-----------------------------------------------
By Martin Sherman
Bill Clinton joins bon-ton trend of Bibi-baiting throwing some outrageous ethno-religious slurs of his own into the anti-Israel mix.
Do whatever you want, you and your family in your home, worship whatever you want, but there has not been, nor will be a church [in the kingdom]...
... I do not forget we have 100 percent enmity with Israel. Israel is trying its best to harm the Kingdom in these crucial circumstances.
Prince Sultan bin Abd al Aziz of Saudi Arabia at a press conference in Riyadh, March 8, 2003
These excerpts from an address to the media by the Saudi minister of defense and aviation, on the eve of the war in Iraq, epitomize important aspects of the domestic and foreign policies of the desert kingdom – total religious intolerance and obdurate enmity towards Israel.
They also help to highlight the utter absurdity of Bill Clinton’s recent rant against Binyamin Netanyahu.
But I am getting ahead of myself...
During a roundtable with bloggers on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York just before the UN debate on the Palestinians unilateral bid for statehood, the former US president unequivocally laid the blame for the failure of the Mideast peace process on Netanyahu.
Clinton’s allegations are as lamentable as they are ludicrous. However, it seems that Bibi-baiting has become such a socially bon-ton imperative that even someone of his international standing feels he cannot abstain from it.
Willfully misleading or woefully misinformed
A brief look at Clinton’s jaw-dropping accusations will leave any moderately well-informed reader aghast. They are so wildly inaccurate that one is forced to conclude that he is either woefully misinformed as to Mideast realities or willfully misleading the public as to those realities.
Clinton bemoans the departure of Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon from the political scene, suggesting that had they remained, peace would have been attained long ago. None of this has any basis in fact.
Netanyahu’s proposals to the Palestinians go far beyond anything contemplated by Rabin. Indeed, today if Netanyahu were to embrace, verbatim, Rabin’s vision for the permanent solution as expressed in his last address to the Knesset, he would be dismissed as an unreasonable extremist.
Rabin, in this address, delivered after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and showered with international acclaim as a “valiant warrior for peace,”
• rejected the notion of a Palestinian state (declaring the final Palestinian entity would be “less than a state”),
• robustly rebuffed any possibility of returning to the pre-1967 lines,
• endorsed a united Jerusalem (including its post-67/trans-Green Line suburbia) as Israel’s capital,
• called not only for the inclusion of existing “settlements” within the final frontiers of Israel, but for the constructions of additional ones “like Gush Katif,” and
• insisted that Israel retain the Jordan Valley border – “in the broadest meaning of that term” – as its permanent security border.
As Rabin was assassinated shortly after this speech, this was his final articulation of his position on the peace process. Clearly it would never have been accepted by the Palestinians.
Of course it is a matter of speculation whether and how Rabin might have changed his views had he been alive today. However, those believing that he would have abandoned them for a less conciliatory course might feel that their case was considerably strengthened by the recent declaration by his daughter, former deputy defense minister Dalia Rabin, that “on the eve of his death... he was considering a U-turn” and “stopping the Oslo Accords because terrorism was rampant, and... Arafat was not delivering on his promise.”
Recalling recalcitrant realities
Moreover, misplaced nostalgia seems to have dulled or distorted Clinton’s memory on other matters.
Rabin and Sharon were responsible, for two of the most ill-considered and disastrous policy measures (Oslo and disengagement, respectively) that brought devastation not only on their own country but also to the Palestinians.
Under both of their governments, violence soared to unprecedented levels.
A study conducted by the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, underscores just how out of touch Clinton’s assessment is.
The study, which spans the period from September 1993 to November 2001, shows that in the 30 months after the Accords were signed by Rabin, more Israelis were killed by terrorists (213) than in the preceding decade (209).
Following Rabin’s assassination in November 1995, Shimon Peres became prime minister. In his seven-and-a-half months in office, terror fatalities rose even more rapidly. When he was succeeded by Netanyahu, terrorism was reduced dramatically, to almost negligible levels.
Ehud Barak inherited the stability induced by Netanyahu’s policies. This was maintained until the latter portion of Barak’s term, which coincided with Clinton’s 2000 peace initiatives. It was then that things began to go badly wrong.
Almost immediately following Barak’s May 2000 pullout from Lebanon, terror began to rise steeply, and in the last six month of his term, the rate of casualties outstripped even that under Peres. The security debacle under Barak led to his defeat in February 2001 by Ariel Sharon, who inherited the bloody instability of his predecessor.
The carnage in Israeli cities, at Israeli restaurants, and on Israeli buses rocketed off the charts, compelling Sharon to abandon his risible “restraint is strength” posture and launch Operation Defensive Shield.
This again brought “West Bank” terror to almost negligible levels which, to date, Netanyahu has managed to maintain in his second term.
Clinton’s longing for Sharon curiously ignores that it was Sharon who authored 2005’s disastrous disengagement from Gaza, which led to a deluge of rocket and mortar fire on Israeli population centers in the South. The result of this Sharonesque “stroke of genius” was not the advancement of peace, but Operation Cast Lead and more than 1,000 Palestinian fatalities.
