A reader writes, ?After having read your recent FP article, I am left rather perplexed for two reasons,? essentially about the authority of President Obama in the US government, and the authority of Hamas among Palestinians. Thanks for these two questions. Let?s take them one by one, shall we?

Question one:
?First off, you seem to put a great deal of hope upon President Obama’s shoulders. This is problematic as it presupposes the President’s individual agency to bring about a settlement to a 61 year old conflict as well as completely shift decades old American policy. This perspective also completely overlooks the role of entire apparatus which has created and maintained the decades-old policy. Jimmy Carter, the only American president to have done some positive for the conflict and the only who has even attempted the effort, has repeatedly and openly attested to the limitations to which he found himself bound during his years in the White House.?

I think this is pretty straightforward, and is based on a misunderstanding about my perception of what is driving US policy in the right direction. There is no question that President Obama is firmly in the driver?s seat, directing policy according to his own judgments. However, and this seems to be what the reader is suggesting, Obama is not operating off on his own tangent or in a vacuum of support. In fact, Obama?s policy transformation of US policy on the occupation and the settlements, and the centrality to American interests of creating a Palestinian state, reflects a broad consensus that has been developing over the past two years in the American foreign policy establishment generally. As I touched on yesterday, this includes many Jewish-American members of Congress and other influential figures who are traditionally staunch supporters of Israel. I completely disagree with the reader?s implication that President Obama is following his own personal judgments and will therefore meet with insurmountable resistance from bureaucrats and other Washington power centers that will thwart his innovations. I think in fact his correctives have been widely welcomed throughout not only the government, but the foreign policy establishment as a whole, I think he is acting with the full support of not only his administration, but a majority in Congress and a majority in the foreign policy community more broadly. It is the resistance to Obama’s policies that is isolated thus far, and while I recognize that Prime Minister Netanyahu was trying to mobilize more support among Jewish Americans to resist the President’s leadership, I do not think he is going to succeed in getting the administration to drop their insistence on an effective settlement freeze.

Question two:
?Secondly, you mention that Obama is going to need help shifting Israel from its current political stance – considering how the current leadership has taken the already-bludgeoned peace process to a further halt, do you really think any shift within its policy will suffice for grounds for talks to begin? And what of the elected representatives of the Palestinians – Hamas? By completely ignoring the role of the elected representatives of Palestinians, we are simply subjecting the Palestinians to what has helped exacerbate this conflict: non-representative (also external) Arab parties dictating the Palestinian’s future without taking into consideration their interests. Israel must freeze its settlements and tear down the wall, Hamas must be involved in the peace talks, Israel must recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination if it requires that Hamas recognizes it, and the blockade of Gaza must end. Then we start talking about reliable partners for peace.?

This is somewhat more complicated. I certainly do think that if Israel were to agree to an effective settlement freeze and the Palestinians continue to do what they should on security, permanent status negotiations become the very real possibility, especially under enthusiastic and engaged American leadership. I don’t agree that there is any real possibility of non-representative or external parties dictating Palestine’s future (unless it might be Iran through Hamas, which is a whole other story). There is no question, although many people seem to be somewhat confused on the issue, about what entity is authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people with Israel: the PLO. This is not debatable as a legal or political matter, and there is no Palestinian, Arab or international document whatsoever that does not recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and no document that recognizes any other entity in that role. Even Hamas has never claimed such a thing, although they do call for an alternative and restructured PLO. So, there is no confusion about this, although supporters of the Israeli far-right and supporters of the Palestinian ultra-right like to pretend that there is.

There is, therefore, no legal or political basis or need for Hamas to be involved in permanent status or other national level negotiations with Israel, although there is always a usefulness in parties talking to each other, as they do. Additionally, there is the question of whether Hamas would even want to be involved in permanent status peace negotiations with Israel since they do not recognize Israel, do not accept the goal of a two-state solution, speak only in terms of a 10-50 year “hudna” (or truce) with Israel that is of no interest to any other party, especially the Israelis, and do not recognize any of the agreements or understandings that form the basis for these negotiations. If, in spite of taking all of these positions, Hamas would want to participate in major peace negotiations with Israel, the organization would be effectively schizophrenic, and its positions even more incoherent than we already have seen to date.

