Robert Fisk: A President who is helpless in the face of Middle East reality

The Independent
Robert Fisk

Obama's UN speech insists Israelis and Palestinians are equal parties to conflict

Today should be Mahmoud Abbas's finest hour. Even The New York Times has discovered that "a grey man of grey suits and sensible shoes, may be slowly emerging from his shadow". 

But this is nonsense. The colourless leader of the Palestinian Authority, who wrote a 600-page book on his people's conflict with Israel without once mentioning the word "occupation", should have no trouble this evening in besting Barack Hussein Obama's pathetic, humiliating UN speech on Wednesday in which he handed US policy in the Middle East over to Israel's gimmick government.

For the American President who called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab lands, an end to the theft of Arab land in the West Bank – Israeli "settlements" is what he used to call it – and a Palestinian state by 2011, Obama's performance was pathetic. 

As usual, Hanan Ashrawi, the only eloquent Palestinian voice in New York this week, got it right. "I couldn't believe what I heard," she told Haaretz, that finest of Israeli newspapers. "It sounded as though the Palestinians were the ones occupying Israel. There wasn't one word of empathy for the Palestinians. He spoke only of the Israelis' troubles..." Too true. And as usual, the sanest Israeli journalists, in their outspoken condemnation of Obama, proved that the princes of American journalists were cowards. "The limp, unimaginative speech that US President Barack Obama delivered at the United Nations... reflects how helpless the American President is in the face of Middle East realities," Yael Sternhell wrote. 

And as the days go by, and we discover whether the Palestinians respond to Obama's grovelling performance with a third intifada or with a shrug of weary recognition that this is how things always were, the facts will continue to prove that the US administration remains a tool of Israel when it comes to Israel's refusal to give the Palestinians a state. 

How come, let's ask, that the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, flew from Tel Aviv to New York for the statehood debate on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's own aircraft? How come Netanyahu was too busy chatting to the Colombian President to listen to Obama's speech? He only glanced through the Palestinian bit of the text when he was live-time, face to face with the American President. This wasn't "chutzpah". This was insult, pure and simple. 

And Obama deserved it. After praising the Arab Spring/Summer/ Autumn, whatever – yet again running through the individual acts of courage of Arab Tunisians and Egyptians as if he had been behind the Arab Awakening all along, the man dared to give the Palestinians 10 minutes of his time, slapping them in the face for daring to demand statehood from the UN. Obama even – and this was the funniest part of his preposterous address to the UN – suggested that the Palestinians and Israelis were two equal "parties" to the conflict. 

A Martian listening to this speech would think, as Ms Ashrawi suggested, that the Palestinians were occupying Israel rather than the other way round. No mention of Israeli occupation, no mention of refugees, or the right of return or of the theft of Arab Palestinian land by the Israeli government against all international law. But plenty of laments for the besieged people of Israel, rockets fired at their houses, suicide bombs – Palestinian sins, of course, but no reference to the carnage of Gaza, the massive death toll of Palestinians – and even the historical persecution of the Jewish people and the Holocaust. 

That persecution is a fact of history. So is the evil of the Holocaust. But THE PALESTINIANS DID NOT COMMIT THESE ACTS. It was the Europeans – whose help in denying Palestinian statehood Obama is now seeking – who committed this crime of crimes. So we were then back to the "equal parties", as if the Israeli occupiers and the occupied Palestinians were on a level playing ground. 

Madeleine Albright used to adopt this awful lie. "It's up to the parties themselves," she would say, washing her hands, Pilate-like, of the whole business the moment Israel threatened to call out its supporters in America. Heaven knows if Mahmoud Abbas can produce a 1940 speech at the UN today. But at least we all know who the appeaser is.

Israel rejects Palestinian unity deal

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the two rival Palestinian factions,
Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah and the Hamas
rulers of the Gaza Strip.

violence, as Simon Santow reports.

SIMON SANTOW: Cairo has seen its share of unrest in recent times, but the Egyptian capital played host overnight to an historic reconciliation deal between the rival Palestinian factions.

Hamas controls the Gaza strip. Its representative at the talks was Moussa Abu Marzouk.

MOUSSA ABU MARZOUK (translated): Today we are celebrating this historical occasion for all our people in the occupied territories and in occupied territories jails.

This good news has ended a period of Palestinian history that was controlled by division.

SIMON SANTOW: Azzam al Ahmed is the head of the Fatah delegation, the Palestinian faction dominant in the West Bank.

AZZAM AL AHMED (translated): We need to tell the Palestinian youths who are always painting the slogan that says that people want to put the division into an end. The people want to put an end to the occupation. I want to tell these Palestinians that your aim is achieved today.

SIMON SANTOW: The two sides have spent much of the last few years in bitter disagreement over political influence, security and the best way forward to achieve Palestinian statehood.

Mustafa Barghouti from the Palestinian National Initiative told the BBC, even intense divisions can be overcome.

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: I think both sides have realised that the alternative is horrible and both sides have realised that if they continue to talk about the old divisions and the old differing problems, they will only continue to lose their popularity with the Palestinian people and they will cause the Palestinians a lot of suffering, more suffering than before. And the new government which will be formed will be formed from independents from both Fatah and Hamas, which means that both sides are also sacrificing something to have unity.

SIMON SANTOW: And, he argues, it neutralises the long held Israeli position that peace is impossible while Palestinians remain divided.

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: This internal division has weakened us and I think gaining unity will mean also bringing back democracy to Palestine which by itself is a very powerful instrument to strengthen Palestinians internally as well as to show that a peace that can be made will be lasting because it will be between democracies and not imposed from Israel on the Palestinian side.

SIMON SANTOW: Israel is talking tough in response to the Cairo deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU (translated): The Palestinian authority must choose - either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. Peace with both of them is not possible because Hamas wants to destroy Israel and it says so publicly. It fires rockets on our cities. It fires rockets on our children. I think the idea of reconciliation shows the weakness of the Palestinian authority and raises questions regarding Hamas controlling Judea and Samaria - the same way they took over the Gaza Strip.

I hope that the Palestinian authority takes the right choice and that it chooses peace with Israel. The choice is theirs.

SIMON SANTOW: His government's spokesman Mark Regev rammed the point home to English speaking audiences across the world.

MARK REGEV: We are concerned that the Palestinian authority made a strategic decision here. I mean they could have chosen the path of reconciliation with Israel, of negotiation and they can choose the path of Hamas, which is the path of rejectionism and violence and conflict and they have chosen apparently, they have chosen the path of violence and Hamas and you can't have them both.

How can you have peace with Israel and have peace with Hamas at the same time. It is impossible.

SIMON SANTOW: Palestinian Liberation Organisation MP, Hanan Ashrawi told Radio National that a sturdy robust democracy for Palestinians will serve the region well.

HANAN ASHRAWI: We need a democracy that is inclusive, that is pluralistic. It is not Israel's business. Hamas is part of the Palestinian society, the Palestinian political system and we need to have democracy that functions and that empowers the Palestinians.

SIMON SANTOW: The United States is treading carefully.

It says Palestinian unity is a welcome development but it warns that Hamas will need to renounce its extremist policies before lasting peace in the region can be made.

ELEANOR HALL: Simon Santow reporting.