JustASC

The classic definition of chutzpah involves the guy who kills his parents and then complains he’s an orphan. 

Here’s another — someone pokes you in the eye with a stick and then blames you for getting his stick all boody.

That’s just one of the tricks some commentators are using to try and absolve Israel for the Biden-Netanyahu disaster, and for any responsibility in the fate of the region.

This is from Mitchell Bard‘s comments on the flap:

Biden was prepared to say all the right things, and did say many of them, but when he decided it was necessary to publicly blast Israel for announcing the construction of more homes in its capital, he frittered away any chance he had of accomplishing his objective. This is not to defend the Israeli decision, which substantively may have been justifiable, but could not have been publicized at a worse moment. Still, Biden could have just as easily told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors that this was an embarrassing and stupid announcement. Friends keep their disagreements private as much as possible, a lesson Obama could learn from Bill Clinton’s stewardship of U.S.-Israel ties.

Note the reversal of cause and effect: “when [Biden] decided it was necessary to publicly blast Israel,” although even Netanyahu has acknowledged the collosal embarrassment of announcing the housing plan in the middle of Biden’s visit (which even Bard admits ”was an embarrassing and stupid announcement”).  

As for Bill Clinton keeping disagreements “private,” Bard is obscuring the historical record. In March 1997, under almost identical circumstances, President Clinton publicly rebuked Israel for its plan to construct the Har Homa neighborhood in East Jerusalem, saying that “it builds mistrust.” Clinton’s rebuke was fairly mild, but soon after he warmly received Yasir Arafat at the U.N. in a pointed rebuke of the building project.

As someone once pointed out:

Though often described as the most pro-Israel President in history, Bill Clinton also was critical of Israel on numerous occasions.

That someone was Mitchell Bard.

JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, tries another tack: Biden was itching for a fight:

If the Israelis hadn’t obliged with the announcement of apartments, Mr. Biden certainly would have taken on the Jewish “heritage sites,” which the administration has already condemned. Or he would have fallen back on “settlements” or “checkpoints” or the “humiliation” of the Palestinians. The Palestinians, for their part, planned to accept whatever gifts Mr. Biden brought them and never, never, ever intended to be serious partners to either side.

A third tactic in deflecting blame is this one, by David Hazony: actually praising Israel for announcing the housing plan:

In making the move on Jerusalem, the Israeli government is trying to avoid the ambiguities that were the undoing of Oslo. Anyone hoping for a successful negotiation leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they are saying, had better forget about the division of Jerusalem. Sometimes, it’s the timing that drives the point home.

Bard, meanwhile, also invokes another chutzpadik trope in this debate: Simultaneously supporting Israel’s building plans in disputed areas (“which substantively may have been justifiable”), while blaming the Palestinians for Israel’s actions. To whit:

If Biden really wanted to do something for the Palestinians, he would not feed their latest tantrum. Instead, he should point out to Abbas the simple historical truth that the longer he waits to negotiate an agreement with Israel, the more Jews will be living in the areas he wants and the less land he will get in the end. Had Jimmy Carter said this to Yasser Arafat 30 years ago when 12,000 Jews lived in the West Bank, the conflict might have been resolved. Now, nearly 300,000 Jews live in that same area. Whose side is time really on?

Martin Peretz in the New Republic tried this same trick last week: turning a left-wing argument — that time is running out on the two-state solution — into a “defense” of a right-wing tactic: continued settlement expansion. Writes Peretz:

The Palestinians have only themselves to blame on Jerusalem, as on other disputed matters. In 2000 and 2001, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to a peace that included handing over the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem for the Palestinian capital. (Ehud Olmert made the same offer in 2008). The Arabs always believed that time was on their side, that their reluctance to negotiate and then their reluctance to sign would somehow improve their position. But time does not stand still, and it certainly no longer stands still for the Jews. Having waited in exile for 2,000 years, having struggled over nearly a century for a Jewish commonwealth, have tried to engage its neighbors in parley for more than half a century, the Jewish polity will no longer tarry, and it is justified in not tarrying.

