For history’s greatest frenemies, fake smiles for a freighted farewell

Partings are melancholy. Where friends, lovers or even enemies, the closing a chapter seems always loaded down with all the ghosts of the past relationship, bubbling just below the liminal. Thus, the expected last meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama – two of history’s greatest frenemies – whose caustic relationship has colored so much of Jerusalem-Washington ties over the last six years is the main event in the press Wednesday morning, hours before the expected tearful last handshake.

As if that history of chickenshit-barbs, anti-Semite accusation and nuclear Persian aversion were not enough, Obama’s speech to the United Nations Tuesday night, in which he declared that Israel could not continue to occupy Palestinian land, added another fraught chapter to that relationship, and is given just as much weight in the press.

Haaretz leads off its paper with a headline quoting Obama’s anti-occupation screed (though the report also notes that most of the speech was taken up with loftier matters of world harmony). Despite the big headline, US correspondent Chemi Shalev called his words mere tokens and instead praises the president for his very unIsraeli lack of despondency.

“It was an optimistic and hopeful speech that dwelled on the cup half-full, which Israeli politicians prefer to portray as 90 percent empty. Obama extolled diplomacy (how naive), called for increased international collaboration (with BDS-supporting anti-Semites), praised the recent accord on climate change (a self-indulgent luxury), promoted immigration (of Muslims, of course) and preached acceptance of, and respect for, the other (give us a break),” he writes sarcastically.

Indeed the paper’s Barak Ravid also sees Obama as coming up short of saying how he really feels, predicting that may come once he is a true lame duck, following the November 8 elections.

“Netanyahu knows that the US president’s speech to the UN General Assembly isn’t the important one. The important speech is the one Obama hasn’t yet given – the one that might be given in another two months, after the US presidential election,” he writes. “It is the speech in which Obama will try to leave a lasting legacy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue by laying down principles for resolving all the core issues: borders, refugees, security and, above all, Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s fear is that once such a speech is given, the road to turning it into a UN Security Council resolution will be short.”

But before Obama can tell a tearful Israel that frankly, he doesn’t give a damn, stalking out into the fog-covered White House lawn, there’s the little matter of this last goodbye.

Yedioth Ahronoth’s headline is “parting, and not as friends,” yet the paper, which also predicts more fireworks from Obama in the coming months, guesses that both leaders will put on at least as good a show as Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh.

“In front of the cameras the two will show great friendship, but in regards to the peace process with the Palestinians – the differences between them are deep,” the paper reports. “Obama will celebrate with Netanyahu that defense aid deal and will use the opportunity to make clear the importance of restarting talks with the Palestinians. But the real card he’ll hold close to his chest: his Middle East peace plan, which he will present in the time between the election and the swearing in of the new president, on January 20, 2017.”

Yet Obama’s not the only one who can give speeches and Israel Hayom leads off its coverage, not with Obama’s address or the expected meeting but by previewing Netanyahu’s own speech to the United Nations, not expected until Thursday, at which he will “tell the truth of Israel,” at least according to the tabloid’s massive headline.

“As terror again rears its head in Israel and the US, Prime Minister Netanyahu will address the UN in New York tomorrow and demand the international community take a clear and decisive stand on the issue,” the paper reports.

In the meantime, in the face of what Israel Hayom describes as “terror that won’t stop,” i.e. an attempted stabbing in Hebron Tuesday, the paper reports that police are taking matters into their own hands to protect Jerusalem, beefing up their presence a week earlier than had been planned.

“Some of the forces, who had been slated to bolster forces for the holidays, have already arrived in the city and have set up in areas that are sensitive or ripe for attack. More forces are expected to arrive in coming days,” the paper reports.

It’s not like the forces that are already there necessarily need the help though, with a slew of alleged attempted attacks leaving few Israelis hurt and most attackers dead or badly wounded. Of course, one man’s dead terrorist, is another’s martyr who happened to be at the wrong place in the wrong time, and that dissonance came to a head Tuesday when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined others in praising a Jordanian man shot as he tried to attack police in Jerusalem Friday, at least according to police.

The paper notes that the move is fairly rare for Abbas, who has had to tread a fine line during the terror wave over the past year.

“Abbas has kept from condemning the attacks over the past year, even when they were particularly bad. He has said many times and relied on the saying that he is against any type of violence,” the paper reports. “Together with that, he has kept from consoling families of terrorists that carried out terror attacks except in rare cases, like this one.”

One could be forgiven for seeing shades of the Terence Crutcher (or countless others) case in America in the dispute over the police shooting of a Jordanian man in Jerusalem. But why compare Palestinians or Arabs to African-Americans when Israel has blacks of its own, many of whom are treated nearly as badly. At least that’s according to a Haaretz report that brings to light an Israel Prisons Service study showing only 19 percent of minors of Ethiopian descent get treatment rather than be sent to jail, compared to 74% for non-immigrant Jewish Israelis.

“We must ask ourselves why we’ve reached the stage where Israel admits openly that there’s discrimination and racism at its institutions toward the community of Israelis of Ethiopian descent,” Justice Ministry head Emi Palmor is quoted telling the paper. “We must ask why young people encounter the law enforcement and judicial systems more than the treatment system.”