For years now, my colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine have been arguing that everyone who believes in a negotiated end-of-conflict agreement in the Middle East that allows for two states, Israel and Palestine, to live side-by-side in peace need to form a real, functioning national coalition to support this goal.

Until now, all such efforts have been limited for numerous reasons. First of all, the most interested parties, specifically Jewish-American friends of Israel and Arab-American supporters of Palestine, have been alienated by decades of mistrust. Historically, most American Jews and Arabs have largely seen each other through the distorted lens of a zero-sum perspective, assuming that what is good for Israel is necessarily bad for the Palestinians and vice versa, and that this extends to their respective supporters in the United States.

If this was ever true, it certainly isn’t now. As President Obama has pointed out, such a peace agreement is Israel’s interest, in Palestine’s interest, in the United States interest, and in the world’s interest. It may seem counterintuitive to some, and certainly runs counter to years of simplistic assumptions, but Israelis and Palestinians need the same thing: a workable peace agreement based on two states. It follows therefore that their supporters in the United States should be able to find common cause in pursuing this goal.

President Obama has put a great deal of his own political credibility and capital on the line in pursuit of this noble aim, clearly and forcefully articulating what all parties must do to build momentum towards the needed peace agreement. He has stated plainly that Palestinians need to move on security measures and combating incitement, that Israel must end settlements and avoid measures that preclude Palestinian statehood, and that the Arab states need to become more involved in the peace process. These important principles and concrete measures to actually implement them on all the parties ought to be supported by everyone who agrees with the goal of peace in the Middle East. It is fine for supporters of Israel to reiterate what is required of the Palestinians and what is needed from the Arab states, but they cannot remain silent about Israel’s commitments. There is no reason for supporters of Palestine to hold back on insisting that Israel live up to its obligations under the roadmap as President Obama is requiring, but they cannot ignore Palestinian responsibilities either. Everyone with ties and relationships to the Arab governments should similarly be pressing them to do everything they can to support the President?s initiative and seize this extraordinary, historic opportunity. We all have a responsibility and a role to play.

Jewish and Arab Americans cannot allow their past differences and historical competition to impede what is plainly become a common imperative in supporting the President’s bold moves on peace. It’s perfectly true that they are used to seeing each other only as competitors and rivals, but these long-standing prejudices and misperceptions need to be jettisoned forthwith if we are to truly play the role we must. No two groups in the United States care more about what happens between Israel and the Palestinians than Jewish and Arab Americans. No one in the United States has deeper ties, more connections, or more sophisticated understandings of the history, realities and perceptions that motivate both parties to the conflict. We cannot leave this to the government alone. We must play our role in civil society, by living up to our responsibilities as citizens in engaging with our own government and those in the Middle East with whom we identify, and doing everything we can to support these extremely positive developments.

To fully live up to this historic opportunity, these two communities need to do everything they can to make common cause on this issue. Now is the time to put aside tribalism, simplistic ethnic identification, and communal defensiveness, and reach out to each other in pursuit of an all-important common interest. Much has been said and done in the past to fuel a sense of rivalry and alienation between the Jewish and Arab American communities. This history has left deep scars, but it needs to be consigned to the past and moved beyond with all dispatch in order to achieve urgent mutual interests. Past actions and statements ought to be properly seen as irrelevant to the present task, and need not be forgotten or forgiven, but must be placed to one side in pursuit of a peace agreement that transcends by far in importance any past differences, slights and transgressions. Sincere, responsible people of goodwill in both communities can demonstrate their constructive intentions first of all by actively combating those among their own brethren who would oppose peace and continue to advocate rejectionism, violence, occupation and conflict.