The conditions of the Quartet for Hamas to join negotiations and become a plausible interlocutor are also in the Palestinian national interest: that it must recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and disarm, and accept the legitimacy of existing Palestinian agreements. This last point is unshakable, while in effect Hamas could probably go far enough in meeting the first two requirements by irrevocably and clearly accepting the goal of a two state agreement with Israel and by renouncing terrorism, as the PLO did in the late 1980s. That it should take these steps is very much in the Palestinian national interest, since Palestinian national goals such as ending the occupation and achieving independence can only be secured through an agreement with Israel, and as long as Israel has plausible grounds for refusing to talk to a major Palestinian political party, it serves as a liability with regard to achieving independence and freedom.

Moreover, in all likelihood the Hamas leadership understands that an end to the occupation and independence is the most ambitious agenda that the Palestinian national movement can seriously pursue under the present circumstances. If they do understand this, then the only way in which their approach makes any sense whatsoever is that it is being primarily driven by the aim of replacing the PLO as the main Palestinian national political entity. To do so, Hamas must continue to outbid the PLO at all levels of Palestinian nationalism, since it cannot achieve domestic political primacy based on religious fanaticism alone (which is not a path to power among the Palestinian majority). It must yoke its ultraconservative agenda with a nationalist agenda in order to move beyond its rather limited base of core support among the Palestinian religious-right. In my view, everything that the organization has done in recent years should be viewed through the lens of its ambition to marginalize and effectively eliminate the PLO, and establish itself as the “address” for Palestine regionally and internationally, since that?s the only way their behavior makes any sense at all. If it is ever able to succeed in doing this, it will probably mean the elimination of the Palestinian cause as a viable political project. If the Palestinian national movement becomes indistinguishable from a broader Islamist agenda, its potential to succeed in producing any useful or politically worthy results will be effectively foreclosed.

Finally, there is the question of the 2006 election. The reader refers to Hamas as “the elected representatives of the Palestinian people,” which is not entirely false, but also misleading in its formulation. First of all, as noted above, it is the PLO which is empowered to negotiate with Israel, and that authority is not derived from or subject to elections, although most people agree that any permanent status agreement should be the subject of a broad-based referendum among both Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore, winning a majority in the 2006 parliamentary election does nothing to affect who is authorized to negotiate for Palestinians with Israel. On the question of Palestinian government, there were, in fact, two recent elections, not one. In January 2005, following the death of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas was elected president (which gives him in fact authority over foreign policy) with 63% of the vote. One year later, in January 2006, Hamas-backed candidates won a parliamentary majority with 44% of the vote. That means that Palestinians elected one party to the presidency and another to the Parliament, producing a divided government. Therefore, to say simply that, “Hamas is the elected representative of the Palestinian people” is only half the story, at best.

By the way, Abbas? term expired in January of this year, but according to Palestinian law, the president remains in place until a new president is chosen through a new election, which has not yet happened. One of the only things that Fateh and Hamas negotiators were able to agree in their numerous negotiations in Cairo was that new presidential and parliamentary elections should be held in January, 2010. It’s obviously essential that this election go ahead under almost any circumstances, to clarify the will of the Palestinian people as to their elected government. However, to pick and choose which election one recognizes, who is legitimate or not legitimate based on which election result one likes, or anything similar isn’t particularly credible, and friends of Hamas are as guilty of this as Western governments have been. I have to say, I’m somewhat of a loss to understand the appeal that Hamas has for many people who ought to know better, and I have much more to say on this subject in the future.

It’s been well over a year since I began to explain to anyone who would listen to me that there was a sea change in attitudes towards the occupation and the settlements under way in Congress, including and especially from some crucially placed Jewish-American members who are traditional staunch supporters of Israel. For a long time, this was met with derision and skepticism. Following the Feb. 12 hearing of Gary Ackerman’s House International Relations Subcommittee into the Gaza war, and subsequent developments surrounding the Obama administration’s strong push to change Israel’s policy on settlements, these changes become more apparent to many people. Israeli press reports held that Netanyahu and his delegation were "stunned" to find that the firm American position on settlement expansion was not only consistent throughout the administration, but extended to key members of Congress who, in the past, could have been relied upon to support the Israeli government stance. I wasn’t surprised, but a lot of people I know are still struggling to internalize this transformation.

