Wreak revenge on Obama

In my column "A crystal ball on 2016" (January 1), I warned that "the late-term U.S. president will be unable to resist his own ideological urges to further squeeze Israel, and will act to set markers for an internationally imposed 'solution' of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Obama will seek to support a United Nations Security Council decision that guts Resolution 242, rupturing 40 years of U.S.-Israel understandings on pursuit of negotiated peace in the Middle East, and giving new strength to the Palestinian campaign to criminalize Israel."

I added: "The danger zone for such action lies in the seam period between the November presidential election and January 2017 inauguration, but Obama is likely to telegraph this in another one of his moralizing speeches in the spring."

"Israel and its friends in the U.S. will have to warn of truly harsh reaction in order to dissuade Obama from moving in this ruinous direction. Israel will have to genuinely threaten to annex the majority of the West Bank, and Congress to slash almost all funding for the U.N. But I'm not sure that even such pressures will deter Obama."

Just after Hillary Clinton (and Obama) were defeated by Donald Trump, I published another column in these pages titled "Beware Obama's revenge" (November 11). "For some time, it has been our assessment that President Barack Obama was likely to move dangerously on Israeli-Palestinian issues during his lame-duck period between the Nov. 8 presidential election and the Jan. 20 inauguration of his successor. The ruckus he could cause in this danger zone even earned a name: the 'December surprise.'

"After being resoundingly repudiated in the election, Obama became an even more dangerous politician.

"He was trashed and trounced by the American public on ideological grounds, which indubitably makes him bitter and determined to get his way; out for revenge in his dying days. Remember that Obama made it clear that this election was a referendum on his 'legacy.' So his defeat must sting."

"Rejection leads to projection," I warned. "A man as ideologically unrepentant as Obama is sure to double down on, not back away from, those things that he most believes in and has yet still to achieve. Therefore, it is more likely than ever that in his final weeks in office, Obama will unilaterally act to impose his worldview and move the policy markers wherever he still can."

"He will sneer at the aides who tell him that his time has passed, and that he shouldn't rock the boat. He will reject advisers who assert that he should focus merely on protecting his 'achievements' like Obamacare and the Iran deal. He will rebuff activists who are concerned about the state of his camp; he doesn't give a damn about the fortunes of the Democratic Party."

"Instead, Obama will strike to make a lasting mark, and strike at those he resents most.

"And this means seeking to impose Palestinian statehood and punishing Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu."

"From his first day in office, Obama prioritized the push toward Palestinian statehood. His very first acts were to appoint George Mitchell as Middle East peace negotiator and squeeze Netanyahu over settlements. Even as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas slid precipitously from purported peace partner to out-and-out fomenter of violence and hangman of Israel in international forums, Obama did not waver in his coddling of Abbas or his commitment to the 'urgent necessity' of Palestinian statehood.

"If anything, Obama has ramped up his rhetoric over the past year about the need for "justice" in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He has repeatedly insisted that Israel's best interests -- about which is an expert and to which he is deeply committed -- lie in the rapid establishment of a Palestinian state. Even if it is a runaway state that has not settled its central grievances with Israel. ... I fully expect Obama to hurtle forward, no matter how deleterious this may be to real peacemaking or to American positioning in the Middle East.

I then asked: What can Israel do to counter Obama's expected foray, probably at the U.N. Security Council, into the Palestinian morass? My answer was that Israel should make it clear, both as a threat and as a policy principle to be put into action, that unilateral action (against Israel) will beget unilateral Israeli action in response.

"If the U.S. violates decades of commitments to Israel and acts to prejudge the outcome of direct negotiations between the parties by imposing parameters for a 'solution' -- say, by recognizing Palestinian statehood, or by articulating border lines, or by criminalizing settlements -- Israel should act to shore up its core interests in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs. That means significant new building in these areas (long overdue!) and even annexation."

Unfortunately, Jerusalem made no such credible threats; and truth be told, any such warning probably wouldn't have dissuaded Obama from acting on his pique against Netanyahu.

The question now is, what should Israel's response be? This situation certainly calls for something more than tiny little protests against Senegal, New Zealand and Ukraine.

Consider: Israel no longer has to fear the revenge of Obama. Obama already has moved the markers. Now it's time to wreak revenge on Obama, and assert Israel's core interests in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem by unilaterally moving the markers, too.

This means reinforcing Israeli control in the Greater Jerusalem envelope through significant renewal of home construction. This includes all Jerusalem neighborhoods (beginning with Givat Hamatos, Gilo and Ramat Shlomo) and the blocs strategically flanking Jerusalem, specifically Gush Etzion in the south, Beit El/Ofra in the north, and Maaleh Adumim in the east -- and especially in the E1 corridor between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim.

Israel should immediately begin construction of 50,000 apartments in this strategic sector, to shore up its religious, historical, and national security stake in the very center of the land of Israel.

As David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin understood well, and Netanyahu does, too, Greater Jerusalem is the key to the Jewish people's claim on its historic homeland. United Jerusalem is the DNA that holds the key to the future of Israel. Strategically, "Jerusalem" is a zone of settlement that runs from Tel Aviv to the Jordan Valley. From Jaffa to Jericho.

Israel should solicit from the incoming Trump administration an explicit return to the "Bush letter" understandings of 2004 for effective and permanent Israeli control of the so-called settlement "blocs," plus an upgrade on these understandings to include E1, and an end to Obama's obsession with blocking the growth of Jewish Jerusalem.

Then, Trump hopefully will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations of the reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty this coming May.

This would be a razor-sharp diplomatic signal that U.N.-Obama parameters for an Israeli-Palestinian accord are passe. That the 1949-1967 lines are obsolete. That maximalist Palestinian demands aren't sacrosanct. That Israelis are not interlopers in Judea. That effective Israeli control of Greater Jerusalem is a fact of life forever.

David M. Weinberg (www.davidmweinberg.com) is director of public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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