Wishing AIPAC Couldn't Sway 5% of the Vote in Florida

I couldn't help but cringe while watching Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC in the Middle East.

While I thoroughly support almost all of his other policies, and firmly believe in his personal & political instincts, his unfortunate lack of international experience was desperately on display the same day he received the nomination. With all his domestic policies, Obama has put thorough effort into understanding all perspectives, appreciate where the opposing sides are coming from and trying to present a nuanced, insightful solution by integrating these perspectives and addressing them all.

It was not displayed in that his solution or his stance was the right or wrong one, it was displayed because his speech was so utterly detached from the perspectives of the entire Arab world, which is just unlike him. It was a speech which was tremendously in tune, however, with the spirit, concerns, perspectives, and self-conscious identity of Jews. So, much so that I think it allowed me to understand them better. But in the rare occasions he mentioned the legitimacy of Palestinian concerns, it was insulting by its sheer lack of effort to understand what they really want.

It is one of the inevitable issues in any presidential contest that you have to be an expert on everything, and the easiest way to fake that is to agree with the dominant political consensus. Unfortunately, with regard to Middle East policy that consensus rarely takes into account the culture and perspective of the average Arab. Every reference to the average Arab seems to be simplistic portrayals more reflective of how the Arab world is misunderstood than its reality.

That rare mention of Palestinian concerns was his encouragement of Israel to grant ease of movement, alleviate economic conditions, and halt new settlements in the West Bank (after the security of Israel was secured, and an undivided Jerusalem declared the capital of the Jewish state). Yes, Palestinians do care about these things, but having been in the Middle East, I suspect that those practical accomplishments are subservient to a much greater goal.

Justice.

It is a concept that holds far more weight in the Middle East than freedom, democracy, economic development, or peace. The rare references to freedom come in elite circles' self-conscious references to the west or with freedom from international mingling. The rare references to democracy come with allusions to the hypocrisy of Western governments not to acknowledge the legitimacy of Hamas' victory in Gaza.

While every Palestinian would like to go back in time and retroactively instill justice, at this point I think most would settle for a more recent and enduring justice. They have felt lied to, exploited, and ultimately helpless because of their situation in the West Bank, and the root is often seen as a puzzlingly staunch commitment of the United States to the Israelis. It is a commitment where every decision that gets taken by the US or the international community seems to account for only one side of the story. In many ways it isn't a hard problem to fix. So, here is what I would have said to AIPAC, and I think it is something in the ballpark of what Obama would have said if he had put the same thought into understanding the perspectives in the Middle East with the same care with which he approached, let's say, health care.

"Most of you here want me to proclaim how diligently I will protect Israel's existence & security. How staunchly I will oppose extremism in the Middle East, & how firmly I will stand when dealing with Arab leaders hostile to Israel. Those are important points, and I will address them in due time.

But I wish to start from a different perspective—the perspective that despite 60 years of steadfast American support, Israel is no closer to the long term stability that it seeks. And so we must begin to attempt to undermine not only the extant threat of extremism, but the roots of it endurance.

The problem before Israel is not the extremists, but the ease with which they recruit people to their cause. The problem isn't the hostile Arab leaders, but the fact that they gain rather than lose political points by railing against Israel.

The very root of the problem goes deeper than day-to-day security issues. If it is dealt with as such it is a fight which will go on forever.

The problem is that Arab people feel that they have not been dealt with fairly. And while I fully sympathize with the need for an identity, and a homeland and a peace with which to enjoy it, this simply will not come without a true relationship with the average Arab.

I am suggesting a different approach. We talk a lot about winning the hearts and minds of the Arab people in Iraq, but we rarely get into specifics. There are quite a few tried and true ways to begin to do it.

The first is simply listening. Designing policies based on the actual needs of the people instead of solely the security needs of Israel. This might sound like a bleeding-heart approach, and I'll admit to some degree it is. However, more than that it is an eminently practical approach. Hamas wins elections not primarily because people chafe at what they perceive as Israeli injustice, but because it serves their practical needs far better and is far less corrupt than Fatah. They lay their claim to legitimacy on the fact that the party addresses their needs.

By preempting that need, by actually addressing the needs of the dispossessed and by giving them hope for their future, we can build not only a rapport but a constituency that supports and is invested in the peace process.

Right now the Palestinian people have no reason to be invested.

Hezbollah has gained tremendous popularity not because it uses violence, but because it was seen that the outcome was the first glimpse of fairness that the Arab world has seen in the last century. Not that Israel should capitulate or not capitulate in the face of the situation they were confronted with by Hezbollah. Far more important than that, is that we have an opportunity to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab people by providing that sense of justice, that sense of fairness to the surrounding Arab countries.

In the mind of many Arabs, peace hasn't seemed to bring a sense of justice or fairness, and until recently war hadn't either. Hezbollah offered for them the sort of targeted instead of senseless violence that seems far less morally reprehensible than the targeting of innocents of Al Qaeda or the anarchic violence led by extremists in Iraq.

Let there be no mistake. I will oppose extremism wherever it lies, and wherever innocent people are put in danger for the sake of ideological intolerance, I will stand ready and willing to act to protect them. (…here is where we insert all of the Obama's resolute text on opposing intolerance and appreciated the Israeli self-image and concerns…)

I think I might have lost every friend I had in this audience, but I shouldn't have—because I have only one goal. It is the peace and security for every child is born not knowing the ideology or violence of their fathers. I think of that humanity, so rich with possibility. Whether it is the unyielding service of humanity, the tireless service of God, the attempt to improve themselves, the search for truth, or simply the modest plight of a better life for their children, it is too often that this selflessness and goodness in humanity is usurped by horrors of senseless violence, the wars of the past, the hopelessness of the future, and the bigotry of ideological fanaticism.

I am working for peace, and the only difference between me and many of the politicians who are equally earnestly working for peace, is that I know this is the only way to reach that enduring peace.

I mentioned that 60 years of efforts toward peace despite steadfast support of the US have failed to bring Israel closer to feeling their country is at peace. The reason for this is that they have sought to impose peace through military superiority.

The difference in how I seek to deal with the Middle East is not a policy change. It is one of approach. It is treating the people on the other side of the table with the respect that in our hearts each one of us craves more than anything else."