This pattern is essentially intensifying, with language that heretofore would have been considered unthinkable coming from friends of Israel who understand that Netanyahu’s approach to settlements is neither in the Israeli nor the American national interest. Harold Meyerson’s column in the Washington Post yesterday quotes Ackerman as stating categorically that, "having children can’t be an excuse to expand a settlement. Neither side should be expanding beyond its perimeters or attacking the other side. No expansions, no how, no way, no shticks, no tricks." This language not only lays out the firm American consensus that settlement activity is unacceptable, it also acknowledges that in the past Israeli governments have tried to play rhetorical games through which settlement growth would continue under some rubric or other that extends the process of transforming the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a manner that does irrevocable harm to the peace process. Ackerman is one of those who has cognizant of both what really might be considered "natural growth" to do with babies, and the past propensity of Israeli ministries, and their possible inclination at the present time, to use such rhetoric in order to conduct significant expansions of settlements territory or populations.

Having friends of Israel who are not hostile to settler babies take the lead in insisting that there be "no shtick, no tricks" from Israel on settlements represents a dramatic transformation of the American landscape on policy towards Israel and the occupation. Supporters of Palestine and Palestinian rights in the United States need to understand both the extraordinary opportunities that arise in this context and the serious limitations of how far it is likely to go. What we are looking at is a burgeoning consensus that the occupation must end in the interests not only of the Palestinians, but also of Israel and the United States. But we are not approaching a situation in which the special relationship between the two countries is undermined, up for grabs or in any sense in play. These are the bookends that define the new space that has opened up on Middle East policy within which friends of Palestine can find extraordinary new opportunities for advancing their goals. It’s still the case that far too many people dismiss or fail to recognize the significance of the transformation in American, and especially Jewish American, attitudes towards the occupation and the settlements. It’s also the case that for a variety of reasons, some activists continue to pursue strategies designed to attempt to challenge or undermine the special relationship, cut aid to Israel, otherwise overreach for implausible goals that will not only squander the present opportunities but also make life more difficult for Jewish-American supporters of the President’s strong stance on settlements and the occupation.

The political ground is shifting under our feet very quickly. Too many Americans most interested in Middle Eastern events — especially Jewish and Arab Americans — continue to think and speak as if it were still the mid-1990s (as the Israeli Prime Minister did last Sunday). However, to operate effectively in what is, whether people like it or not, a quite dramatically transformed political landscape, it is necessary to understand and acknowledge both the changes that have taken place and what can and cannot be plausibly achieved under these circumstances. We have a tremendous opportunity to move forward towards ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state, under the leadership of the American President and with the support of key members of Congress, including staunch supporters of Israel. However, those who seek in vain to break the special relationship between Israel and the United States, or to go beyond issues involving the occupation and, rather than supporting the creation of Palestine, begin to challenge the existence of Israel itself, are not only failing to take advantage of the extraordinary new opportunities that have opened up, they are actually undermining the very basis of the new consensus.

It is extraordinary that just as a critical mass in the American foreign policy establishment, including many staunch supporters of Israel, begin to adopt the very positions that Arab-Americans and other friends of Palestine have been advocating for decades (i.e. ending the settlements, creating a Palestinian state, etc.), a significant subsection of Arab-Americans is moving away from those positions, deriding them as insufficient or implausible. This is a striking historical and political mistake, albeit the predictable consequence of extremely unhealthy levels of cynicism and alienation born of years of frustration and disappointment. It is essential that the Palestinian and Arab-American majority that continues to support the aim of ending the occupation and securing a reasonable end of conflict agreement with Israel makes its voice heard loudly and clearly in favor of peace with no shtick and no tricks.

