Analysis: What the Biden-Palin Debate Says of Their Middle East Policies
Barack Obama and John McCain in their first and ostensibly only debate on foreign policy both managed to go the entire 97 minutes of the spectacle without mentioning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (or most other issues central to Middle East policy, as the portions devoted to the subject show).
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin weren't as oblivious in their vice-presidential bout on Oct. 2, 2008. Both the heavyweight and the bantamweight willingly took on the standard-issue Middle East concerns (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan), but when it came to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the way they went about discussing it was even more disturbing than McCain and Obama ignoring the issue altogether.
The question is multi-layered. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "the great, lingering, unresolved issue." The Bush administration has been the least engaged of any administration since Lyndon Johnson. Its road map for peace dead-ended. Its attempt to resuscitate it, six years too late, had a similar near-morgue experience . Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world weren’t fooled. Bush never took the Palestinian-Israeli peace process so seriously as to get involved in it personally. He delegated. He outsourced. He let others, including Condoleezza Rice, take the fall for the failures. The issue lingers, unresolved.
What do the vice-presidential candidates think? While both Biden and Palin embraced the two-state solution bit, they also did something else that the entire Middle East picked up on, even if Middle America couldn't care less: neither mentioned the word "Palestinian," let alone "Palestine." Not once.
They could have been talking about a two-state solution between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Robert Fisk put it bluntly:
On the other hand, Palin and Biden outdid each other trying to love-fest Israel, prompting the ever-winked Palin at one point to gush: "I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel." She also staked out one of McCain's most inflammatory positions, as far as Palestinians and the world community are concerned--moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv, where it's been since the creation of Israel, to Jerusalem, where, respecting United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 (1980), not a single country has its embassy. (McCain is desperately trying to appeal to South Florida's huge Jewish vote, which used to be a solidly Democratic vote but has been wavering. Swaying that vote is one of the keys to Florida's 27 electoral votes.)
In his speech to AIPAC, the Jewish lobbying group, last June, Obama committed a gaffe, later corrected, by saying that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." In contravention to the United Nations, a Republican-controlled Congress in 1995 passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act requiring the American embassy to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (The Senate voted 93-5 in favor, the House 374-37. President Clinton could not veto the legislation: the votes were veto-proof. But he signaled his disapproval by not signing the bill, which became law without a president's signature. The embassy was never moved.)
Of course the heart of the Biden-Palin debate, when it came to foreign policy, was going to be the surgical spinning of the Iraq war, with Palin doing her best to paint Biden and Obama as the brandishers of “the white flag of surrender” (has it ever been red? Blue? Purple?) and Biden doing his best to explain the nuances behind his vote approving Congress’ Iraq war resolution.
The debate wasn’t instructive on that score. Both sides repeated conventional positions, though the conventional position of the McCain camp is that it doesn’t have an exit strategy from Iraq. The conventional position of the Obama camp is that it does. As Biden put it: “Barack says it's time for them to spend their own money and have the 400,000 military we trained for them begin to take their own responsibility and gradually over 16 months, withdrawal."
Palin and Biden battled over the definition of diplomacy with Iran, as their bosses had. Palin says no diplomacy. Biden says the silent treatment has been useless. Populism is on Palin’s side when she goes after the emotional vote, saying another Holocaust can’t be allowed. Evidence is on Biden’s side when he says that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is more sound and fury than substance and power.
In Afghanistan, Palin was entirely out of her depth, beginning with her confusing the American commanding general in Afghanistan (David McKiernan) with the American general at Antietam during the Civil War (George McClellan). True, both generals are or were mired in stalemate in their respective battles, but it’s an odd mistake, especially considering McClellan’s history: he’s the one who, during the Civil War, brandished “the white flag of surrender,” and pushed his attempt as far as challenging Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election, as the Democrats’ nominee. McClellan lost.
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin weren't as oblivious in their vice-presidential bout on Oct. 2, 2008. Both the heavyweight and the bantamweight willingly took on the standard-issue Middle East concerns (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan), but when it came to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the way they went about discussing it was even more disturbing than McCain and Obama ignoring the issue altogether.