Again, this takes the language of the left to absolve Israel of responsibility for the “300,000 Jews” who now live in areas Palestinians eyed for a state — as if Jewish settlement is an act of nature, and not the result of political decisions made by a democratically elected government.

So is Israel captain of its own fate, or is it all up to the Palestinians? I’m more persuaded by Tom Friedman’s take on the flap, which respects Israel’s ability to be a main actor in its own drama, as opposed to a country vulnerable to forces beyond its control:

…Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem.

Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits — economic and security — of ending the conflict.

[UPDATE: One more way to downplay Israel's culpability: trivialize the central dispute. Here's U.S. Senator Sam Brownback:

"It's hard to see how spending a weekend condemning Israel for a zoning decision in its capital city amounts to a positive step towards peace.”]

Mitchell Bard’s oped is not yet on-line, so I include it after the jump:

Biden’s Failed Mission

by Mitchell Bard

In its determination to prove it is not the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration has gone out of its way to curry favor with the Arabs and criticize Israel. Having succeeded in alienating most of the Israeli public, the administration sent Vice President Joseph Biden to Jerusalem to convince Israelis they have a friend in the White House, but Biden couldn’t stick to the script and managed to reinforce their fears rather than reassure them.

Biden was prepared to say all the right things, and did say many of them, but when he decided it was necessary to publicly blast Israel for announcing the construction of more homes in its capital, he frittered away any chance he had of accomplishing his objective. This is not to defend the Israeli decision, which substantively may have been justifiable, but could not have been publicized at a worse moment. Still, Biden could have just as easily told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors that this was an embarrassing and stupid announcement. Friends keep their disagreements private as much as possible, a lesson Obama could learn from Bill Clinton’s stewardship of U.S.-Israel ties.

The biggest problem with Biden’s condemnation is that it reinforced the view that the administration’s policy is tilted off the table in favor of the Arabs. For more than a year now, Arab leaders have stuck their fingers in Obama’s eye and refused to cooperate in any way with his initiatives. The Palestinians have been equally persistent in demonstrating by word and deed that they have no desire whatsoever to discuss peace. They have obstinately refused to enter direct negotiations and repeatedly engaged in incitement, which most recently featured threats of provoking a holy war. Meanwhile, Biden and the rest of the administration have not uttered a word of criticism. Had he at least remarked on the Arab record when chastising Israel, he might have blunted some of the damage, but, instead, he is leaving Israelis with a worse impression of the administration than before he arrived.

It was not surprising that Mahmoud Abbas immediately used the Israeli announcement as a pretext for pulling out of the indirect talks he had finally agreed to and which few people outside the Obama administration believed were worth undertaking in the first place. Again, Israel’s announcement may have been ill-timed, but has nothing to do with the recalcitrance of the Palestinians.

If Biden really wanted to do something for the Palestinians, he would not feed their latest tantrum. Instead, he should point out to Abbas the simple historical truth that the longer he waits to negotiate an agreement with Israel, the more Jews will be living in the areas he wants and the less land he will get in the end. Had Jimmy Carter said this to Yasser Arafat 30 years ago when 12,000 Jews lived in the West Bank, the conflict might have been resolved. Now, nearly 300,000 Jews live in that same area. Whose side is time really on?

It was nice that the Vice President visited Israel, and his intentions were good, but given Israeli insecurities about this administration Biden was a poor substitute for the president. The truth is the political aspects of U.S.-Israel relations are shaped by the Prime Minister and the President and envoys and other underlings simply don’t matter.

Despite the tensions, Obama cannot yet be compared to America’s most anti-Israel presidents – George H.W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower — but his administration is certainly the most tone deaf and naive.

Obama himself has to travel to Jerusalem and speak directly to the Israeli people and convince them by word and, more important, by deed, that he is indeed their staunch ally. So long as suspicions remain, and the administration continues its one-sided public approach to the conflict, it is only making the prospect of diplomatic success more remote. Without the conviction that America has its back, Israel cannot afford the risks required for peace.

Mitchell Bard is the author of “Will Israel Survive?” and “48 Hours of Kristallnacht: Night of Destruction/ Dawn of the Holocaust” (Lyons Press).