Schlaglicht Israel Nr. 10/11 Aktuelles aus israelischen Tageszeitungen 16. – 30. Mai 2011 1. Obamas Nahost-Rede Am 19. Mai hielt US-Präsident Barack Obama im State Department eine Grundsatzrede zum Nahen Osten und dem"arabischen Frühling." Darin sprach er sich für die Volksaufstände der letzten Monate aus und versprach"potentiellen Demokratien" wie Ägypten und Tunesien seine Unterstützung. Obama widmete nur einen kleinen Teil seiner Rede dem palästinensisch-israelischen Konflikt. Verständ­licherweise erhielt dieser Teil jedoch die größte Me­dienaufmerksamkeit in Israel. Für Kontroverse sorg­te insbesondere sein Aufruf, einen palästinensi­schen Staat auf Basis der Waffenstillstandslinien von 1967 zu gründen – bisher hatten die USA immer betont, bei der Grenzziehung müsse Israels Sicher­heit im Vordergrund stehen. Premierminister Benjamin Netanyahu bezeichnete die Grenzen von 1967 in einer öffentlichen Reaktion auf die Rede dementsprechend umgehend als"nicht zu verteidigen". In einer zweiten Rede vor der pro-israelischen Lob­bygruppe AIPAC wiederholte Obama drei Tage spä­ter seine Ausführungen zu den 1967er Grenzen, betonte jedoch, dass jede Grenzziehung mit"Ge­bietsaustausch" und Verhandlungen einhergehen müsse. Presenting the Obama Doctrine "The Obama Doctrine for the Middle East prioritizes the engagement of the public, rather than engage­ment with the states in the region.[…] The doctrine’s primary tool for supporting reform appears to be grand political rhetoric, although Ob­ama has also pledged to support economic and po­litical reform by rallying the international community to provide financial support and technical expertise. All this adds up to a foreign-policy doctrine of 'defensive liberalism.'[…] The problem lies in Obama’s grossly over-optimistic assessment of regional realities, which could have dangerous unintended consequences.[…] For O b­ama, the'Arab Spring' recalls[…] the fall of the Ber­lin Wall in 1989 and the Eastern European transition to democracy. Unfortunately,[…] in the Middle East of 2011, a l­though many demonstrators are driven by the de­mand for reform, they lack the deep ideological and civil society institutional foundations that under­girded success in 1989.[…] Islamism represents the most popular alternative ideology to the status quo, and the Islamists are inestimably better organized than the democratic reformers." Jonathan Rynhold, JPO 25.05.11 Che Obama "Obama[…] believes in the strength and ability of the masses to impose change on leaders.[…] The role of the United States is to serve as a model to them, to encourage them and to support democratic movements replacing despotic tyranny, but the re­sponsibility for change lies with the nations. If they take to the streets and demand what is theirs, they will defeat tyranny.[…] Therefore, his speech should be interpreted as a call to the Palestinians to take to the streets and bring down the occupation, which Obama considers im­moral no less than the tyranny in Arab states.[…] They must behave like Tunisians and Egyptians ­embark on a mass, non-violent struggle, a popular revolution. They must trust that America will back them and will prevent Israelis from shooting them in the streets. This is the practical translation of Obama's doctrine." Aluf Benn, HAA 25.05.11 The hitchhiker's guide to the Mideast "Obama's speech is[…] a very important text in a region that has been conditioned to rely on every utterance by a U.S. president to determine reality. But it's not too late to note that the United States is perhaps still unwilling to determine reality.[…] 1