The New Chamberlain

At the onset of President Obama’s term in office, there seemed a desire to deal with Iran.  Throughout his presidency, Mr. Obama has sought a deal with the totalitarian state to inhibit through diplomacy its nuclear ambitions.  This might be seen as a continuation of the type of diplomacy that began under President Nixon to limit our adversaries’ nuclear capabilities.  However, previous agreements have been done from a position of strength.  The president, so anxious to get any deal done, has created the opposite and the Iranians are better for it.

For the Iranians, the biggest hurdle to overcome is the elimination of international sanctions that have been in place for so long that the Iranian economy’s decline is in an inverse relationship with civil unrest.  The Iranian leadership, exhibiting a dictatorial nature that they once bemoaned personified in the Shah, is cracking down on dissent while trying to turn the corner on their own Great Depression. 

Just as the Iranian government was left grasping for answers, they received a bit of salvation in a rather obliging deal with the U.S.  The fact that the Iranians are praising the deal while threatening to build nuclear weapons if anyone backs out should give the powers that be pause.  The Israelis are particular concern because their relationship with Iran is not diplomatic but pragmatic.  It is they who stand to face obliteration at the hands of a nuclear Iran.  While the president opines rhetorically, the Israelis are faced with a very real problem.  For Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is not a personal ambition but a national one given the results of recent elections that returned him to power.

The blithe sanguinity with which the president sees Iran’s compliance is thankfully not shared by the Congress.  The ball is now in their court to put some teeth back into this deal or nix it altogether.  Still, while Congress can frame the approach, it still lies with the president to act on it and Mr. Obama does not seem keen to do so.  With a naïveté reminiscent of President Jimmy Carter with the Russians and President Woodrow Wilson with the European Powers, President Obama is banking his entire approach on the “will of good men” in Iran.  Never mind that Iran has done nothing to give the impression that such men exist within its government, the president’s approach continues to hold the faith. 

I must admit that I admired initially the president’s willingness to speak to Iran.  He is right that nothing can be achieved without communication.  However, cock-eyed optimism is no way to deal with such an adversary.  There must be iron in our words and a willingness to lower the hammer if our interests are ignored.  We have taken on the responsibility to negotiate and the worst thing that we can do is to disregard our commitment to friends and regional peace by settling for anything at any price.  The president, in a way not unlike pre-World War II British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, has done just that.

Hamas' Cynical Plan

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish.  It is the child of hope and the home of the brave.  It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success.  It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

            President John F. Kennedy 

This past week, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the U.N. Riyad Mansour spoke of the recent troubles between his state and Israel.  He spoke of Israel breaking the recently agreed upon cease-fire and castigated the Jewish state for the massacre of Palestinians.  Interviewer Charlie Rose asked about the actions of Hamas, breaking the truce with thousands of rockets leading to the Israeli response.  Mr. Mansour, speaking with either shocking naïveté or willful obliviousness, said that Hamas does not represent the Abbas government and therefore, does not represent a violation of the cease-fire.  The U.N. Observer’s verbiage is characteristic of an unbalanced and cynical approach in the worsening climate of the Middle East. 

Since the Oslo Accord in 1993, Israel has been pushed into one agreement after another in which it sacrifices and Palestine does not.  Israel has ceded territory, has agreed to a needed two-state solution and nine years ago, it demolished a slew of Israeli settlements throughout Gaza and the West Bank to secure a possible peace.  It has entered into negotiations with the Abbas government who has shown, at times in the recent crisis, remarkable courage in speaking out against Hamas and those who support the terrorist group.  Yet, Hamas lies just outside the light of diplomacy and refuses to budge.  

Hamas has pursued a policy that calls for the destruction of Israel by inviting its fire and using ordinary Palestinians as shields.  Despite Mr. Mansour’s blithe understanding and acceptance of Hamas, the terrorist group has fired its many rockets out of homes, schools, mosques and areas that would ensure, in the retaliation, what Charles Krauthammer called the telegenic death of hundreds of innocent civilians.  The deaths of innocents televised are callously used as part of a public relations campaign that has won support throughout the world.  Morality does not matter, only the end result.  Hamas fires away at Israel while some throughout the world justify the means used.  I guess terrorism works.  

For all those who chastise and criticize Israel for its actions, it fails to offer an alternative.  Some have suggested at other times that Israel needs to negotiate.  To what end?  To lose more land or invite more rockets?  Other observers have correctly assessed that since Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank ended nearly a decade ago and Palestine has been able to pave its own path, vital economic and political institutions, needed infrastructure and stability has been absent.  Despite the fact that Israel gives the Palestinian state millions of dollars a year in aid and supplies, a periodically well-intentioned Mahmoud Abbas and the powerless Palestinian civilians have been in the grips of Hamas.  The terrorist organization has repeatedly sought to undermine any efforts of peace.  They want the destruction of Israel and if it can’t happen militarily, they will do so by cynically placing its own “constituents” in the line of fire to convince the world that Israel is in the wrong. 

Israel, to its credit, has failed to dove-tail into the culture of death and martyrdom that is being embraced in Gaza.  Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, referring to the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has come out to say that Israel will not glorify the Jews responsible for the reaction to the death of three Israeli teenagers.  Those who killed that young Palestinian man will not be hailed as heroes, will not have public squares named after them and will not be taught to young Israeli children.  All of which has happened in Palestine.   

It is difficult to say how Palestine and the ordinary citizen will be able to take control again of its future and its faith.  Thankfully, if recent international news coverage holds true, there has been a more even-handed reporting of the recent violence with a hard look being cast upon Hamas.  Israel has little open to them in the way of options.  Hamas is counting on that and hoping that the old formula will work once more.  Perhaps, people are starting to see the position with which Israel has wrestled over the last couple of decades.  If Hamas can be shown for what it is, it might bring the region closer to peace.  Sadly, I don’t expect to see it any time soon.