So who should Israelis – indeed Clinton, in his pursuit of peace – prefer as prime minister, those whose policies exacerbated violence and bloodshed or those whose policies have managed to maintain calm and stability?
Demography and demagoguery
This brings us to the next outrageous aspect of Clinton’s blame-game: The claim that an unfavorable demographic shift in Israel is making the public less amenable to peace.
Incredibly, he ascribes proclivity for peace to ethno-religious origins, making the bald assertion that Israeli society can be divided into demographic groups that have various levels of enthusiasm for making peace.
No kidding. Not much daylight between that and naked racism.
In what might turn out to be a dramatic windfall for the Republicans in their pursuit of the Jewish vote, Clinton announced that “the most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs.”
Ah, if only it wasn’t for those pesky peace-obstructing Israeli Jews... Doesn’t get much more Judeophobic than that.
One can only puzzle over how Clinton came to this conclusion. Perhaps he missed a 2010 University of Haifa poll of Israeli Arabs which produced the following findings: 66.4% rejected Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state, while 29.5% opposed its existence under any terms; 62.5% saw the Jews as “foreign settlers who do not fit into the region and will eventually leave, when the land will return to the Palestinians” – and 37.8% denied the Holocaust.
So I guess much depends on your definition of “peace.”
Clinton goes on to rank the peace-affinities of the various segments of Israeli society: “... second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there.”
Hmmm. The problem is that about 70% of the Jewish population are native Sabras, Clearly if there was any truth in Clinton’s classification, this should make the pro-peace segment overwhelmingly dominant. It certainly should make his rancor over an alleged “unfavorable demographic shift” look ridiculously unfounded.
He continues his assessment of ethno-based peace-compliancy in Israel: “... third, the Ashkenazi of long-standing, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel’s founding.”
Ah yes, the “white Jews.” So much more enlightened and refined than their primitive bellicose “darky” kinfolk, the Sephardi Jews who emigrated from Asia and North Africa.
It seems inconceivable that a former US president would descend into such racially charged innuendo, but when it comes to Israel, no holds are barred.
Clinton goes on to indict the culprits: “The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious, who believe they’re supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they’re not encumbered by the historical record.”
Well, the ultra-religious (or haredim) make up less than 10% of the Israeli population, including a large proportion of young children, who have no voting rights, hardly a dire demographic threat. Indeed they are about half the number of the allegedly “peaceenthused” Israeli Arabs and dwarfed by the peace-conducive Sabras.
So what is Bill’s beef demographically?
Moreover, if one bothers to examine the facts one will find that apart from Jerusalem, the ultra-Orthodox are not hard-line territorialists, and Judea and Samaria play almost no part in their political credo as articulated in their party platforms – certainly far less than the line taken by Rabin.
As for “settlers,” strangely they have a higher proportion (over 80%) of Sabras than the national average, and are overwhelmingly of Ashkenazi origin. So according to Clintonian classification, the most peace-resistant segment of the population incorporates the most peace-inducive segments?? Go figure.
Racist Russo-phobic recriminations?
As for the “territorialists, the people who “just showed up lately and they’re not encumbered by the historical record” – translation immigrants from the former USSR – they have a special place in Clinton’s demographic purgatory.
Indeed at last year’s Clinton Global Initiative they – rather than Netanyahu – were deemed the villain du jour.
According to Clinton in 2010, the Russian immigrants to Israel emerged as a central obstacle to achieving a Mideast peace. He berated the increasing numbers of Russophone Israelis in the IDF, claiming: “This presents a staggering problem.”
Lamenting that realities in Israel cannot be frozen in time, he grumbles that “It’s a different Israel” and states with manifest disapproval that “16% of Israelis speak Russian.”
Horrors! Imagine that! One might just think that being a Russophone is akin to having some dreaded infection. It certainly seems to have exposed a Russo-phobic tendency in the ex-prez.
The Saudi blueprint for suicide
Clinton not only condemns Israel for what it has allegedly become, but also for what is has allegedly done – or rather not done.
This brings me back to the Saudi issue I broached at the start of the column. Clinton denounces Israel for “moving the goalposts” because it did not embrace the 2002 Saudi Initiative to achieve normalization with the Arab world.
After all, all this required was that Israel agree to the geographically suicidal measure of withdrawing to the indefensible 1967 lines and to the demographically suicidal measure of accepting a Palestinian “right of return.” So what’s the problem?
In an apparent bid to outdo Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Clinton declares, “The king of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘If you work it out with the Palestinians... we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership... This is huge.... a heck of a deal.’”
Really? Lining up all the Arab countries? Which would those be? Those whose regimes have already been deposed; or those who are engaged in the slaughter of their own citizens to prevent them being deposed? Feel like betting the farm on that?
And what sort on normal relations is he envisaging? Israeli tourists in the Saudi streets sporting yarmulkes and Magen Davids in a country where displaying a cross in a criminal offense? Give us a break.
