The Clinton Parameters and Obama

By Ted Belman

In a column entitled Living on Borrowed Time, Alon Pincus writes,

    The Obama grand strategy is to get Israelis and Palestinians to agree to a Clinton parameters- like framework. This would comprise a demilitarized Palestinian state on approximately 90-95 percent of the West Bank, with the three major settlement blocs incorporated into Israel in exchange for agreed-upon land swaps in compensation. Settlements situated east of the border will be dismantled gradually or be allowed to live under Palestinian sovereignty. Israel will maintain a military presence along the Jordan River for an agreed period of time. The “Right of Return” of Palestinian refugees will be fulfilled only in the newly established Palestinian state. And Jerusalem will not be divided, but most of Arab East Jerusalem will be Palestinian and a mechanism for joint sovereignty over parts of the Old City will be constructed.

I can’t reconcile that we get to keep 5 to 10% of the land yet we have to swap for the settlement blocks.

Pincus concludes,

    The one potentially major outcome of the meeting (between Obama and Netanyahu) is that if Obama finds out that Israel and/or the Palestinians are consistently intransigent, the “Clinton parameters” will soon become the “Obama vision.”

There is no way that Obama will embrace the Clinton Parameters as his own. Furthermore Obama knows the PA is intransigent. When one is intransigent, they both are intransigent.

July 17, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Leave a Reply

4 Comments / 4 Comments

  1. The other 18.2% are lying. Well, Mr. Grand, #5 is taking Shebrew dining, dancing, and romancing, so I’ll see you in my dreams, all of which are unsuitable for family viewing.

  3. From an American policy point of view, cornering Netanyahu and exposing him as a nonpartner was counterproductive, although the prime minister did his best – unintentionally perhaps – to vindicate those who didn’t like him in Washington.

    C’mon Alon; why don’t you tell us how you really feel?

    I originally skipped this op-ed on JPost, relying on yamit’s previous comments about Pincus but I’m glad I read it for it reminded me of why only about 10 percent of Israel’s body-politic remains in the left-field bleachers. (Our 10-month-old blog which does no advertising and has no EU money behind it gets about the same traffic as Pincus’ Rabin Center).

    Obama wants to be remembered in the same historic breath as Washington, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman.

    Can we just give him a monument in DC and skip the agenda? You know, a bit like the Nobel Prize.

  4. Obama has never really understood the toll that life in a permanent state of war in the Middle East exacts on Israelis.

    They are disillusioned, cynical, distrustful, bitter and apprehensive about their Palestinian neighbors. Cerebrally and viscerally, Israelis know Obama is right. But they feel more comfortable within the confines of Netanyahu’s “they are all out to get us” attitude.

    I guess Pincus and me travel in different circles because nobody I know thinks cerebrally and viscerally that Obama is right. Most people I know don’t think Cerebrally and viscerally at all! They think and the polls bear me out that Obama is an anti-Semite shvartz who is out to get us.

    Pincus is smart and articulate when he wants to be but here he is speaking as a Labor candidate for the labor parties top Job. He is one of the main movers to unseat Barak.