearsheimer told his American Muslim audience in Detroit: “A two-state solution is the only good outcome for the Palestinians at this point in time. And it is also the only good outcome for Israel. Thus, I think it would make good sense for the Muslim community to rally behind the two-state solution and work hard to form alliances with those individuals and organizations in the American Jewish community who back the idea of creating a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. President Obama is going to need all the allies he can get to deal with Israel and the hardliners in the lobby. This is not a magic formula by any means, but it is the best hope we have of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Whatever Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to say in his big speech on Sunday, it had better not be based on the world according to “Boogie” (also known as Vice-Premier and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon). In a strident and uncompromising speech at WINEP earlier this week, Boogie reiterated his opposition to a two-state approach to Middle East peace, stating flatly that, "If in two years’ time we will have a political settlement, I believe we will witness Hamastan in the West Bank, and we are not going to implement it.” He also implicitly attacked President Obama’s outreach efforts to the Arab and Muslim worlds, suggesting that conciliatory gestures, "just strengthens their conviction of victim-hood and their resolve to restore their honor." Boogie was also a main speaker at an anti-peace conference in May designed to coincide with the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, at which he declared that the two state solution had “failed,” that there was no chance of peace in the foreseeable future, and that Israel could and would allow no Palestinian “entity” to be formed.

If this is the attitude that comes through in Netanyahu’s Sunday remarks, the path to confrontation with the Obama administration will become quite direct. There is, therefore, almost no chance that Bibi will be speaking overtly in the terms of the world according to Boogie. He is enough of a pragmatist to understand that he cannot prevail in a confrontation with the American president, and that the best he can possibly hope for is a lose-lose result. The most optimistic thing to look for would be signs of a gradual climb down. Netanyahu’s retreat from his strident positions and from the world according to Boogie has to be gradual because he otherwise risks exploding his coalition with the extreme right and either entering into new elections in which he is unlikely to do better than last time, or entering a coalition with Kadima in which he will not be the most politically powerful player (how, in such a coalition, would he remain prime minister when Livni has one more seat than he does in the Knesset?).

Speculation differs as to what kind of climbdown Netanyahu is contemplating. Americans for Peace Now reports that, "Israel’s Channel 2 Hebrew-language news just aired the story that Prime Minister Netanyahu is considering adopting a temporary freeze in settlement activity." Ha’aretz says that Netanyahu will announce "the adoption of the road map and the ‘two-state solution,’” and that "he will try to reach a tacit understanding with U.S. President Barack Obama on the suspension of construction for a specific period of time.” The report adds that, "A senior Washington source confirmed that progress had been achieved, but stressed that ‘our position on the need to cease settlement construction has not been altered at all.’”

There is no question whatsoever that Washington needs to hold firm to the settlement freeze, but give Netanyahu the time and space to develop an accommodation of this requirement that does not unseat his coalition. The last thing the quest for a settlement freeze needs is for it to be the cause of the collapse of an Israeli government, raising the issue to a proven career-killer and spooking all future Israeli prime ministers. There is a big difference, and a wide range of options, between giving way on the principle and practical necessity for a settlement freeze, which is unthinkable, and recognizing that there is a need to give Netanyahu the time, space and political cover to shift in this direction. It should be recalled that no Israeli government has ever successfully implemented a settlement freeze, and underestimating the political difficulties of such a gesture would be foolish.

Since his election, Netanyahu and his cabinet have been desperately searching for a way to get Washington to tacitly accommodate their settlement expansion inclinations while ostensibly sticking to the settlement freeze position. They have found no means of achieving this, and rather have met with a firm position that amounts to an American bottom line. As a consequence, Netanyahu is now forced to do the opposite: look for a way in which he can tacitly (or temporarily, or conditionally) but effectively accommodate the American demand for settlement freeze while ostensibly claiming that he has not done so, or at least not fully.

It would be unwise not to grant him this space, as the alternative to a certain degree of patience with Netanyahu is a de facto confrontation between the United States government and his coalition. Much as this might give emotional satisfaction to many people, it would waste badly needed time, energy, American political capital, and Obama’s own reserves of clout and credibility, on a political squabble that is best avoided so that the same resources can be applied to more constructive efforts to advance the conditions for peace. Moreover, as I already noted, if the issue of settlement freeze were the proximate cause of the collapse of Netanyahu’s government, this would hardly be an inducement to future Israeli governments and would only underscore the political dangers involved. Finally, while Netanyahu cannot prevail in a confrontation with Obama, and it is possible for Obama to prevail, the most likely scenario is that both parties suffer significant political damage in a lose-lose scenario that could potentially suck the life out of the President’s vital initiative for Middle East peace.