But just like Alice in Wonderland, it gets curiouser and curiouser. What security cooperation could there with arguably the most Judeophobic country on the planet, the cradle of Wahabism that begot 9/11 and most of the folks who perpetrated it? A country where it is considered more moral to let schoolgirls burn to death than to let them escape a burning dormitory in their nighties? A country which declares itself to “have 100% enmity with Israel” will suddenly embrace the Jewish state because it agreed to set up a micro-mini state for the Palestinians whom the Saudis despise?
Career considerations rather than carnal desires
Just as this article was being submitted for publication, it was reported that the State Department, headed by Clinton’s spouse, was distancing itself from his remarks. Looks like another marital spat between the Clintons might be brewing – but now the focus is likely to be Hillary’s career considerations rather than Bill’s carnal desires.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Richard Baehr
U.S. President Barack Obama appears to have problems with Jewish voters. Thirteen months before the 2012 presidential election, his support among Jewish voters is declining. An Orthodox Jewish Democratic candidate was decisively defeated in a contest for an open seat in Brooklyn and Queens long held by Democrats. Fundraising among Jewish donors is way down.
The president is unhappy that he may have to cast a veto in the U.N. Security Council that will serve to deny the Palestinians their statehood bid. His much-heralded effort to forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians by first getting Israel to halt settlement activity, has been a disastrous failure. Suddenly, out of left field, Bill Clinton enters the scene to try to save the day for Obama by shifting the onus for the president’s problems onto Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Clinton claims, “has destroyed the peace process.”
Clinton’s comments came at a session of the Clinton Global Initiative, his New York City-based NGO. There are many differences between Clinton and Obama, but they both share a remarkable self-regard. Years back, just out of business school, I was offered a job with the Boston Consulting Group. That firm's founder, Bruce Henderson, shared the narcissism gene with Obama and Clinton. He authored the book, “Henderson on Corporate Strategy” by Bruce Henderson.
It is a neat trick when an author gets his name into the title of his book. There was no chance that Clinton would not play off his name in his philanthropic ventures, or that he would retreat to the sidelines when his term in office was over.
Bill Clinton likes to be in the news. And there is little love between the Clintons and Obama, not after Obama destroyed the Clintons’ long-term plan for political resurrection in 2008 by denying Hillary the nomination. As a face-saver, Hillary was offered the Secretary of State job, which she accepted, and which at least gave her more stature and media coverage than going back to being one out of 100 U.S. senators. But there is usually something in it for the Clintons when they appear to be doing the bidding of another.
Bill Clinton was very popular with Israelis. He, unlike Obama, never hesitated to show up in Israel. In both of his presidential runs, Clinton won more than 80 percent of the Jewish vote each time, winning the biggest percentage margin among Jewish voters since Roosevelt. Today, Barack Obama’s re-election looks to be in a lot more jeopardy than it did in 2009 when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. At that time, Hillary would likely have envisioned Obama serving two terms, and her chances at the White House not coming again until 2016, when she would be 68. There is, I think, no chance that Hillary Clinton will challenge Obama for the nomination in 2012. That would almost certainly result in a decisive defeat and the end of her political career. But now, Obama may be a one-termer. If that happens, Hillary Clinton will be out of a job in 2013, and can begin to prepare the framework for the Democrats’ restoration in 2016, with her as the standard-bearer, the candidate who really should have been the nominee in 2008 had Democrats used their heads instead of their emotions.
If this is the thinking of Team Clinton, then how does bashing Netanyahu fit in to the grand plan? The Clinton-Netanyahu problems go way back to Netanyahu’s first years as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999.
Netanyahu was narrowly elected over Shimon Peres, by a mere 1 percent margin, in large part due to voters’ unhappiness with the security situation after a series of deadly bombings in Israel’s largest cities. Netanyahu chose to slow down the Oslo process and demanded reciprocity -- Palestinian performance on stopping the terror attacks -- as a prerequisite for any further withdrawals from the West Bank. Those in the Clinton camp blamed Bibi for stalling and slowing down the peace process.
Clinton’s current attack on Netanyahu comes in a similar vein. The peace process is in bad shape, he claims, because Netanyahu is playing to his right-wing base and refusing to show a willingness to compromise. With all the subtlety of a Chicago police chief, Clinton summarized Israel’s electorate as follows, identifying the Arabs and the good Jews (the pro-peace crowd), and the ultra-religious and Johnny-come-lately’s (the stubborn pro-settlement crowd):
“The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis who were born there; third, the Ashkenazis of long-standing, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel's founding.
“The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious, who believe they're supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they're not encumbered by the historical record.” Russians who have come to Israel are lumped into the “territorialist” camp.
In essence, Bill Clinton is attempting, I think, to clear a path for separating his wife from Obama, should she run in 2016, despite their being on the same team. Hillary Clinton is now the loyal servant of her president, who has been stymied by Netanyahu, much as Bill Clinton was in the late 1990s. If Hillary competes to become the nominee in 2016, there will be plenty of time with Obama out of office to admit that he may also have made some mistakes, but she, in her job at the State Department, did not shape policy.
For now, Bill Clinton can win the hearts of Obama acolytes by helping Obama with the Jewish voters. In the runup to 2016, the check for all this loyalty will come due.