It is perfectly true that there are many Jewish-Americans who remain suspicious that Arab and Arab-American support for peace based on two states is merely the first step in a “plan of phases,” intended ultimately to lead to the destruction of Israel. Certainly there are many Arab-Americans who have yet to be convinced that Israelis and their supporters who say they who favor peace negotiations are not simply trying to help buy time to build more settlements and consolidate the occupation so that no Palestinian state will ever be possible in the occupied territories. In other words, while most people in both communities say they want the same thing, many do not believe each other. They are sure of their own sincerity, but extremely dubious about the sincerity and intentions of those on the other side of the ethnic divide. However, rather than assuming at the outset that the other party is lying and playing some kind of elaborate game of deception, surely it would make more sense to test the waters and see if it is not possible that, because Israelis and Palestinians need the same thing, their respective friends in the United States also honestly and sincerely wish to work in that direction. Is it inconceivable that Jewish-American friends of Israel and Arab-American supporters of Palestine are actually supportive of the same goal even though they often fail to recognize this reality because it contradicts traditional assumptions and seems, to many people, counterintuitive? We believe that this is in fact the case.

It is necessary, of course, to test each other’s sincerity, but this can only be done through active engagement and a sustained effort to forge a serious alliance based on common interests. But, it is neither necessary nor helpful to try to analyze each other’s motivations, or insist that competing and possibly irreconcilable narratives and political analyses become harmonized. It should be understood from the outset that, just as Israelis and Palestinians require the same peace agreement for their own purposes and not out of any abiding affection for each other, their friends and supporters in the United States will have very differing motivations for joining a national coalition in support of a two-state agreement. One of the greatest virtues of a two-states arrangement, and what makes it plausibly realizable, is that in fact it does not require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile their narratives. Each society can then live in its own state, with internal minority groups, and forge its future according to its own understandings, needs and imperatives.

Jewish and Arab Americans similarly need not agree on the history of the conflict, who did what to whom, how to apportion blame for the present situation, or any other implausible forms of reconciliation. All they need do is agree that it is in the American national interest, and the national interests of their friends in the Middle East, to achieve a reasonable peace agreement based on two states. It is enough to seriously and sincerely agree on this point to build a single-issue coalition in order to pursue that goal. Differently motivated parties pursue the same aims in ad hoc informal coalitions in the American political system all the time. Indeed, that is how most major change is accomplished: differently interested parties agreeing for varying reasons on the same goal.

We should not only be increasing our efforts at outreach and dialogue, since more concrete measures are now called for and the political space opened up by President Obama’s bold moves on peace will require more than tentative steps for support if it is to succeed. Responsible organizations and individuals should be thinking in terms of joint projects, statements and efforts in pursuit of peace and to support the President?s initiatives. It may well be time for the most mainstream and politically significant Arab and Jewish Americans to think about developing a formal statement of principles or some other defining document or coalition that can guide and give shape to a real, effective and powerful national coalition for a two-state agreement in the Middle East. Obviously there are many other parties that can and should be brought into these efforts at the earliest possible date, including church and other religious organizations, other peace oriented organizations, and corporate entities with a stake in Middle East peace. There is a need for such a coalition to be broader than simply a Jewish-Arab American alliance in favor of peace, however cooperation between these two uniquely interested and engaged communities must be the essential backdrop if any serious and sustained effort of this kind is to be successful.

It is now time to stop merely thinking and talking about joint efforts, and actually develop a national coalition for Middle East peace. The urgency and intensity of President Obama’s political and diplomatic emphasis on building momentum towards peace is an extraordinary, possibly unique, and perhaps even final opportunity for Jewish and Arab Americans who both say they want peace in the Middle East based on a two-state agreement to begin seriously working together to achieve this result. The President is doing his part. It is now up to all of us who agree with him to do ours.

Yesterday I noted that opposition to the President’s outstanding speech in Cairo was forming the basis for a new de facto far-right/ultra-left anti-peace coalition that was springing up organically due to shared antipathy on the political extremes to Obama’s efforts to create momentum towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. The phenomenon is interesting and instructive, to a point, but this is getting ridiculous. Some people are going so far that they are almost switching sides, and indeed are openly endorsing extremists on the other side to reinforce their own radicalism in the face of an Obama-driven surge of moderation momentum. Some of the examples below ought to make any sensible person’s head spin and demand some thoughtful analysis.

