Just as he urged Palestinians and Israelis to think outside the box in a speech to a crowd of young Israelis Thursday in Jerusalem, President Obama also seemed to move away from the usual insistence that Israelis must stop building settlements in Palestinian territory before the two sides could resume peace talks.
That insistence has not worked, as the Israelis have continued to add thousands of additional Israeli settlers to the West Bank and peace talks have been idle for years as the two sides settle further into their intractable positions. So during a joint appearance with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Obama tried a different approach.
“If we’re going to succeed, part of what we’re going to have to do is to get out of some of the formulas and habits that have blocked progress for so long,” Obama said. Abbas stood next to him without expression. “Both sides are going to have to think anew.”
President Obama’s fairly cold reception in the West Bank was a radical departure from the warmth he got in Jerusalem when he spoke in front of a crowd of about 2,000 young people. Broadcast live to the nation from the convention center, the Jerusalem speech was treated as the centerpiece of his first trip to Israel as President.
“Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this: political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do,” Obama said, echoing a theme he used in his own campaigns in the U.S. “You must create the change that you want to see.
“I recognize that there are those who are not simply skeptical about peace, but question its underlying premise. But it is important to be open and honest with one another.”
Obama had a light moment with the crowd. He drew laughs when he said: “Politically, given the strong bipartisan support for Israel in America, the easiest thing for me to do would be to put this issue aside and express unconditional support for whatever Israel decides to do.”
He said peace was also in the self-interest of a plucky country with a thriving high-tech economy that could turn itself into an economic and technological powerhouse if it rejected the isolation that has resulted from decades of conflict.
He told the crowd that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank imposed a shameful human cost.
“Put yourself in their shoes — look at the world through their eyes,” he said. “It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents, every single day.”
“Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer,” Obama went on. “Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.”
Obama also showed more of the off-the-cuff humor for which he is becoming known. When he was interrupted by a heckler, later identified as a 24-year-old Arab-Israeli student from Haifa named Rabiyah Aid, who was drowned out by boos as he was escorted out, Obama said, “We actually arranged for that because it made me feel at home,” eferring to the heckling that he has frequently seen in the U.S., even famously by a member of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina.
While Obama was with Abbas, Palestinians shot rockets toward Israel, landing in the border town of Sderot, where the President visited before his election in 2008. They didn’t cause any injuries, but they did show how intractable the two sides are.
“I’ve stood in Sderot, and met with children who simply want to grow up free from fear,” Obama said. Abbas, stone faced, said nothing.
