NEARLY a month after Barack Obama’s election, his reported decision to name Hillary Rodham Clinton secretary of state is causing Arabs and Israelis to readjust expectations of his administration’s policies toward the Middle East. During the campaign, Obama carried the hopes of many Arabs for a new brand of diplomacy more open to their views, one that would revive America’s power and prestige in the region and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israelis viewed Obama as a less reliable friend than John McCain, his Republican rival, or Clinton, who touted a deep affinity for the Jewish state in her bid for the Democratic nomination. Cautiously, Israelis are applauding Clinton’s all-but-certain nomination as a sign that Obama can be trusted to act firmly against Iran’s nuclear ambitions and to refrain from pressing Israel to accept a weak, violence-prone Palestinian state on its borders.
Arabs, and especially Palestinians, say the news has dampened their optimism that Obama will veer from the Bush administration’s hawkish policies and from what they call America’s long-standing pro-Israel tilt.
“I was frankly surprised by this choice,” said Manar Shorbagy, an expert on US foreign policy who teaches at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. “Obama’s talking about bringing diplomacy back to a US foreign policy that has been militarized under President Bush. Sen. Clinton has different ideas. She voted for the Iraq war and has supported many things Bush has done in his two terms.” The Palestinian Authority, which is engaged in a US-backed effort to negotiate peace with Israel, has refrained from such criticism. “We hope that Madame Clinton will continue the effort to achieve a two-state solution,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said there would be no official comment before Obama announced his choice. Clinton is widely viewed in the region as a likely heir to President Bill Clinton’s unfinished Middle East business — the all-out push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that eluded his administration. Those efforts were resumed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the last two years.
But analysts on both sides say it’s unclear how much responsibility or leeway Obama would give Hillary Clinton to conduct Middle East policy. They note that other officials, including Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who has extensive foreign-policy experience, and Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s expected choice as national security adviser, might also weigh heavily in decisions about the region after the administration takes office in January.
Because Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq pose more immediate problems, it is uncertain how swiftly the administration will pursue an Israeli-Palestinian accord, a goal often portrayed as the key to peace in a region where that conflict is used as justification for militancy. The talks are bogged down in differences over borders, Palestinian refugees and rival claims to Jerusalem.
Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton’s long record of public pronouncements on the Middle East is being studied across the region for clues about America’s diplomatic direction here. As first lady and as New York’s junior senator, she has taken positions, some at odds with Obama’s, that appeal to Israelis and Jewish voters at home. She was an early advocate of the barrier separating Israel from the West Bank (Obama has yet to voice support for it) and of Jerusalem as the “eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.”
Like Obama, she has said the United States should not negotiate with Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group that runs the Gaza Strip. During the primary campaign, she criticized Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Iran and declared that the United States could “obliterate” Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel. “Her friendship and support of the Jewish people and Israel is second to none,” said Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States.
The Arab world sees two Hillary Clintons: One, the first lady who famously got ahead of US policy a decade ago by advocating Palestinian statehood and remains at least verbally wedded to the goal of a US-brokered peace deal; the other, a politician with lingering presidential ambitions and a BlackBerry that holds too many pro-Israeli connections.
“My impression is that before agreeing to take the job, she fought quite hard for a real role in formulating American policy,” said Mouin Rabbani, an independent analyst based in Amman, Jordan. “But she’ll be acting with at least one eye on her own political future. It’s not all that difficult to imagine her on issues like Iran and Israel staking out positions that could be used for a future election campaign.”