How about this one? At Commentary magazine’s blog, Ira Stoll actually disputes President Obama’s claim that, for Palestinians, violence is “a dead end,” arguing instead that Palestinian violence is responsible for positive American policy and rhetorical changes: “sadly, were it not for ongoing terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets, President Obama would not be in Egypt comparing the Palestinian Arab cause to that of the captive nations of Eastern Europe or American blacks.” Stoll seems to be suggesting that it would therefore be logical for Palestinians to back Hamas and other organizations that argue that violence is indeed the key to moving forward on Palestinian national aims. Obviously this is wrong, but it is indeed amazing, exasperating and depressing to see a committed Zionist (of all people) at Commentary (of all venues) essentially endorsing Hamas’ strategy and tactics.

Professional Islamophobe and supporter of World War II Japanese internment, Michelle Malkin agrees with the Arab ultra-left that Obama’s speech was empty rhetoric that merely hides a continuation of the Bush approach: “For all the hype about fresh starts and new beginnings, Obama embraces the same blind dhimmitude that plagued the Bush adminstration and foggy-headed bureaucrats that infect Foggy Bottom. Same old, same old.” Different starting points, to be sure, but the same conclusion.

The Angry Idiot, Assad AbuKhalil, whose emotional tirade against Obama’s remarks was considered in my earlier examination of the far-right/ultra-left anti-peace coalition, later admitted that “I am rather shocked at the very positive tone of coverage of Obama’s speech in Arab media,” but, on second thought consoles himself and his readers with the extremely weak argument that “the goodwill that met Obama in Egypt is less about him and more about Bush: Bush was so hated and detested in the region, that his successor would enjoy a grace period no matter what." So, nothing to do with the speech then. Just inexplicable, naïve positivity, and relief at the absence of Bush. There is no possibility, one would surmise, of such folks ever considering that everyone else is picking up on serious changes that are real, but that they are unwilling or unable to acknowledge due to political extremism, the fact that they are already on record denouncing Obama in the ripest possible terms and are unwilling to admit any error, or the fact that they are so antagonistic to the American political system that they would never admit that it is actually moving policy in the right direction. AbuKhalil’s favorite term for the President? "Bushobama." Perhaps Malkin will adopt it as well, since she certainly shares the sentiment.

The overgrown juvenile delinquents at Kabobfest, perhaps the most embarrassing site on the entire net (at least for Arab-Americans), chime in with their own inimitable blend of putrid radicalism and infantile nonsense. They underscore their anti-Obama fanaticism with a truly disgusting and repulsive “cartoon” that I will not describe, and I caution readers to think twice before viewing it through this link. As for their “analysis” of the speech itself, it is a rambling diatribe that is striking reminiscent in its style and lack of sophistication to Robert Spencer’s rabidly Islamophobic commentary, but from an Arab ultra-left perspective. It is so ill-informed that it even suggests that John Adams owned slaves. They conclude from the speech that “actual change will be minimal, if not in the wrong direction (as in the case of a fraudulent Palestinian ‘state,’)” language that might have been directly lifted from the most rabid right-wing pro-settler site on the Internet and providing yet another example of how extremists from both sides can easily become indistinguishable when it comes to responsible measures that are required to develop the peace agreement they all oppose.

After all this, its no surprise that the Jewish far-right winger Daniel Pipes also agrees with the Arab ultra-left that Obama’s speech “broke little new ground but raised to new heights the art of sugaring words in ways appealing,” not to Arabs or Muslims, but “to Islamists.” In fact, most Islamist reaction in the Middle East has, of course, been more in line with Pipes’ dismissal of Obama’s initiative than with anything endorsed by the President – indeed, it is the Islamist far-right and elements of the ultra-left that are the main voices of skepticism about Obama’s speech in the Arab media at the moment. But Pipes never sullies his arguments with anything as sordid as the facts.