As a practical matter, the Israeli government position on settlements, peace and Palestinian statehood must be shifted, and there is strong evidence that President Obama is succeeding in moving Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approach, however reluctant Bibi may be. If Netanyahu’s position moves in the direction suggested by Channel 2 and Ha’aretz on Sunday, it will not be reflecting the world according to Boogie. Most probably it will also not be enough. But it certainly could and should be a start, and that will be both a significant accomplishment for President Obama and solid ground for going forward.

A reader asks: “What do you think about Noam Chomsky? I have noticed many Arabs and Muslims adore him, quote him- let him shape their world view.” Thanks so much for that question, and I will try to keep it brief, although Chomsky is, by definition a vast topic.

First of all, I’m not in a position to comment on most of Chomsky’s work as I know nothing about linguistics or the science of cognition. But in general, it’s very clear that Chomsky has a first-rate mind and a truly remarkable ability to absorb and recall data. In the political realm, Chomsky has played many different roles and I think there are two high points to his career as a public intellectual. First was his involvement in the opposition to the Vietnam War, in which he played a singular role in forcing academics, intellectuals and scientists to interrogate their own relationship to the war and to the state structures that were pursuing it. This intervention on the ethical responsibility of intellectuals continues to have an impact and influenced dozens of major public intellectuals, not least of them Edward Said. Second, Chomsky was an early and principled Jewish-American opponent of Israeli policies, especially with regard to the occupation, and a vocal critic at a time when questioning these policies was considered virtually anathema in most Jewish-American circles. Chomsky’s critique opened the space for Jewish Americans and others to think more critically about Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. For these two contributions, if nothing else, he will be remembered in the future as someone who played an important role in American political life in the 20th century.

However, while recognizing these contributions and his extraordinary intellectual capacity, I do have my doubts about Chomsky’s whole political approach. My very strong impression, although I’m not an expert on the subject, is that Chomsky essentially operates out of a classic anarchist model, not very far removed from the 19th century anarchism of Bakunin and Kropotkin. This means that, as a bottom line, Chomsky is fundamentally opposed first and foremost to the accumulation of all forms of political, economic and social power in human relationships. Perhaps this is slightly reductive, but I do think it boils down more or less to that. My impression is that he therefore tends to view political phenomena through the simple formula of asking what outcomes tend to accumulate rather than disperse power. As a consequence, he generally speaking tends to side simply with the less powerful against the more powerful. This explains his otherwise difficult to rationalize position during the first Gulf War, in which he first sided with Kuwait against Iraq, and then with Iraq against the United States — a position that otherwise might seem somewhat inexplicable. Because of this perspective, and some other crucial attitudes, Chomsky tends to take a reflexively anti-establishment and oppositional approach towards the US government and institutions, to my mind often without sufficient reflection on the virtues of the likely outcomes of what is actually at play.

Apart from this general oppositional stance towards American society and institutions, and an ardent rejection of American "imperial" power in the developing world, Chomsky’s main influence on contemporary Arab intellectuals may well be his position on the role of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. Like many major Jewish-American critics of Israeli policy, Chomsky does not acknowledge the full scope and power the pro-Israel lobby has wielded in shaping American policies towards the Middle East. It is perfectly understandable why some Jewish-American critics of Israeli and US government policies might nonetheless balk at a cold evaluation of the scope of the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, given the history of anti-Semitic agitation based on the specter of Jewish power in Western societies. However, as I have observed elsewhere, it is extraordinary that there are Arab-American political scientists who are willing to accept the idea that the pro-Israel lobby is merely convenient veneer for imperial interests that are produced by some sort of mysterious process that has nothing to do with the transparent give-and-take of a myriad of forces and influences in the American political scene that actually does shape policy. Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer got many of the details wrong, but their overall point about the power and influence of the pro-Israel lobby is both obvious and incontrovertible.

On the other hand, Chomsky’s stance on the one-state agenda is extremely sound. He supports it in theory, but recognizes that it is only attainable in the distant future, and by way of a two-state agreement that might, at some future date, give way to some kind of unification mutually agreed upon by Israelis and Palestinians. As for the one-state rhetoric that is currently in vogue on the US and British university campuses, Chomsky has correctly noted that, “Evidently, such stands are of only academic interest unless they are accompanied by programs of action that take into account the real world. If not, they are not advocacy in any serious sense of the term.” Since there has never been a programmatic approach for the advancement or realization of a one-state agenda between Israel and the Palestinians that indeed "takes into account the real world," mainly because it does not correspond to the fundamental national interests of Jewish Israelis as they see them today and will undoubtedly continue to see them for the foreseeable future, Chomsky’s description is absolutely apt: this is not advocacy in any serious sense of the term.

