by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 24, 2015
All Rights Reserved.

                   Speaking to the liberal Israeli lobbying group J-Street, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough echoed the Arab “anti-occupation” rhetoric, insisting Israeli occupation of “Palestinian” lands must end.  White House officials got bent out of shape over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric, insisting there would be no Palestinian state under his watch.  “An occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end,” McDonough declared to J-Street, mirroring views of Hamas, though Hamas wants Israel completely out of Palestine.  McDonough heaps pressure on Netanyahu to resume Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed peace efforts, ending July 21, 2014.  What tanked the last peace talks was Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority joining Hamas April 23, 2014, a State Department and Egyptian-branded terrorist group, something McDonough doesn’t mention.

             McDonough forgets his Arab-Israeli history, knowing that the 1967 Six-Day-War was initiated by five Arab States, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.  McDonough surely knows that Palestinians held no sovereign land before the 1967 War.  When the dust settled and Israel defeated all five militaries, Egypt lost the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria lost the Golan Heights.  There was no Palestinian sovereign land before the 1967 War.  Calling J-Street his new partner, the White House faces repudiation from not only the U.S. Congress but soon-to-be the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  When Clinton declares next month, she’ll find herself add odds with the White House Mideast policy.

             Clinton and the U.S. Congress wholeheartedly back the American-Israeli Public Affairs Council, the nation’s most powerful Israeli lobbying group.  AIPAC opposes, like Netanyahu, negotiations with a terrorist group, insisting that the PLO either end its partnership with Hamas or force Hamas to publicly swear off terrorism and recognize Israel’s right to exist.  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked President Barack Obama to end his “temper tantrum” about Netanyahu speaking to Congress March 3 and winning decisively the March 17 election.  “I don’t think we’ve ever has as bad a relationship between a president and a prime minister, and of course that has policy consequence—will the U.S. always use its veto for Israel,” said Jonathan Rynhold, an U.S-Israeli expert at Bar Ilan University.  What Rynhold forgets is that Israeli relations with the U.S. Congress have never been better.

             Given all the chaos with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Russia’s new aggression Ukraine, the White House desperately needs a foreign policy success.  With the P5+1, the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, talks concluding this month in Geneva, the White House hopes Congress doesn’t try to sabotage the Geneva agreement.  Conservatives in Congress agree with Netanyahu that the deal won’t stop Iran from pursuing an A-bomb.  Congress has limited means to squelch a Security Council deal.  In run up to the 2016 presidential election, Obama will press hard for what’s eluded generations of presidents since Harry Truman:  Arab-Israeli peace.  Threatening to let the Security Council impose a peace deal on Israel, Obama makes life difficult for Hillary who backs AIPAC’s view that Israel cannot make peace with a State Department-labeled terror group.

             Speaking to J-Street, McDonough mentions nothing about  PLO joining Hamas April 23, 2014, making a peace more difficult.  Since PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, the State Department assumed the U.S. had a peace partner in his successor, 79-year-old Mahmoud Abbas.  When Abbas joined with Hamas last year before the six-week-long Hamas-Israeli war, it made making peacemaking more difficult.  Since Sept. 11, no U.S. administration has negotiated with a terrorist group, until Obama’s White House insists Israel must make peace with the PLO-Hamas entity.  When Hillary jumps in the race, she’ll be forced to take a position on the White House policy of imposing a peace deal on Israel with a State Department-branded terror group.  White House officials know that Netanyahu’s reluctance for a two-state solution involves dealing with Hamas.

            Instead of threatening the only seamless U.S. ally in the Middle East, the White House should work with the Ramallah-based PLO to get Abbas to split from its current affiliation with Hamas or get Hamas to accept Israel.  Netanyahu cannot be expected to make peace with a terror group committed to Israel’s destruction.  Obama’s lust for a foreign policy success makes Hillary walk on the razor’s edge, eventually denouncing the White House policy.  Having served four years as secretary of state, Hillary knows Israel can’t make peace with a terror group.  Despite poor relations with Obama, Netanyahu has exceptionally close relations with Congress, including many Democrats, like senior New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, disagreeing strongly with the White House policy.  Only after Hillary jumps in will the White House be forced to back down from its current feud with Netanyahu.

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