It is of enormous significance that President Barack Obama’s first foreign policy move on his first full day in office was on the Middle East, with telephone calls to four of the region’s leaders. In the past, American presidents have focused on the Palestinian-Israeli problem only in their second term in office. First terms were reserved for domestic and economic issues; no one wanted problems from the powerful Jewish lobby at re-election time.
President Obama’s decision to get straight to the issue on Day One is another sign of his determination to change the way Washington works. Even more astounding was that the first call was to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, not to the Israeli prime minister, not the Egyptian president, let alone Vladimir Putin or Nicolas Sarkozy or Gordon Brown. A short while ago that would have been unthinkable.
It is all because of Gaza. President Obama has been left to pick up the pieces after Israel’s murderous blitzkrieg, deliberately timed at the tail end of the Bush administration when there was no effective power in Washington. If Gaza had not happened, there would have been no phone calls to the Middle East, certainly none so soon, and certainly not to the Palestinian president first of all.
In that sense, Israel has unleashed an opportunity, one that President Obama has been quick to seize. It is reported that he is considering sending former Sen. George Mitchell to the Middle East. Mitchell will be remembered as the man who helped broker the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. Such an appointment is a welcome move, coming after his equally welcome inaugural address appeal to the Muslim world for a new way forward based on mutual respect. However, the basis for a Middle East settlement already exists — the 2002 land-for-peace plan devised by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab League.
If Mitchell can draw Israelis and Palestinians to accept the plan, he will be again a hero. It can work. There are those who doubt whether there are any similarities between Northern Ireland and Palestine, but there is one. The ordinary people of Northern Ireland were split between different political camps but they accepted that neither side could be the absolute victor and that there had to be a compromise. The Palestinians and the Israelis are in the same situation.
Whoever is appointed as President Obama’s envoy, efforts must not be allowed to stretch out interminably. There is an urgency to the situation. If there is no advance on the political front, if there is no end to their misery, if Palestinians see continuing stalemate then they will turn to forces even more radical than Hamas. The resentment and the suicide bombers will not be contained within Gaza.
Either the Middle East descends into unimaginable violence with global consequences or there is peace. That is the future. At Gaza, the crossroads has been reached. There is no other way. Prevarication is no longer an option.
The opportunity for peace must be seized. Thirteen hundred Gazans, probably more, must not have died in vain. The new US administration evidently understands the magnitude of what is at stake. In picking up the phone, Obama has picked up the challenge. That is highly encouraging.