Invisible Palestinians
Moderator Gwen Ifill framed the question pointedly: "What has this administration done right or wrong -- this is the great, lingering, unresolved issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- what have they done? And is a two-state solution the solution?"The question is multi-layered. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "the great, lingering, unresolved issue." The Bush administration has been the least engaged of any administration since Lyndon Johnson. Its road map for peace dead-ended. Its attempt to resuscitate it, six years too late, had a similar near-morgue experience . Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world weren’t fooled. Bush never took the Palestinian-Israeli peace process so seriously as to get involved in it personally. He delegated. He outsourced. He let others, including Condoleezza Rice, take the fall for the failures. The issue lingers, unresolved.
What do the vice-presidential candidates think? While both Biden and Palin embraced the two-state solution bit, they also did something else that the entire Middle East picked up on, even if Middle America couldn't care less: neither mentioned the word "Palestinian," let alone "Palestine." Not once.
They could have been talking about a two-state solution between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Robert Fisk put it bluntly:
Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. "Palestine" and "Palestinians" – that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept – simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase "Israeli occupation" was mercifully left unused. Neither the words "Jewish colony" nor "Jewish settlement" – not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, "Jewish neighborhood" – got a look-in. Nope. Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defense", hid like rabbits from the epicenter of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people.
O, Jerusalem
On the other hand, Palin and Biden outdid each other trying to love-fest Israel, prompting the ever-winked Palin at one point to gush: "I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel." She also staked out one of McCain's most inflammatory positions, as far as Palestinians and the world community are concerned--moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv, where it's been since the creation of Israel, to Jerusalem, where, respecting United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 (1980), not a single country has its embassy. (McCain is desperately trying to appeal to South Florida's huge Jewish vote, which used to be a solidly Democratic vote but has been wavering. Swaying that vote is one of the keys to Florida's 27 electoral votes.)
In his speech to AIPAC, the Jewish lobbying group, last June, Obama committed a gaffe, later corrected, by saying that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." In contravention to the United Nations, a Republican-controlled Congress in 1995 passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act requiring the American embassy to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (The Senate voted 93-5 in favor, the House 374-37. President Clinton could not veto the legislation: the votes were veto-proof. But he signaled his disapproval by not signing the bill, which became law without a president's signature. The embassy was never moved.)
Looking Past Palestine-Israel: Iraq and Afghanistan
Of course the heart of the Biden-Palin debate, when it came to foreign policy, was going to be the surgical spinning of the Iraq war, with Palin doing her best to paint Biden and Obama as the brandishers of “the white flag of surrender” (has it ever been red? Blue? Purple?) and Biden doing his best to explain the nuances behind his vote approving Congress’ Iraq war resolution.
The debate wasn’t instructive on that score. Both sides repeated conventional positions, though the conventional position of the McCain camp is that it doesn’t have an exit strategy from Iraq. The conventional position of the Obama camp is that it does. As Biden put it: “Barack says it's time for them to spend their own money and have the 400,000 military we trained for them begin to take their own responsibility and gradually over 16 months, withdrawal."
Iran and Afghanistan
Palin and Biden battled over the definition of diplomacy with Iran, as their bosses had. Palin says no diplomacy. Biden says the silent treatment has been useless. Populism is on Palin’s side when she goes after the emotional vote, saying another Holocaust can’t be allowed. Evidence is on Biden’s side when he says that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is more sound and fury than substance and power.
In Afghanistan, Palin was entirely out of her depth, beginning with her confusing the American commanding general in Afghanistan (David McKiernan) with the American general at Antietam during the Civil War (George McClellan). True, both generals are or were mired in stalemate in their respective battles, but it’s an odd mistake, especially considering McClellan’s history: he’s the one who, during the Civil War, brandished “the white flag of surrender,” and pushed his attempt as far as challenging Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election, as the Democrats’ nominee. McClellan lost.
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