Focus, Please

I saw this headline over at Watching America: "America’s Image in the Islamic World Needs Improvement." Who could resist? Would it be a screed against the conditions at Guantanamo Bay, or a diatribe about the Iraq War, or perhaps some gloating at the successful prison break in Afghanistan?

Not quite. The article had to do with the issue of Israel and Palestine, the central issue of that area for decades. Egypt's al-Gomhuria reported on a meeting between Egypt's Foreign Minister and US Special Envoy Sada Cumber at the Organization of the Islamic Conference. While Envoy Cumber reported the meeting as a success, the Foreign Minister was more specific.

Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit stressed that the image of the United States needed a boost in the Islamic world, and increased efforts to improve it, and that the beginning of any improvement of the United States’ image in the Islamic world must spring from the issue of arriving at a solution to the Palestinian problem, as it is the essence of Arab-Israeli strife. [Emphasis added]

The Palestinian-Israeli issue has been one of the thorniest issues facing presidents almost from the inception of Israel's nationhood. There have been some successes, Jimmy Carter got a few of the problems ironed out, and Bill Clinton certainly tried to show that the US was an honest broker, but for the last seven years, the current administration skillfully ignored what is perhaps the key issue in the Middle East. Rather than confront the problem (and AIPAC), President Bush offered the rather clumsy band-aid of Karen Hughes hugging babies. It wasn't until the last year of his regime, with multiple failures both domestic and foreign, that he decided his legacy needed burnishing and that perhaps the Israel-Palestine issue would be just the ticket he needed.

Of course, even with all of the fanfare, there was no actual attempt to deal with the real problems. The US continues to provide Israel with munitions (including cluster bombs and missiles), and continues to bully the other nations in the area from dealing with Hamas and Syria. The US continues to cast a blind eye at the illegal settlements in the East Bank and other parts of the Palestinian land and supports the kind of check points that Jimmy Carter rightfully described as instruments of apartheid. But Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice dutifully made several trips to the Middle East insisting that a solution was just around the corner.

This administration will never do what it will take to start a real process towards solving this difficult problem. To do so would be to anger the money people at AIPAC and the misguided "Christian Zionists," who have their own bizarre agenda but who reliably vote Republican. It will be up to the next administration (once again) to try to make some progress.

And it will be difficult. Senator Obama, like Senator Clinton and Senator McCain, made the dutiful trip to AIPAC to assure that group that Israel's continued existence was of paramount importance to the US. That should not be a problem, as long as it is made clear that continued financial and military support is not an automatic given. Israel must be convinced that they too must make some hard choices, some concessions if they truly want peace with their neighbors. Sen. Obama will have to be clear about this if there is to be any improvement of our image and if there is to be any improvement in the credibility of our foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

He might want to take that into consideration as he selects his Vice Presidential running mate and his potential cabinet because I have the distinct feeling that he won't have the luxury of seven years if he does not.