O’Bama vs. Netanyahoo
by Hendrik Hertzberg
The New Yorker
June 6, 2011
A week ago Monday, Barack Obama hied himself to the land—well, a land—of his forefathers. Like Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton before him, President Obama deemed it politic to drop in on his ancestral village on the auld sod of Ireland. In tiny Moneygall, surrounded by beaming regulars in a pub that had been renamed O’Bama’s for the occasion, the President lifted his glass and drained a pint of Guinness. He was enjoying himself. Perhaps it was the pub, perhaps the pint, perhaps the people. Or perhaps he was just glad to be on foreign soil that, with a bit of American prodding, has managed to overcome a history of religious hatreds, ethnic division, imperial meddling, war, and terrorism. Later that day, in Dublin, he lauded the Northern Ireland peace agreement, saying, “It sends what Bobby Kennedy once called ‘a ripple of hope’ that may manifest itself in a whole range of ways.”
There had been talk of peace back in Washington, too, but not much agreement. The Thursday before, anticipating the imminent arrival of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama had said that the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state “should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”—a fundamental tenet of American policy for decades, a goal of Israeli and Palestinian representatives in every serious negotiation, and an obvious feature of any conceivable settlement. On Friday, as the two men sat for the cameras before the Oval Office fireplace, Netanyahu delivered a lecture about the unacceptability of those 1967 borders, exactly as if his host had said nothing about land swaps. The Prime Minister sounded more like a Fox News “contributor” than like the leader of an ally dependent on the United States for its survival. On Sunday, the President, addressing the convention of AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobby as feared as the National Rifle Association—corrected him. “Since my position has been misrepresented,” Obama said, “let me reaffirm what ‘1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means: by definition, it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.” A few hours later, he was airborne.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/06/06/110606taco_talk_hertzberg
The New Yorker
June 6, 2011
A week ago Monday, Barack Obama hied himself to the land—well, a land—of his forefathers. Like Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton before him, President Obama deemed it politic to drop in on his ancestral village on the auld sod of Ireland. In tiny Moneygall, surrounded by beaming regulars in a pub that had been renamed O’Bama’s for the occasion, the President lifted his glass and drained a pint of Guinness. He was enjoying himself. Perhaps it was the pub, perhaps the pint, perhaps the people. Or perhaps he was just glad to be on foreign soil that, with a bit of American prodding, has managed to overcome a history of religious hatreds, ethnic division, imperial meddling, war, and terrorism. Later that day, in Dublin, he lauded the Northern Ireland peace agreement, saying, “It sends what Bobby Kennedy once called ‘a ripple of hope’ that may manifest itself in a whole range of ways.”
There had been talk of peace back in Washington, too, but not much agreement. The Thursday before, anticipating the imminent arrival of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama had said that the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state “should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”—a fundamental tenet of American policy for decades, a goal of Israeli and Palestinian representatives in every serious negotiation, and an obvious feature of any conceivable settlement. On Friday, as the two men sat for the cameras before the Oval Office fireplace, Netanyahu delivered a lecture about the unacceptability of those 1967 borders, exactly as if his host had said nothing about land swaps. The Prime Minister sounded more like a Fox News “contributor” than like the leader of an ally dependent on the United States for its survival. On Sunday, the President, addressing the convention of AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobby as feared as the National Rifle Association—corrected him. “Since my position has been misrepresented,” Obama said, “let me reaffirm what ‘1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means: by definition, it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.” A few hours later, he was airborne.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/06/06/110606taco_talk_hertzberg
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