Lose, lose for Obama – and Palestinians too
President Obama tried to have his cake at the UN and eat it. Instead he ended up choking on words that many in the chamber see as reeking of double standards.
With the grandiloquence of a preacher he spent the first half of his 47-minute address hailing the extraordinary year of transformation. It was vintage hope and change stuff, even though he was talking mainly as a witness to events America could not foresee let alone control.
He waxed about the right to freedom and the rebirth of dignity in southern Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The latter was celebrated as an example of how the international community can get things right. Yemen and Bahrain were sadly still a work in progress.
He spoke passionately about the Arab Street and then……he served up the “but” in a sharp rebuke to the Palestinians, delivered with the wagging finger of an irate headmaster. No short cuts to statehood he pronounced as if after 63 years of waiting the Palestinians weren’t entitled to a little fast track treatment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the speech a “badge of honour”. Saeb Erakat, the veteran Palestinian negotiator, was irate and told me that he would have loved to have seen George Washington being told to stop applying for statehood and negotiate with King George the Third.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his temper, bewailing America’s loss of leadership and Britain continues to squirm uncomfortably on the fence, both British Bulldog over the Arab Spring and British Poodle on America’s leash.
Obama cannot afford to alienate Israel
The question that keeps being asked is why have the Americans put the boot into the Palestinian application for statehood?
The unofficial answer could be found yesterday a few blocks from the UN at a meeting of prominent Jewish Americans at which Govenor Rick Perry of Texas, the man currently with the best chance of unseating President Obama was venting.
He slammed the president for siding WITH the Arab Street during this year of revolutions. He lambasted him for treating the Palestinians, whom he called terrorists, and the Israelis as equals.
Perry is not well versed in the finer nuances of the Middle East peace process but he is unequivocal in his undiluted support for Israel. He embodies the new alliance between evangelical Republicans and Israeli conservatives.
Jewish voters in America used to regard the Democrats as their natural allies. As we enter the 2012 election cycle that is no longer the case. With a failing economy and declining popularity President Obama cannot afford to alienate anyone in delicate swing states like Florida.
The warning shots could be heard right here in Manhattan, where the Democrats lost out to the Republicans in last week ‘s special election in a heavily Jewish district for the first time in eight decades. All politics is local, as they say.
The Palestinians have found out that their politics are also local to Dade County Florida and Lower Manhattan.
As for Barack Obama he is discovering once again the perils of nuance. The Palestinians may call him a hypocrite. Many Republicans lambast him for being a sell-out to the very people whose statehood he has just denied.
For Obama it’s a case of lose, lose.
Follow Matt Frei on Twitter @mattfrei