Pipes is an amazing case study in the extremist mindset. Daniel Luban reports on Jim Lobe’s always interesting blog, that he has actually endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the upcoming Iranian presidential election: “I’m sometimes asked who I would vote for if I were enfranchised in this election, and I think that, with due hesitance, I would vote for Ahmadinejad,” Pipes said. The reason, Pipes went on, is that he would “prefer to have an enemy who’s forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements.” This, obviously, is the right-wing Zionist equivalent of Ali Abunimah’s outrageous “I hope Avigdor Lieberman wins Israeli election big” and “go Bibi!” comments – which might well have issued directly from Pipes himself.

All of this is a phenomenon well worth tracking and studying. How is it that political extremism drives people on the fringes of competing perspectives (whether ethnic, religious or ideological, or some combination of them) into each other’s camp, in effect, to come to the same (totally wrong) conclusions from diametrically opposed starting points, and begin to articulate each other’s positions and endorse each other’s candidates and strategies? Obviously, a mutual antipathy towards pragmatic and constructive political developments draws even diametrically opposed extremists into a shared opposition to what is reasonable, leading counterintuitively to similar and compatible analyses and conclusions. Therefore, those who are not interested in compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, whether they are driven by sympathy for Israeli or Palestinian maximalist ambitions, will predictably unite, if on nothing else, then at least in opposition to efforts by responsible actors like President Obama to lay the groundwork for a reasonable compromise.

What is more difficult to explain is what drives people like Stoll, Abunimah and Pipes to actually endorse candidates and strategies representing extremism of the opposite variety. Their arguments are clear, and essentially amount to the old Trotskyite idea that one should always "push the contradictions" to the breaking point, and that the worst elements in any given system or society should be strongly encouraged so as to "expose the rot" that supposedly permeates the enemy. By encouraging the other side to act as badly as possible, this logic suggests, one is hastening their defeat and revealing their "true nature." Anti-peace extremists who hope and believe that they can achieve some kind of total victory, whether military or political, over the other side and eradicate either Israel or Palestinian nationalism respectively, and therefore adopt such reckless rhetorical tactics, are playing fast and loose with the lives and futures of millions of people in the Middle East by encouraging the worst elements in each other’s societies and volunteering as cheerleaders for mayhem. This grotesque irresponsibility stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s efforts to make progress, and the well-established commitment of the vast majority of both Palestinians and Israelis to live side-by-side in two states in peace and security.

I have previously observed that it is useful to have opponents that are slightly unhinged, and wishing for the other side to make mistakes and go too far is only human — up to a point. Surely for all reasonable people there has to be a limit to how far this can go. Rationalizing the strategy of suicide bombing, endorsing Lieberman and Amhadinejad, and so forth takes this normal human political impulse to pathological and grossly irresponsible extremes. In other words, such dramatic distortions of judgment may be inevitable byproducts of an extremist political orientation, and perhaps cannot be avoided once extremist attitudes are adopted.

These are only tentative steps in understanding what is really a very strange and counterintuitive process that is taking place among anti-peace extremists on both sides, and I suppose one will have to make additional progress in analyzing it, assuming it continues, in the coming months. A much better outcome, however, would be for the extremists themselves to grow up, cut the crap and start acting like reasonable, responsible human beings rather than egging each other on to ever worse levels of vitriol and, ultimately, violence.

[NOTE: Since original posting this blog entry, I have discovered that Hassan Haidar makes a similar point in today’s edition of al-Hayat about extremists in the Middle East, which is well worth reading.]

Extremists on the far-right and the ultra-left who dislike President Obama, oppose peace, or hate the Islamic world or the United States respectively, joined forces across the Internet today in condemning the President’s outstanding speech in Cairo. It is worth reviewing some of their reactions, as they constitute both some sources of resistance to serious moves towards peace and a de facto coalition for continuing the conflict and generally making things worse.