This posting from the Balkans via Bohemia blog by Richard Byrne illustrates I think exceptionally well and economically the models for how the current unrest in Iran might unfold building off of the experiences in Eastern Europe over the past 20 years. Well worth your time, as is everything Richard writes.

A deal, or at least a tacit understanding, on the outstanding issue of Israeli settlement activity is likely to be achieved in the coming days and weeks between the United States and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu essentially dodged the issue in his major policy address on Sunday, affirming that there would be no "new" settlements, but sticking to his government’s position that "natural growth" would continue. On its face, this appears to be a position that is totally irreconcilable with the Obama administration’s firm stance that no new settlement activity, including "natural growth," is consistent with Israel’s Roadmap commitments or the requirements of the US administration. However, since a confrontation on this issue that could bring down the Israeli government over the question of settlements is in the interests of neither party, and would be a very costly diversion from the urgent need to move forward towards opening permanent status negotiations as outlined in the Annapolis agreement, some kind of accommodation has always been probable, as I explained in an earlier posting on Ibishblog.

The real question now is, will this American-Israeli understanding on what kind and degree of settlement activity is to be considered tolerable serve in effect as political cover for Netanyahu to essentially agree to American demands that settlement activity which changes the conditions of the occupation in meaningful ways is unacceptable, or will it be political cover for the Obama administration to essentially give way to Netanyahu’s attempts to secure a back door in the roadmap that will allow significant settlement activity to continue under the rubric of "natural growth?"

The problem is that "natural growth" is defined by many different people in many different ways, and has historically been used by both the settler movement and the relevant Israeli ministries in an extremely broad and expansive way that does not simply reflect internal demographic changes due to new births in the existing population of settlements, but has served as a means of significantly increasing the population and the size of the settlements. As with many other issues involving the occupation, when Israel speaks of "natural growth," it means one thing, when almost everyone else means something else. If there is to be an accommodation that allows for some measure of "natural growth" of existing Israeli settlements that is going to open rather than close diplomatic space, is going to have to severely restrict what constitutes "natural growth," and ensure that such activity does not expand the size of the settlements whatsoever territorially and simply accommodates minor demographic changes within the existing populations of the settlements.

Two days ago I was on a radio program (again) with the Israeli Consul General in Los Angeles Jacob Dayan, and he repeated the assertion that what was under dispute were essentially "babies" and "nursery schools." The truth is that neither the Obama administration nor the Palestinian Authority are concerned about babies and nursery schools in the existing Israeli settlements, but are extremely wary of the history of Israeli settlers and ministries using the rubric of "natural growth" to expand the territory and population of settlements in a significant way that threatens both the credibility and the viability of permanent status peace negotiations. However, accommodations for babies and nursery schools might actually be useful in providing the means for Netanyahu to argue that natural growth of settlements is carrying on, when in fact Israel actually undertakes what is, in effect, a real settlement freeze to all intents and purposes.

Signs of activity in securing an understanding are everywhere. Ha’aretz quotes the new Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, as saying that, “there has been some progress made on that front over the past few days. Both parties have expressed their determined will to put an end to this bone of contention, and some novel ideas have been proposed.” According to CNN, “Under discussion, this and another Israeli source said, was a proposal in which Israel would agree to no new settlements, no confiscation of new land and a limit on so-called ‘natural growth’ of existing settlements to allow access to vital services. One of the sources said a potential obstacle was Israel’s position that its laws and other administrative rules precluded it from blocking projects already approved and financed. But both sources voiced optimism some accommodation could be reached that created ‘no new facts on the ground.’"

Other potential aspects of a workable agreement on the issue might include limiting the very narrowly defined scope of allowable "natural growth" to areas within Israel’s unilaterally constructed separation barrier in the West Bank, or other limitations that narrow even further where extremely limited "natural growth" might be permitted. A timeframe limitation is also possible, as is the allowance of the completion of existing construction that is already underway or similar accommodations that would provide political cover to Netanyahu without significantly undermining the American position that settlement activity in effect must cease.

