http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/OpinionAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=197286
Since the earliest days of Barack Obama’s presidency, there have been two major conceptual differences between how Israel and how the US administration view the Middle East.
The first difference has to do with the region. While the US maintains that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum is the key to unlocking peace in the Middle East and getting other countries in the region on board to help stop the Iranian threat, Israel’s position is to first deal with Iran – neutralize it – which will then make it easier to reach an accord with the Palestinians.
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Israel’s logic is that Hamas and Hizbullah – Iran’s two proxies – will be much less able to gum up the works whenever diplomatic progress looms if Iran is defanged.
The second key conceptual difference has to do with how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the US still tied into the land-for peace formula – Israel gives up land and gets peace in return – and much of Israel, bitten badly by reality, no longer convinced that formula is relevant.
And along comes the cache of WikiLeaks documents and reveals that Obama’s linkage of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Iran is nothing short of fiction – a fiction he and his key aides have been spinning since the beginning of his tenure.
At his very first White House meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May 2009, that famous meeting in which Obama called for a complete halt to all settlement construction, Obama was asked what he thought about Israel’s position that only if the Iranian threat were solved could there be real progress on the Palestinian track.
“Well, let me say this,” Obama said. “There’s no doubt that it is difficult for any Israeli government to negotiate in a situation in which they feel under immediate threat. That’s not conducive to negotiations. And as I’ve said before, I recognize Israel’s legitimate concerns about the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon when they have a president who has in the past said that Israel should not exist. That would give any leader of any country pause.
“Having said that,” the president went on, “if there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians – between the Palestinians and the Israelis – then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.”
And that position, that progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue – that stopping settlement construction – would somehow magically mollify the Arab world and get it to put its shoulder to the wheel regarding Iran has been a constant thread throughout the Obama regime. Here it was popularly dubbed “Yitzhar for Bushehr.”
What the WikiLeaks cache revealed, however, was that this argument was a fabrication. There was no need to crack the Palestinian-Israeli nut before getting the “moderate” Arab nations in the region – Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan – on board regarding Iran, because those nations were already fully camped out on board the deck of the ship, just waiting for action against Iran.
Now this doesn’t mean efforts should not be made toward trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but don’t say the reason is to get the Arabs to stop Iran.
The following quotes from Arab leaders culled from the WikiLeaks trove do not exactly portray a picture of leaders who need any further enticements before “getting on board.”
• Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, quoted by the monarchy’s envoy to the US in 2008 as exhorting the US to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons program, said in reference to Iran – according to one cable – that it was necessary to “cut the head of the snake.”
• King Hamad of Bahrain was quoted in 2009 as saying, “That program [the Iranian nuclear program] must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.”
• Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed in 2009 urged the US, according to another cable, not to appease Teheran and said, “Ahmadinejad is Hitler.”
• Maj-Gen. Muhammad al-Assar, assistant to the Egyptian defense minister, was quoted in a cable in 2010 as saying that “Egypt views Iran as a threat to the region.”
Obama was obviously well aware of the views of these leaders, most of whom he personally met, yet he continued to propagate what he must have known to be a falsehood – that these countries would only sign on to sanctions and otherwise support efforts to neutralize Iran if there were progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track.
Obviously these countries wanted to see progress on that track, but this desire had nothing to do with Iran. Nor would an Israeli-Palestinian accord lead them to be supportive of aggressive steps toward Iran, because they were already practically dreaming of those steps.
To link the two issues – the conflict with the Palestinians, and Iran – was to badly muddle the issue. Why exactly Obama felt compelled to do so is one of the key questions the WikiLeaks documents raised in relation to our region.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140929
WikiLeaks: Arabs Admit Iranian Threat not Linked to PA Demands
Kislev 23, 5771, 30 November 10 09:20, by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Arab world contradicted its public stand in private cables and ignored any connection between solving the Iranian threat and meeting PA demands for a state, WikiLeaks revealed.
Most of the diplomatic cables that were revealed are full of gossip and previously known but unconfirmed observations, as well as incorrect predictions. However, one of the most astounding leaks was the Arab world’s overriding concern over the Iranian nuclear threat and not over the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.
Israel has always rejected linking the two issues, but many America officials, especially senior army brass, have maintained that the unsolved issue of the PA is the kingpin of all other Middle East problems.
The WikiLeaks disclosures totally debunked this notion.
“Note that Arab leaders did not condition their opposition to Iran or call for a U.S. attack on settling the Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian conflicts,” said Barry Rubin, the Director of the Gloria Research in International Affairs.
"This is contrary to what Administration officials, academia, and parts of the mass media who argue these issues are basically linked have been claiming, and that is that the conflict must be ‘solved’ before doing much else,” he added. “As I've told you, the Arab regimes worry first and foremost about Iran and have greatly downgraded their interest in the conflict or antagonism toward Israel."
The near obsession with Iran among Arab leaders was documented in leaked cables that point to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as urging the United States to attack Tehran. Saudi Arabia has denied the documents’ accuracy.
Bahrain, an oil-rich Gulf state, told American officials they could use their country as a base for an attack on Iran if there were guarantees that its security would be protected in the event of a counterattack or sanctions by Iran.
A year ago this month, Bahrain's King Hamad told U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, "That [nuclear] program must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." As previously reported, Saudi King Abdullah advised the United States to attack Iran. The Saudi ambassador commented to the United States, "He told you to cut off the head of the snake.”
The major exception to fears of Iran is Syria, where Syrian President Bashar Assad has allied himself with the Islamic Republic as part of a northern axis that includes Lebanon and Turkey. He not only doubted that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but he also said it would not attack Israel in order not to harm Arabs in the country.
Although mainstream media have reported Assad’s statements without comment, his remarks cannot be taken at face value. Like the Palestinian Authority’s single minded- goal to become a state based on its demands incorporated in the Saudi Initiative of 2002, Syria has one principal objective – taking the strategic Golan Heights and its valuable water resources away from Israel.
According to the leaked documents, Assad also said that the “Annapolis meeting” on the Middle East two years ago, “I know it [Annapolis] is just a photo op. But I am sending someone anyway. We do what we think is good for our interests.”
In another cable, Assad admitted that Hamas is an “uninvited guest” in Damascus, where the terrorist organization’s Khaled Mashaal has made his headquarters. He also verified what Israel has warned for more than a year – that Hizbullah is the most powerful political faction in Lebanon.
One surprising statement in a leaked cable came from Qatar’s Amir Hamad bin Khalifa, who told U.S. Senator John Kerry last February, "When you consider that many in the region perceive that Hizbullah drove Israel out of Lebanon and Hamas kicked them…out ‘of the small piece of land called Gaza,’ it is actually surprising that the Israelis still want peace.”
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