The right and left wing anti-peace extremists have been extremely hard-pressed to come up with convincing or legitimate grounds for taking issue with President Obama’s approach generally, or even many specifics of what he had to say. The dilemma for many of them was that the very excellence of the President’s performance both increased the need for condemnation while at the same time making it more difficult. As a consequence, most online critiques coming from the anti-peace coalition today have ranged from the preposterous to the pathetic, and almost all of them either focused on what was left unsaid (a tactic that could be deployed against virtually any set of remarks) or, more typically, some fanciful version that the extremist critics imagine that they heard this morning but which was not in fact what the President said. Indeed, one has to wonder what the hell speech Obama’s extremist critics were watching, although I suppose that all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

The fanatical neocons at the National Review’s notorious “corner” are in predictably full dudgeon. Michael Rubin complains that Obama “abandoned democracy” in the speech, although of course he never did anything remotely of the kind. Marc Thiessen claims the speech was “damaging, wrong, and at times simply shameful” and “echoed al-Qaeda’s calumnies against” US military and intelligence personnel by drawing a distinction with Bush administration policies. To buy into this, one has to believe that any criticism of Bush administration policies is tantamount to a criticism of the entire military and intelligence communities and all who serve in them. Under such circumstances, serious policy debate is scarcely possible. Moreover, this ham-handed attempt to link President Obama to al-Qaeda never seems to lose its appeal to the extremist right, even though it is as transparent as it is nasty and absurd. At any rate, it’s obviously ludicrous to suggest that criticizing wrongheaded policies that had to be carried out by military or security personnel, but were determined by political higher-ups, amounts to “throwing them under the bus.” Another National Review corner-dweller, Andy McCarthy, condemns support for peace in the Middle East by both Obama and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “blather," which I suppose is not surprising since we’re dealing with what amounts to the pro-war and conflict constituency.

Robert Spencer’s take on the speech could constitute grounds for involuntary committal: comparing the President to Rodney King, alleging that the “humanitarian crisis [in Gaza] is a product of the Palestinian propaganda machine,” asserting that a Palestinian state would only “be used as a base for further jihad attacks against Israel” and arguing that the “idea that Islamic culture was once a beacon of learning and enlightenment is a commonly held myth.” This man is so consumed with blinding hatred that can’t even admit to himself that Muslims have played a significant role in advancing human civilization. As I have noted before, Spencer is among the most passionate Islamophobes in the country, and is deeply committed to a religious struggle on behalf of his version of Christianity against all forms of Islam. I suppose the clinical terms for his condition are paranoia, or possibly phobic obsession, but any reader with psychiatric qualifications should feel free to correct me or elaborate.

Ultra-right wing blogger Hugh Hewitt dismisses the speech as “deeply dishonest in its omissions” and “rhetorically misleading its assumptions,” and imagines that Obama has committed some sort of “profound betrayal of Israel” by suggesting “that Israel has done to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to Jews.” He arrives at this bizarre conclusion because the President had the decency to acknowledge the suffering of both peoples. It goes without saying that in no way did the President make any comparison between Israel and the Nazis, and that no one in his Arab or Muslim audience would understand his words in this way. In a very odd aural hallucination, Hewitt has heard something the President simply has not said.

Erick Erickson of redstate.com makes the same bizarre claim, alleging that President Obama suggested that, “what happened to the Jews the same issue as what is happening to the Palestinians.” Compounding this ludicrous twisting of the President’s words, Erickson demonstrates precisely where he’s coming from: “the Palestinians have been willful terrorists.” Simple as that. Meanwhile, he argues, Palestinians have the power to determine how they are treated by Israel, while Israel does not have any power to affect how it is treated by Arabs, “unless you assume Israel is happy to commit national suicide,” which is apparently his codeword for a reasonable peace agreement.

While the far-right fulminates about “apology tours,” “betrayals of Israel,” and how evil the Palestinians are, the usual suspects among ultra-left Arab-American commentators have stepped forward to speak for those unwilling to take yes for an answer. They seem to be so addicted to condemning American presidents and their remarks that they simply could not resist another opportunity even in the face of an extremely constructive and responsible address.

