A Blame Israel Firster, Obama won\u2019t use his moral authority to try stopping the instigators of this latest spate of violence, the Palestinians. Unfortunately he never learned from his Democratic predecessor how to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
While Bill Clinton also endorsed a Palestinian state, and also felt frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he blamed the Palestinians for terrorism and Yasser Arafat for derailing the peace talks in 2000. Clinton finger-pointed when necessary, not always retreating into \u201ccycle of violence\u201d moral equivalences.<\/p>\n
He distinguished between Israeli willingness and Palestinian foot-dragging. He never confused Israeli innocents with Palestinian terrorists. This Democratic president clearly stated<\/a> that \u201cthe PLO must do everything it can to end terrorism against Israel.\u201d With his down-to-earth \u201cBubba\u201d style, he denounced terrorists as \u201cthe forces of doom and gloom,\u201d while advising the Palestinians that \u201cstruggle and pain and destruction and self-destruction are way overrated, and not the only option.\u201d<\/p>\n Bill Clinton was an empath. He conveyed his love for Israel with words, gestures and flourishes. Heartbroken when an Israeli fanatic assassinated his friend Yitzhak Rabin, Clinton captured the world\u2019s anguish with his famous \u201cShalom, chaver\u201d sendoff. On Saturday, Clinton will speak<\/a> at a rally in Tel Aviv to mark the 20th anniversary of Rabin’s murder.<\/p>\n Clinton charmed Israelis, reassuring many who felt he pressured Israel to relinquish too much territory to the Palestinians. Even when Netanyahu\u2019s obstructionism exasperated him, Clinton palled around with Bibi. Obama has scowled.<\/p>\n Visiting Israel in March 1996 following two suicide bus bombings, Clinton defied the Secret Service by visiting Bet Chinuch, a Jerusalem high school mourning three students. The president called two recovering victims on the phone. Later that day, and visibly moved, he told young Israelis: \u201cWe know your pain is unimaginable and to some extent unshareable, but America grieves with you.\u201d He called terrorists \u201cdestroyers\u201d gripped by \u201cthat ancient fear that life can only be lived \u2026 if you’re hating someone else.\u201d He backed up his words with $100 million in anti-terror funding.<\/p>\n Clinton differentiated between Israeli openness, even if wary, and Palestinian resistance, even if camouflaged. My new book, \u201cThe Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s,\u201d<\/a> retells how when Arafat made his unprecedented 24th White House visit in January 2001, shortly before Clinton left office, the president was fuming. At Camp David the previous summer, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered to withdraw from most of the 1967 territories and compensate the Palestinians with land swaps. Arafat never even counteroffered.<\/p>\n The oleaginous terrorist tried flattering the president, calling him a great man.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not a great man,\u201d Clinton replied, \u201cI am a failure. And you have made me one.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton later explained: \u201cArafat never said no; he just couldn\u2019t bring himself to say yes.\u201d Mourning Arafat\u2019s \u201cerror of historic proportions,\u201d Clinton would speculate, \u201cPerhaps he simply couldn\u2019t make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman.\u201d<\/p>\n Also in January 2001, Clinton, in his characteristically colloquial way, warned the Palestinians: \u201cThere will always be those who are sitting outside in the peanut gallery of the Middle East urging you to hold out for more, or to plant one more bomb.\u201d He begged them to resist those luring them to \u201cthe path of no.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Palestinians have again erupted in violence, but Obama lacks Clinton\u2019s moral clarity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to stress to leaders on both sides the importance of condemning violence and combating incitement,\u201d Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, has said<\/a>. This mealymouthed amoralism reinforces Obama\u2019s technocratic urging<\/a> of both parties to try to “tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding.”<\/p>\n The Clinton-Obama contrast reflects two conflicting worldviews. Clinton entered office as such a national security novice that Ronald Reagan had to teach him how to salute. But Clinton\u2019s passivity amid massacres in Bosnia and genocide in Rwanda transformed him. He realized that when America doesn\u2019t lead, evil flourishes. He became a neoliberal interventionist, deploying the military to advance Western values in Kosovo and expressing zero tolerance for terrorism.<\/p>\n A postmodern power skeptic, Obama harbors more doubt about Western values and America\u2019s ability to lead the world constructively. Emphasizing America\u2019s limits, morally and strategically, Obama wants to woo the developing world.<\/p>\n Regarding the Middle East, Obama should learn from Clinton that Palestinian desires to exterminate Israel — expressed through incitement and terrorism — remain the biggest obstacle to peace. If Obama, like Clinton, held Palestinians responsible for turning toward terrorism, he would be treating them as mature decision makers, not infantilized victims.<\/p>\n Even with Obama\u2019s military generosity to Israel, a true friend, let alone a \u201cbest friend,\u201d would not always blame Israel first, or obscure Palestinian responsibility by blaming both sides, especially when Palestinians attack Israel. Muddled morality emboldens Palestinian terrorists, who interpret such dithering as greenlighting their bloodlust.<\/p>\n Obama should duplicate Clinton\u2019s moral clarity. Obama must finally, belatedly, blame the Palestinians directly, pressuring Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and company to stop the violence. Obama should disagree with Secretary of State John Kerry, who blamed the settlements — not lies about the Temple Mount — for this latest eruption.<\/p>\n Clinton understood something Obama cannot comprehend: The world\u2019s one-sided condemnations of Israel compound the trauma of Palestinian terror, reminding Israelis of the long history of anti-Semitic oppression — which Clinton frequently acknowledged. As a lonely, too-often-abandoned democracy, Israel responds to support, warmth, protectiveness. Even though many Israelis disagreed with Clinton\u2019s policies, they trusted him, loved him and thus were willing to compromise.<\/p>\n
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