However, Chomsky’s reflexive and, in this case at least, stubbornly wrongheaded oppositional attitude towards virtually anything undertaken by the United States government has led him to completely misread the present attitude of the Obama administration towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. In spite of the President’s extraordinary early efforts to shift US policy and rhetoric, Chomsky has already concluded that, “Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.” This strikes me as unjustifiably pessimistic and thoroughly unfair to an administration that has gone further than anyone seriously expected in shifting the American stance on issues like the settlements and the urgency and centrality of Palestinian statehood. Moreover, Chomsky claims that the President is not serious about his engagement with the Arab Peace Initiative, writing, “Obama has called on the Arab states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however, the crucial political settlement that is its precondition.” In fact, Obama’s whole strategy is based on both main aspects of the Initiative: peace predicated on Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and a regional dimension to bolster Palestinian-Israeli peace and expand its scope. Simply put, I think Chomsky is dead wrong about the attitude of the President and his administration regarding peace and Palestinian statehood, as well as the Initiative.

In short, while I respect Chomsky’s intellect and his political contributions, I think those Arab-Americans who regard him as a guru or an oracle are making a mistake on several levels. This assumption that President Obama and his administration are simply not serious about pursuing Middle East peace and Palestinian statehood when they clearly have demonstrated that they are is wrongheaded and leads to political mistakes. Even if it turns out that the new administration is insufficiently committed to overcome obstacles, or that these obstacles simply cannot be overcome no matter what the will in Washington may be, it is still pointless to take the attitude now, in advance, that our government is not serious when it begins to pursue the policies and approaches most Arab-Americans have been strongly advocating for decades. A more sensible attitude would be to recognize, applaud and embrace these changes, and work to extend and consolidate them. Dismissing them has no value whatsoever.

Finally, I think that Chomsky’s fundamentally oppositional attitude to the US government, system and institutions is not useful at all for Arab-Americans. Our community has no options for political empowerment and the pursuit of its objectives other than serious engagement with the political system as it exists in our country today. Giving too much credence to the views of intellectual gadflies, however brilliant, who would steer Arab-Americans away from political engagement and towards the margins of American politics and society is a surefire recipe for maintaining the disempowerment and alienation from which we have been suffering for many decades. Arguments that accept the idea that the pro-Israel lobby has had little to no effect on shaping the fundamental elements of US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians feed into that alienation and self-imposed marginalization. After all, if a lobby as seemingly powerful and effective as the pro-Israel coalition has only a marginal effect and serves mainly as window dressing for other interests, then Arab-American political engagement is essentially pointless. Thankfully, this is absolutely untrue. The fact is that there is nothing stopping us from acquiring more influence in shaping policy other than our own self-defeating resistance to getting involved with the political system and the policy conversation in Washington as they actually exist today on the terms presently available. Insofar as an excessive adherence to the views of Chomsky and similar oppositional public intellectuals steers Arab-Americans away from engagement and encourages their alienation from the political structures in our society, it is to be assiduously avoided. I read Chomsky’s work with interest, but always with ample supplies of salt at hand.

In an outrageous column in the Washington Times today, Frank Gaffney launches one of the most despicable, dishonest and underhanded attacks on President Obama following his excellent speech in Cairo last week. Many of Gaffney’s fellow ultra-right wing pro-occupation and/or Islamophobic fellow travelers have been piling on the President in a transparent effort to quell his initiative to pressure Israel on settlements as well as the Palestinians on their own Roadmap responsibilities. There has been much talk about an "unprecedented betrayal of Israel," "throwing Israel under the bus," and similar overheated rhetoric from those who would encourage Israel to continue the occupation and the settlements in spite of their own clear interest in achieving a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Gaffney, however, takes the attack a step further by declaring that, “Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America’s first Muslim president.” Obviously, if President Obama actually were a Muslim, this would not be an attack, and it is not a criticism of anyone to call them a Muslim unless one is proceeding a priori from a perspective of Islamophobic bigotry. However, since the President is a devout Christian, ascribing to him a secret adherence to another faith is indeed an insult since it suggests that President Obama is dishonest, insincere and deceptive about his most deeply held beliefs.

But even this is not enough, since Gaffney feels required to claim that the President is no less than the moral and political equivalent of Adolf Hitler. According to Gaffney, President Obama has engaged in “the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich,” because while he objected to implicitly racist comments from Gaffney’s friends during the campaign that sought to emphasize his middle name as an effort to sow fear and doubts about his Christian faith, he is now pointing to the Muslim heritage in his own family to illustrate to Muslim audiences that Islam and the Muslim identity are not incompatible with American society or values. This, for Gaffney, is Hitlerian.

The invocation of Munich is a standard feature of hysterical pro-occupation rhetoric, with any implication that Israel needs to end its occupation in its own interests and in the interest of the United States being cast as the equivalent of Chamberlain’s shameful capitulation to Hitler’s demand for the reincorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany. But for Gaffney, even this familiar if ludicrous formulation is insufficient, and Obama must be not Chamberlain, but Hitler himself. And he is Hitler because while he objected to bigoted references to his middle name for nefarious purposes during the election, he is now willing to invoke it to improve the image of the United States among Muslims for noble purposes.