The Angry Idiot, Assad AbuKhalil, calls the speech “part vapid and part sinister,” (which is actually not a bad description of his own blog). He denies there was anything new, even in Obama’s tone and substance, to the point of asserting that the speech was “compiled together” [sic] from a series of earlier speeches. I suppose this makes it some kind of “Franken-speech,” made from the remains of other, lesser, speeches. This extraordinarily foolish claim is apparently based on the fact that some elements of the speech could be seen as recalling some elements of earlier speeches by American presidents, and is oblivious to the obvious changes in policy, tone and emphasis Obama has introduced. AbuKhalil repeats his earlier claim that, simply on the basis of being the American president, Obama “speaks for the White Man” (whatever that means), in this instance suggesting that the President believes in “White Man standards: that only Israeli lives matter.” Am I the only one to detect something distinctly racist about this attempt to tarnish the first African-American president with the supposed sins and faults of “the White Man,” or to notice how absolutely ridiculous this kind of rhetoric is coming from anyone (as the Angry Idiot and I both are) from Lebanon?

Writing on the Guardian website, Ali Abunimah describes President Obama as nothing less than “a Bush in sheep’s clothing.” Suffering from a similar hearing impairment as Hewitt and Erickson, Abunimah somehow managed to get the impression that Obama “seemed once again to implicate all Muslims as suspect,” in a speech that was replete with gracious overtures to Muslims and included no such sentiments. He was, of course, thoroughly dissatisfied with Obama’s clear-cut calls for a settlement freeze, complaining that the new administration position “focus[es] only on continued construction, not on the existence of the settlements themselves” and predictably condemned Obama’s advocacy of “an unworkable two-state ‘vision.’” The truth is that Abunimah, being categorically opposed to Palestinian independence, would necessarily reject anything Obama or any other president does to pursue that important goal. It’s also the case that Abunimah is more or less locked into an anti-Obama position given the stridency of his opposition to the President during the election campaign. For both reasons, there is really nothing Obama might possibly have said that would have satisfied him, having both a personal and political stake in the President being seen as a failure.

No doubt there are many other objections circulating around the fringes of the blogosphere that attempt to somehow take issue with the President’s remarks, but I think these are the main elements of the critique from the far-right (he somehow betrayed the United States/the military/Israel) and the ultra-left (he is “no better than Bush” and continues to pursue imperialist policies based on racism). What’s remarkable is the way in which these arguments work together in a vain attempt to tarnish a stellar performance that has enhanced American standing in the Middle East and advanced the prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, among other useful things.

The enemies of peace are out there, and they are blogging. Whether they come from the far-right or the ultra-left, they share a mutual antipathy to serious efforts to resolve the conflict and craft a reasonable peace based on two states. Anti-peace forces, both in the Middle East and in the United States, have a common purpose and a de facto alliance, which should be recognized for what it is. They find themselves on the same side attacking President Obama’s speech, for different reasons. But they are nonetheless effectively on the same side. Their attacks are extremist and irreconcilably anti-peace, as well as shamelessly dishonest. These perspectives represent some of the political forces that stand in the way of progress towards peace. Thankfully, they are distinctly marginal. Let us all ensure that they stay that way.

President Obama deservedly received a standing ovation from his audience at Cairo University today, after delivering a pitch-perfect and inspiring speech to the Arab and Muslim peoples.

The President?s words were especially significant, as they should have been, with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bluntly stating ?it is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true,? which is that it is in ?Israel?s interest, Palestine?s interest, American interests and the world?s interests? to achieve an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that allows for the creation of a Palestinian state. Indeed, perhaps the most significant aspect of his speech were his two references to Palestine as a state in the same context as Israel and the United States – an extraordinary step ? adding, “just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.” It was almost impossible to listen to President Obama’s speech without concluding that the Palestinian state constitutes a fait accompli in his own mind, and in American policy, and that from the point of view of the American President, it is only a matter of time before it is established. No doubt this an important part of what he meant when he pledged that, ?we will say in public what we say in private.?

