AN OPEN LETTER TO MY PRESIDENT, BARACK OBAMA!

What President Barack Obama Needs To Tell The Palestinians And Israelis

By Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher & Middle East Peace Analyst


It is absolutely imperative that we, The United States of America, and all the other moderate states of the world, that our leaders, make it clear to both the Israeli and Palestinian sides that there is absolutely no other option but to reach a final, truly viable and relatively just peace settlement within months and not years! If anything, the complex, disturbing and very sad and tragic events of the Gaza War demonstrate just how urgent and how dangerous this historic conflict is! Given the many obvious and not-so-obvious security concerns, regarding not only the dire realities and urgency, but which involve the overall regional situation throughout the greater Middle East and its direct and indirect impact on the security and stability of the entire world, peace can no longer be postponed indefinitely. Peace must not be held hostage to senseless nuances and antiquated notions on the part of either side nor should the need for peace be perpetually ignored and avoided on account of a systemic failure of the international community to make the urgency clear to everybody, or the failure of the Israeli and Palestinian authorities and leaders to properly inform their constituents about what is really at stake here! Any relatively intelligent and knowledgeable person, especially anyone with a serious background in security issues, understands all too well that the time is already long overdue for a peace of the brave and wise, within months, if not sooner!

1967: A Non-Starter

President Obama needs to make it clear to The Palestinians and to the relatively moderate Arab nations most concerned, that the idea of Israel withdrawing to the pre-1967 borders has already, long ago, been shown to be a total and absolute non-starter for any realistic chance of a peace agreement! The Oslo Agreements and all subsequent agreements that were reached before the Camp David negotiations between Prime Minister Ehud Barack and Chairman Yasser Arafat, under the auspices of President Clinton, in 2000, make it perfectly clear that Israel, for very specific and understandable reasons, both logical and hypothetical, cannot agree to withdrawing to borders that existed prior to 1968. Obviously no Israeli political leader would survive long enough to deliver any such 1967-type agreement, such as the one proposed by Saudi Arabia lately, for that would mean an Israel that would actually have no strategic parity with its neighbors should they ever default on any so-called peace treaty, peace settlement agreement!
In fact, it would cause a more dangerous situation to arise, which would easily turn into the very kind of Global Security Meltdown and Final World War conflagration we currently risk facing. True deterrence, in effect prevention of total disaster, is contingent on The Palestinians accepting a situation that does not involve Israel withdrawing exactly to the pre-1968 borders and lines of demarcation. That said, what Oslo and Madrid and all subsequent understandings have basically suggested and offered is a viable, lasting, and relatively just peace involving almost everything that the Saudi Plan would entail, with some very clear exceptions, that, I must stress once more, are totally non-negotiable by any realistic Israeli leader! Most of the issue revolves around the special status of Jerusalem, which in a certain sense and manner will have to remain almost entirely united and part of Israel, with obvious exception to The Old Muslim Quarter, which would itself gain a special, unique, and rather seemingly complex status under a joint Palestinian-Jordanian authority, and which would still be part of a very complex Intra-National and International agreement and arrangement. And there are other relatively minor territories and issues that collectively are major factors in establishing the kind of viable and logically sensible peace arrangement and agreement, whose details I shall not be able to specify in this relatively brief essay.

Further Postponement of Peace: Too Great a Peril To Israel, The Palestinians and World Peace and Stability Itself

President Barack Obama needs to use his superb communication skills to make it perfectly clear to the Israeli side that, provided the Palestinians also understand that any 1967-type border situation is a total non-starter, further avoidance of the urgent and dire need for a truly viable, relatively just and lasting peace, even if it involves a special set of sub-agreements and subsequent creation of special diplomatic enclaves on both sides for both sides, is tantamount to seriously risking a complex chain of destructive events that would easily lead to a Final Most Horrific Global Security Meltdown and a World War which would not be worth surviving and whose survivors would be very few, if any and who would end up dying shortly thereafter, in the most horrific circumstances! President Obama must make it clear that the further mere perception of Israeli intransigence and significant risk of further extremely violent conflict, regardless of any strategic justification, is rapidly bringing us closer to the brink of total destruction and doom. Israel needs, more than ever, a relatively responsible Palestinian government authority, in charge of a viable Palestinian State, along The Two State Oslo-type solution already agreed to in theory by both sides in previous years, as soon as humanly possible. Not only are we all, the whole world, being held hostage to this failure of the sides to make it clear to their own constituent populations (and to the leaders themselves) that the actual situation risks much more than their direct peace, but the ever-increasing sense of desperation, frustration and subsequent extremist tendencies are beginning to create a situation whereby reaching such an urgently needed peace settlement will become impossible and thus disaster, not just regionally but globally, will become no longer just a possibility but an absolute certainty! Anyone fairly educated and properly informed about this otherwise senseless and tragic conflict, can easily appreciate and understand how much of a disaster it would be if Egypt alone would give up on its tentative peace with Israel and turn into another front for the type of mindset that is prevalent at the top of the current Iranian extreme leadership in Tehran! It should be perfectly clear to those directly involved in making the kind of hard decisions needed that the Gaza War was rapidly turning into a very dangerous spark that would have eventually ignited the entire region, especially posing a threat to the stability of key strategic allies of America and of relative peace, such as Egypt and Jordan, to mention the most important two! Israel has no right to hold the rest of the world hostage to its own internal squabbles and it needs to get its own population majority solidly behind any realistic agreement that would deliver the kind of viable solution towards real peace.

President Barack Obama Can Make It Happen; He’s Probably The Last Chance Hope!

To avoid the kind of tainted situation that has plagued all previous American Presidents involved in trying to bring a lasting peace to The Middle East, between Israel and her neighbors, President Barack Obama must not risk the slightest impression and misperception that we can still wait, if need be, another year or two for the relatively moderate Palestinian Authority and The Israeli government to reach a peaceful settlement agreement! Logic dictates that if there really is any realistic solution to this most urgent and dangerous of conflicts then it can be arrived at within weeks, provided that all parties involved face up to the logical facts as they presently stand! There is absolutely no way President Obama would remain credible enough if he were to get entangled in the kind of on-again, off-again kabuki theatre antics that plagued President Bush! President Barack Obama must use every reasonable tool at his disposal, even if it means risking seeming to be a bit of an alarmist, to get American and world public opinion to fully support the need for the successful and relatively immediate brokering of The Two State Solution envisioned at Oslo and in most tentative agreements arrived at since! Timing is crucial here and any failure to act on time, any failure to exploit the freshness of the moment, will likely risk making the same kind of mass perception and reaction that could easily undo everything! This is not the time to act on the basis of being overly cautious or too impatient! As far I can sense and the way I really see it, based on what I consider to be a very realistic understanding of what is really involved, a meaningful and lasting peace can be arrived at within two to three months, max! NOW is the time to launch a Final Marathon Effort in pursuit of a peace whose benefits would far outweigh any so-called sacrifices that both sides would have to make! NOW is the time to explain, not just to The Palestinians and Arabs and The Israelis, but to the whole world, just what needs to be done, should be done and just what kind of real disaster would easily happen if we do not DO IT ASAP!
The “Yes We Can” mantra of The Obama Presidential Election's Campaign must be turned into the “YES WE MUST” mantra of The Obama Middle East Peace Mission! Another Gaza War, or another Lebanon War over this otherwise senseless and absolutely tragic conflict would kill the chances for peace indefinitely! And INDEFINITELY is TIME we never really had. President Obama, if you’re listening: I know you have what it takes to make this work; TIME TO DO IT NOW!