When President Obama and two of his closest advisors, both Jewish, conceived the tactic of requiring an absolute halt to Jewish construction in the West Bank, they weren’t changing America’s strategy towards Israel. America has always objected to the construction of Jewish communities beyond the Green Line (1949 armistice line). But an American president hasn’t chosen so severe a tactic as this to pressure Israel since President G.W. Bush (41) opposed American loan guarantees for Israel as long as Israel continued building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. (Bush senior eventually agreed to a loan guarantee package that required deductions offsetting any funds Israel spent on settlements.)

By enunciating a hard line prescription for Israel, President Obama made a rookie’s error. This was compounded by Secretary of State Clinton, when she said on May 28, 2009: “He [Mr. Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions. We think it is in the best interests [of the peace process] that settlement expansion ceases. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly...and we intend to press that point.”

There were two immediate but unexpected (by the administration) reactions to Mrs. Clinton’s pronouncement: 1) PA president Abbas stopped all talks until Israel kowtows to the president’s dictate; and 2) Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to cooperate.

Didn’t the administration figure that Abbas would clutch the administration’s inflexible words to his bosom and expect America to deliver the settlement halt on a silver platter?

Now, the admi nistration has climbed down from its impossible position but President Abbas doesn’t have that luxury, since his hold on power is tenuous in the West Bank and nonexistent in Gaza. The result: negotiations have completely stopped and are unlikely to continue until, perhaps, there is some sort of upheaval in the region.

This is a poem from a Palestinian website:

Snow on Occupied Land

What could extinguish The will of a fighting people?

Which assault could conquer

The People’s own land?

Our land has seen – Maybe they forget this –

A thousand conquerors!

They all disappeared,

Like snow melts And disappears.

Not by itself, of course!

Not by itself.

This poem expresses the love that Palestinians have for “Palestine” for the land they inhabit and also for the land inhabited by Jews in Judea, Samaria (also known as the West Bank) and in Israel proper. Coexisting with Palestinians’ love for the land is their insistence that Jews have no history here. They deny Jewish history, even to the extent of denying that a Jewish Temple stood on the Temple Mount, which paradoxically is the reason why Jerusalem is considered a Muslim holy city. Millennia of Jewish history and archeology are totally banished from the Palestinian perspective, which is that the Jews first showed up here as colonialists in the 20th century, usurping “Palestinian” land.

The Palestinians’ love of the land is immediate, sacred, and unbreakable. Contrast that with the Jews’ love of the land, which is just as fierce for some Jews but of little interest to many others. If we study past negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, it’s the Jews who always proffer land (supposedly for peace) and Palestinians who never consider giving up a spadeful. As a matter of fact, execution is the penalty in the Palestinian Authority for selling land to a Jew.

Land must become as important to Jewish Israelis as it is to the Arabs. True, for more than two thousand years Jews have prayed daily to return to Zion. But today, only religious Jews recite the thrice-daily prayer. Many non-observant Jews think that the whole idea of sacred Jewish land is outmoded and that it sounds suspiciously racist. This attitude endangers Israel’s very existence! Judaism is based on this equilateral triangle: the Jewish people, the Torah, and the Land of Israel. Without our land, Judaism is like a stool with only two legs. If we’re not willing to insist on retaining a substantial part of our patrimony, including where Jews currently live, we risk losing all of it.

Nearly ten percent of Israeli Jews live beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Critics point out that 80 percent of those Jews are clustered in relatively small areas, so “only” 20 percent need to be transferred (ethnically cleansed) from “Palestine.” That 20 percent represents a minimum of 80,000 Jews! Let’s not forget that Israel is still suffering greatly from the removal of 8,000 Jews from Gaza just four years ago. Inevitably, the expectation that Israel would receive peace for the evacuation from Gaza of our army and our citizens proved to be laughable.

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians obviously won’t come easily, no matter what the Obama administration dictates. The Palestinians will have to agree to significant changes to the 1949 armistice line to create a real border, or they must reconcile themselves to living with a significant Jewish minority in their new state – just like Israel did in 1948. (Israel’s Arab minority constitutes 20 percent of its population.) At this point, the Palestinians aren’t ready for either solution.

The Arabs have turned down every solution to achieve peace since 1947, when they rejected out of hand the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine. In the meantime, both Israelis and Palestinians go about creating more facts (communities/settlements) on disputed ground wherever possible. Israeli construction is denounced by the United Nations while Palestinian construction is overlooked.

Because of the unintended consequences of the new administration’s foreign policy decisions in the Middle East, America has ended up with egg on its face. President Obama has made the intractable situation here a litmus test for his foreign relations policies. Unfortunately, peace is not on the horizon. A major factor precluding peace is that a terrorist organization rules in Gaza and the West’s chosen peacemaker, President Abbas, lacks the power to confront Hamas even if he wants to.

Above all, the Arabs covet the land that the Jews possess and won’t consider recognizing a Jewish state in their midst. Proof of this impasse is that Egypt and Jordan, each of which has a treaty with Israel, have never stopped their government-inspired incitement against Israel, which includes vicious anti-Semitic propaganda and the blacklisting of Arabs who have interaction with Israel. This provocation against Jews and Israelis is constant, despite the huge economic benefits that the two countries have accrued from the cessation of hostilities against Israel. As is usual in the Middle East, land is the key to the status quo.

Stephen Kramer resided and worked in the Atlantic City area until 1991, when he moved to Israel with his wife, Michal Langweiler, and two sons. He can be reached at Sjk1@jhu.edu.