And how do we know that President Obama is secretly “a Muslim?” First, Gaffney notes that, “he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia,” as if that is evidence of anything reflecting his religious affiliation. Worse still, “Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to ‘the Holy Koran,’” which, in Gaffney’s mind, is not respectful of his audiences’ sensitivities but rather a sly revelation of his own crypto-Islamic sentiments. Gaffney also claims that, “Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam,” of which there was not only no evidence, but the President’s mangled pronunciations of Arabic terms referring to Muslim practices (i.e., his reference to the hijab as “the hajeeb”) suggests that he has very limited familiarity with Islam and the most basic Islamic terminology, and no familiarity whatsoever with Arabic. Gaffney objects to the fact that President Obama referred to the greatest figures of the three monotheistic faiths with “the term ‘peace be upon them,’” which he claims is a term that, “no believing Christian — certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam — would ever make.” According to Gaffney’s “logic,” to use this Islamic term of respect is to accept the Muslim understanding of Jesus as a prophet rather than “the son of God,” an obviously preposterous leap. The entirety of Gaffney’s case is that Obama had a Muslim father (actually, Obama says his father was essentially an atheist), or at least a father from a Muslim background, that he lived in Indonesia as a child, and that he spoke to a Muslim audience using respectful terms.

It would be an understatement to suggest that Gaffney is waterboarding both the facts and the President’s words to convince an audience he hopes takes a dim view of Islam that the President is, or at least may be, a secret Muslim. Gaffney underscores this point by twice stating, “it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim.” If it is beside the point, why engage in such elaborate political contortions, bending, twisting and mangling the facts and the President’s speech to suggest precisely this ludicrously false conclusion? In fact, Gaffney knows full well that it is not beside the point, especially not for his own intended audience which he obviously trusts is animated by a grave suspicion of Islam and the Muslims, and would be horrified to learn that the United States has actually elected a Muslim president. It is also intended to suggest that President Obama is a liar who has misrepresented not only his history but also his most deeply held religious beliefs. This is a perfectly disgusting effort to play on the very Islamophobic fears that Gaffney himself has done so much to promote and turn them on a political target who is not and never has been a Muslim for cynical ideological purposes.

Moreover, because the President pledged to fight stereotyping and discrimination against Muslim Americans, Gaffney argues he somehow promised, “to promote Islam in America,” which are obviously two completely different things. Gaffney is appalled that President Obama would state that, "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” presumably because this might interfere with the efforts of Gaffney and his friends to promote precisely these negative stereotypes, as he has tirelessly for many years. Gaffney is further enraged that the President, “vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads” (in fact he was speaking of covering their hair), and “pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith’s requirement for tithing.” In other words, a simple commitment to religious accommodation as required by the Constitution and upholding the principle of nondiscrimination on the basis of religion is offensive to Gaffney who prefers discrimination over American principles of equality before the law and religious freedom.

The most useful thing about Gaffney’s article is not just that it demonstrates how deranged some of the President’s ultra-right wing detractors have become, but that he also is forthright about his own motivation for condemning the President’s outreach to the Muslim world. Gaffney’s main problem with Obama is that the President is pushing forward with a major initiative to secure a reasonable end-of-conflict agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that involves ending the Israeli occupation. A strong supporter of both the occupation and the settlements, Gaffney derides what he calls “the hallowed two-state solution,” and insists that, “Abu Mazen’s Fatah remain[s] determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven ‘into the sea.’" In English, we call this a lie. Gaffney knows perfectly well that the PLO recognized the state of Israel in the late 1980s, engaged in many agreements with Israel predicated on a two state, and not a one state, principle for peace, and that President Abbas has never wavered from his pursuit of a peace agreement that would allow a Palestinian state to emerge to live alongside Israel in peace and security. It is not Abu Mazen who is opposed to a two state agreement, but Gaffney and his friends who support the occupation. In their frantic anti-peace efforts, they find it necessary to systematically misrepresent the Palestinian position, falsely suggesting that most Palestinians and their national leadership are not seeking an agreement with Israel, but rather its destruction.

Although Gaffney does not mention it, I have no doubt that the line in President Obama’s speech that caused him the most heartburn was his frank statement that, “Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.” This is precisely what Gaffney has done, what he will continue to do, and what he wishes the United States would do: deny Palestine’s right to exist, and insist on maximalist Israeli ambitions, preferring conflict and occupation over peace and reconciliation. Gaffney is precisely the kind of fanatical extremist – and a deeply cynical and dishonest one at that – who must be marginalized, ignored and dismissed if there is any chance of achieving peace in the Middle East in the interests of the Palestinians, Israel and the United States. President Obama is not a secret Muslim, but Frank Gaffney most certainly is an open and shameless extremist, fanatic and liar.