It is also possible that the United States might try to kick-start permanent status negotiations, especially to achieve an understanding on the eventual borders of a Palestinian state, in order to defuse the settlement issue in those areas which it is mutually agreed with the Palestinians that Israel will retain as part of a limited land swap. The Washington Post suggests that, “One option under consideration by the Obama administration would be to expedite Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the borders of a future Palestinian state, the diplomat said. If a deal were to be reached on borders, construction could continue in those areas which would remain under Israeli control.”

This is more than a crucial litmus test of the Obama administration’s ability and willingness to be firm with Israel on the question of a settlement freeze, and to succeed in shifting Netanyahu’s position while possibly providing him some political cover with regard to his ultra-right-wing coalition partners and the settlement movement and its supporters. It is, in fact, the sine qua non for progress in any meaningful sense on peace, since without a settlement freeze Palestinians will have neither the basis nor the confidence for going forward with this Israeli government. This is a hurdle that the Obama administration must overcome, and I have argued strongly in many venues over recent weeks that Palestinians and the Arab states should move quickly to support his position in order to facilitate his efforts to shift Israel on this issue.

The terms of the accommodation, if it is reached, will be quite obvious. It will become clear whether Netanyahu is formulating a face-saving way of accepting American requirements, or whether the Obama administration has in effect retreated from its insistence on a settlement freeze. The signs are very promising that the administration is going to insist that it is Netanyahu and the Israeli government that will have to accommodate the American position, rather than the other way around.

My article for Foreign Policy magazine’s website on Netanyahu’s speech: "How the Palestinians should respond to Netanyahu: Arabs should stop complaining about Israel’s aggravating prime minister and prove they’re the more reliable partner for peace."

I was never one of those who believed that President Obama?s ?open hand? policy and his masterful speech in Cairo would have an immediate effect on domestic politics in most Middle Eastern societies. I certainly don?t think it played a meaningful role in the recent Lebanese elections, heartening though they were. And, as I said on numerous radio and television programs in the run up to the Iranian election, I don?t think they were a factor in the Iranian vote either. However, as we witness extraordinary events unfolding on the streets of Iranian cities over the past couple of days, one has to wonder whether or not the new American approach to the Middle East is really as irrelevant as a sophisticated understanding of the domestic political dynamics in these countries suggested at first blush.

I would certainly agree that the American diplomatic stance was not a major factor in deciding who voted for or against Ahmadinejad, Mousavi or any of the other candidates. If it is true, as it certainly appears, that the results have been heavily doctored, it is very hard to imagine that there was a strong consideration of Obama?s policies in that decision either. However, in the general outpouring of dissent and outrage on the Iranian streets, it becomes increasingly harder to dismiss the idea that the presence on the global political scene and the iconography of Obama are completely irrelevant.

Obama, first and foremost, and whether one likes it or not, is at present the global symbol of political transformation. His election in the United States represented an extraordinary political step that most people not only around the world, but also here in our own country, scarcely believed possible. Second, the open hand approach embarrasses extremists and those like Ahmadinejad who nurture their own clenched fists like hothouse orchids and revel in the politics of confrontation. Third, Obama is not only a product of the universal aspiration for change, his election was also to a very large extent a function of the political mobilization of new media technology, which is also driving the push back against the extremely dubious (to say the least) official Iranian election returns. It is hard to gauge the effect that Obama?s policies or his status as a global icon of unexpected and positive political transformation is having on current developments in Iran, but I?m no longer prepared to say, as I have over the past few weeks, that it is obviously not a factor.

Mousavi is hardly the standardbearer of progressive politics in Iran, but he did confront Ahmadinejad on Holocaust denial as an affront to the Iranian national dignity and reputation and rather forthrightly accused his rival of dragging Iran further down the road towards dictatorship. He appears to have been more acute in this second observation that he may have suspected during the debates. Ahmadinejad?s lowest-common-denominator political style, rank demagoguery and now, apparently, willingness to rig the already highly restricted Iranian political system all smack of nothing more or less than fascism. Insofar as President Obama represents, at the present moment, a new spirit of openness and constructive change in the world that stands in marked contrast to what we are presently seeing from the Iranian regime and to the politics of its appalling figurehead, we may, in fact, be witnessing something of an Obama effect in Iran after all.

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.