His reference to the occupation as “intolerable” was also refreshingly blunt and appropriate, as was his rejection of Israeli settlement activity. Palestinians, he said, deserve, “dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.? The President was also quite right in stressing the need for including a central role for the Arab world in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue, an issue that ought to be vigorously pursued in the coming weeks and months as the Arab states have both an interest and a responsibility to step up to the mark as President Obama himself is. The President was also wise to defend the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and the need for an Israeli state, both of which reflect consensus positions in the United States and will be the basis for much of what the United States can do to secure Israeli cooperation on peace. The same applies to his principled rejection of Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and threats to destroy Israel, and his appropriate reminder that, under such circumstances, violence is wrong, does not confer moral authority and does not succeed.

There were other important aspects of the speech, particularly the use of his own personal narrative to illustrate the extent to which Islam is and can be a part of the American story and society, and that there is no contradiction between a Muslim identity and American values and interests. He reiterated his repudiation of torture and determination to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, as well as his commitment to the schedule for troop withdrawals in Iraq. His distinction between the war in Afghanistan, which he is pursuing, and the war in Iraq which he is bringing to an end, was a clear indication of another important distinction between the new administration’s policies and those of its immediate predecessor. The President?s support for the principles of democracy and women’s rights received warm applause, but he was careful to note that the United States would not seek to impose its vision for how states ought to conduct their transition towards democracy and pluralism. He also was right to warn against those who would promote democracy as a tool for getting into power and then oppress others when in power, a clear reference to Islamist extremists who pose as champions of democracy without believing in pluralism or real democracy at all.

Overall, the President’s speech was exactly what was needed and would have been difficult to improve within the context of the responsibilities of that office and the political realities in which he must operate. On a range of issues — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Guantánamo, Iraq, and changing the tone with which the United States addresses the Arab and Muslim worlds — President Obama has done his part in moving quickly to reshape relations between the United States and the Arabs. It is now time for reciprocal gestures. The most important thing, perhaps, that the Arab states can do at this stage is to take concrete, serious and practical steps support his moves on Israeli-Palestinian peace. This means stating clearly and eventually taking practical measures to live up to the spirit of the Arab Peace Initiative and demonstrating a willingness to move in the direction of reconciliation within recognition of Israel in the context of serious Israeli steps that will lay the groundwork for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. President Obama today spoke of Palestine as a state that must and will exist, but all parties must play their role in creating the political and diplomatic realities that will allow the Palestinian state to, at long last, emerge from the ashes of dispossession and occupation. The ball is now in the Arab court ? he needs and deserves their help, and they have a vital interest in providing it. Arab governments, organizations and individuals should, in their own interests, move quickly to do everything possible to reciprocate and support the President?s bold gestures.

Tomorrow morning will be all about public diplomacy, which is distinct in many respects from policy. It is unlikely, and possibly unwise, for the President to unveil any dramatic new policy initiatives in such a setting. Indeed, when the history is written of this Middle East trip in the future, it may actually be that today’s meetings with the Saudi government were more important in the long run to US policy and American-Arab relations than the much-anticipated speech in Cairo. This is because President Obama has maneuvered the situation between Israel and the Palestinians to the point where cooperation by the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, becomes an essential component in progress towards peace. The administration’s firm stance towards Israel on settlements and a two-state solution, and towards the Palestinians on security and incitement, should now be matched with a successful effort to bring the Arab states into the process by beginning to explore ways in which the Arab Peace Initiative could begin to be operationalized by diplomatic overtures short of full recognition in response to concrete Israeli steps such as a settlement freeze, as well as increased practical, financial and diplomatic Arab support for the Palestinian Authority. If President Obama was able to make headway with the Saudis on this issue earlier today, that could well prove more significant in the long run to improving American-Arab relations through significant progress on Middle East peace than anything which is said in Cairo tomorrow.

