The most important foreign policy event in the Obama presidency has occurred, and its reverberations are about to shake the foundations of current American policy in the Middle East as we know it.
Hold on to your hats. The White House is poised to aggressively move on perhaps the most challenging and critical diplomatic arena (now that it has the domestic, popular support to do so).
Jews. Muslims. Americans. Hip-hop fans...Join me below the fold to learn how things are about to irrevocably change.
The killing of Osama bin Laden was immediately touted by many pundits on Sunday evening as being largely a symbolic victory – a psychological victory – for the United States and for Americans both home and abroad.
While the military significance of bin Laden's death – whether or not it carries more than just symbolic weight – can surely be debated, what cannot be debated is this: bin Laden's death has given President Obama a devastatingly-powerful groundswell of public support that will continue unabated in the near term. Already, The New York Times is reporting an eleven percent increase in job approval (now 57%), and Gallup is reporting similar expected movement, with Obama's approval now at 50%.
These numbers are not fleeting, nor are they insignificant, for bin Laden's assassination, and its importance, will remain in the headlines as more details emerge concerning its execution and its potential impacts. Meaning: Obama now has the type of domestic support that could provide him, in the short term, with the domestic cover he needs to significantly impact a conflict he had all but relinquished: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Obama and the United States have, in the past few months, demonstrated to the world that it was no longer in a position to remain as the central, balanced arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The primary reason? Domestic pressure at home from AIPAC and Jewish lawmakers were making it impossible for Obama to follow through on several of his explicit policy positions regarding Israel's actions.
The central, "ah-hah" moment for the world happened in February, when the U.S. stood as the only country to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to Israeli settlement construction. The veto was perplexing, for the Obama administration has long held that Israeli settlement construction must end, and that such cessation of construction was a pre-condition for full, final status talks to be completed between Israelis and Palestinians. And yet, the US and President Obama, because of domestic pressure at home, publicly and quite dramatically vetoed its own expressed position.
The move caused much head-scratching in Europe, and many concluded that Washington was effectively, with the vote, throwing up its hands and begging for a multilateral approach, begging for someone else to take the lead in serving as a broker between the Israelis and Palestinians.
However, Obama now has the popular, domestic support needed to re-engage and take a strong leadership position in Israel / Palestine. And it could not happen at a more critical time, for the Palestinian Authority and Hamas just today signed a reconciliation agreement, with Hamas stating that it is prepared to give peace with Israel one more chance.
With Netanyahu balking against negotiating with the Palestinians now that Hamas is poised to join a unity government, and with Netanyahu poised to visit Washington, Obama has his moment (and the poll numbers to seize the moment).
Everyone knows that in order for a brokered peace deal to happen, Israel will need to step to the bargaining table with both Hamas and the PA. And everyone knows that a failure to do so will likely result in the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state by the UN General Assembly in September.
Israel doesn't want this. The United States doesn't want this. Even the Palestinians don't want this (though they are willing to pursue it, as current reconciliation efforts attest).
A third party will need to enter the void and quickly (read: forcefully) pressure each side to engage in talks. Obama is now in position to retake the mantle of diplomacy and push both Israel and the Palestinians hard.
This is Obama's moment. It is the moment the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been waiting for. It is the last gasp, the last chance for peace to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is for this reason that today, the White House reached out to both sides.
Why today?
Read the poll numbers. Scan the domestic headlines. Listen to the chants of U.S.A., U.S.A.
The game's about to begin. Again. One last time.