There is a peculiar insouciance about the Obama White House that suggests they either suffer from neurotic overconfidence or they know something the rest of us don’t. Or both. Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, my least favorite Obamanian, was on the tube recently talking about the Middle East in oddly brash terms. Emanuel must be aware that his boss’s popularity in Israel hovers at around 1 percent, or roughly one-twentieth of that enjoyed by George Bush at the end of his term. Given that country’s habitual success in leading U.S. presidents around by the nose, Americans of a patriotic bent might well applaud this outcome.
Yet it is jarring to hear Emmanuel insisting that both Israelis and Palestinians must make the most of the ‘unique moment’ that they presently enjoy and come to the ‘peace’ table at Obama’s bidding. What universe is he living in? Neither side has any obvious reason to do so.
Israeli president Netan-Yahoo scored points with his cave-dwelling constituents by publicly scorning Obama’s call to halt West Bank settlements as a goodwill gesture—hardly surprising when your foreign minister is a former nightclub bouncer channeling a bearskin-wearing character out of Julius Caesar’s The Conquest of Gaul[right].
One looks high and low for any evidence justifying this brassy optimism—and finds none. The Israelis haven’t the slightest interest in making concessions, and the Palestinians wonder what else they are supposed to give up in exchange for a couple of hearty handshakes on the White House lawn.
Emmanuel insists that both Netan-Yahoo and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must surely see that failure to make progress will only strengthen Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran, supposing that this terrible result is of the same importance to them that it is to him.
The opposite may well be the case. If Obama manages to settle the Iran issue favorably from the U.S. viewpoint, he will be in a much better position to get his way with both Israel and the Palestinians.
Emmanuel’s colleagues adopt similar all-will-be-well postures when discussing the dubious progress of the healthcare battle, and I certainly hope they turn out to be right. But we also may be on the receiving end of his browbeating to accept and even support supposed ‘reform’ even if it turns out to be a horrid mutant of no use to anyone but the insurance and drug companies.
The Rahm mentality is consistent with Obama’s own rhetoric about getting past silly differences like being black or white, a Republican or a Democrat, a Jew or a Muslim, and while that is a very nice and perfectly laudable sentiment (and got him elected), it seems to bear little relationship with how things actually work right now in the world as presently constituted, from Tel Aviv to Washington, D.C.
Obama regularly issues firm daddy-talk about stopping all this squabbling and getting down to business, stern warnings that the White House is ‘losing patience’ with both sides in the Middle East and ‘partisan politics’ obstructing healthcare reform. If he backs up the rhetoric and somehow gets his way, the crowing will be justified.
If not, Rahm Emmanuel flipping the world the bird is going to look demented.
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