Barry Rubin: Obama’s Ludicrous Proposal to Israel Unpacked

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Obama’s Ludicrous Proposal to Israel Unpacked

By Barry Rubin

Could President Barack Obama’s strategy possibly be more obvious to Israel? Not for the mass media, of course, but for Israel. Here’s a summary: Due to the Obama Administration’s ineptness, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is planning to ask the UN to give it unilateral independence in September. But rather than use its leverage against the PA–including pointing out that what it’s doing is contrary to every U.S.-guaranteed agreement that the PA signed with Israel during the last 18 years–the Obama Administration wants to use its leverage on Israel to force it to save Obama.


You see, Obama will find it hard to escape vetoing the PA’s bid in the Security Council before it ever gets to the General Assembly. This will not make Obama or the United States more popular with Muslims or Arabs. So Obama wants Israel to pay the price in exchange for…nothing.

To avoid the PA declaring unilateral independence without making any concessions, Obama wants Israel to accept what amounts to the PA getting independence without making any concessions! But it won’t be unilateral, right?

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press later this year. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

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