That said, tomorrow morning?s speech will be exceptionally significant. I don’t agree with those who have suggested that there has been so much hype about the address that it cannot fail to fall short of expectations. President Obama came into office with a number of distinct advantages in appealing to Arab public opinion in a way few American politicians could hope to do. First, the entire world, including the Arabs, were generally impressed with the fact that the United States could transcend its long and bitter history of racial divisions, and indeed racism, and that the white majority in this country could elect an African-American president. That fact alone stood many assumptions about the United States on their heads, and Barack Obama gets a great deal of credit for navigating this extraordinary breakthrough. Second, while Obama has always insisted, of course, that he is a committed Christian, the fact that he has Muslim heritage through his father’s family and lived for a time in Muslim-majority Indonesia, and of course bears the familiar and typically Arab name of Hussein (which no one can doubt is obviously the best name in the world), all give him a set of advantages in beginning the overture to the Arab and broader Muslim worlds that no other national political figure in the United States can match.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that everyone in the Arab or Muslim worlds is in love with President Obama or that his identity and background is sufficient to carry the day with public opinion in that part of the world. The President is going to have to produce. While, as I say, major unexpected policy initiatives are unlikely, and possibly inappropriate, and emphasis on the change in attitudes and tone from the United States under Obama’s leadership in addressing the Arab and Muslim worlds and their fundamental interests is obviously required. Under no circumstances is this, and neither can nor should be, an “apology tour,” as the President’s right wing detractors have been suggesting. But the President can and should emphasize that the United States intends to play its part in beginning to heal the wounds of a very difficult period that has seen ever-increasing alienation between Arab and American societies, while urging the Arabs to do their part as well. The President should make it clear that the United States, under his leadership, intends to operate out of a renewed sense of respect for Arab and Muslim public opinion, national interests, and legitimate sensitivities. He should make it clear that the United States seeks a new relationship of genuine partnership in which the interests of both parties, and not just the global and regional superpower, are seriously reflected.

President Obama has already made it clear that he has no interest in dictating unreasonable terms or making irresponsible demands on governments in the Middle East, and has distanced himself, as the Bush administration had to, from the misguided one-size-fits-all and top-down approach of the ill-fated “Greater Middle East Initiative,” that was drafted without significant Arab input and prepared for presentation at an international multilateral meeting at which Arabs and Muslims were not going to be represented. Certainly the President should and no doubt will emphasize American values and our support, in general terms, for the principles of democracy, transparency and rule of law throughout the world. However, a constructive, reasonable and realistic approach suggests that transition towards a greater adherence to these values cannot be imposed by the United States, and certainly cannot be conceived of as applying in the same way and at the same time to all states in the Middle East.

When it comes to policy, the President can do no better than to emphasize his commitment to the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that will, at long last, end the occupation and allow a Palestinian state to emerge to live alongside Israel in peace and security. Palestine remains the prism of pain through which the Arabs generally, for better or worse, view all aspects of international relations. His administration’s bold stance on settlements and firm commitment to a two-state agreement that would, indeed, end the occupation is an excellent basis for arguing to Arab public opinion that American policy is changing for the dramatically better and that American interests are indeed fundamentally compatible with the essential needs of the Arab world. A clear restatement of the already elaborated positions of the administration that Israel must end settlement activity, including ?natural growth? and outposts, and that the United States is determined to press forward with peace negotiations that are designed to end the occupation and create a Palestinian state would go a long way to achieving this goal. This would be especially true if the President couched it as a personal commitment to do everything within his power to try to achieve as much progress as humanly and politically possible during his term of office.

If President Obama clearly articulates a change in the tone and attitude adopted by the United States towards the Arab world and its essential and legitimate interests, and strongly and clearly reiterates a change in policy on the issue of settlements and the urgency with which the United States will be pursuing peace based on creating a Palestinian state, his speech in Cairo tomorrow morning should go a long way towards laying the foundations for improved relations between the United States and the Arab world and an enhancement of regard for both the President as a leader and our country in general throughout the Middle East.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you so much for this excellent question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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