Q&A with George Edwards

Professor George C. Edwards III, visiting scholar, expert on the US presidency, interviewed, Oxford, 25 April 2013

RH:   How would you assess Obama’s ability to deliver Palestinian statehood?

GE:   Huh!  Ah - it’s the same as all Presidents, which is very very limited.  People are under the impression that Presidents tell Israel what to do because we give them so much aid they must - but the fact is the Presidents have a very hard time telling Israel what to do.  We know Israel defends its own interests vigorously.  Israel has a substantial body of support in the United States, independent of the President, who will pressure the President, criticise the President. …

The bottom line is that I don’t think there’s any chance in Obama’s administration that it’s going to happen because I don’t see anything like an agreement being reached in the Middle East.  I actually lived in Jerusalem for a while and so I have an interest, I don’t consider myself a Middle East expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do follow it with some interest and I don’t see it happening.  I don’t think the Palestinians are in a position to make an agreement they’ve not prepared their people for - half of them it seems think Israel shouldn’t exist and are not ready to disavow violence and recognise Israel’s legitimacy.

They’re still making the right to return and issues like that are absolutely never going to happen.  I often speak to audiences and I say, “Do you want an issue or do you want a country?  You choose.  Israel will not destroy itself.”

RH:   Do you think that American policy towards the Middle East is more influenced by organisations like AIPAC or strategic considerations?

GE:   I think it’s strategic considerations.  Certainly AIPAC is always there.  It’s certainly been effective with Congress, I think.

RH:   So they’re more effective than Organizing for America or Organizing for Action or whatever it’s called.

GE:   Yeah, yeah, yeah.  They are, yeah.  So, I think it’s more with Congress.  The fact is there’s widespread support for Israel in America - because there’s admiration for Israel being a democracy, admiration because it’s an ally.  There’s concern, there’s remembrance of the Holocaust.  All these things.  Then there’s the right-wing religious [element] which is a substantial segment of the public - maybe a fifth - who feel a religious fervour in supporting Israel.  You don’t need AIPAC to run ads to say you should love Israel.  That’s unnecessary.

What they do probably most effectively is to feed information to Congress, to - well, they take a lot of members of Congress to Israel and they give them the dog and pony show - they draw contrasts.  They do a lot of that, constantly, and it’s mostly out of the limelight, under the radar - and that’s probably pretty effective.

RH:   Presumably you know the difference in the attitude to Israel here in Britain or in Europe generally.

GE:   Yeah.  It’s much more mixed and there’s more emphasis on abuses to the Palestinians and the plight of the Palestinians where in America it would be much more - but it’s based on the built-in support.  OK?  There’s [a tendency] much more likely to view the Palestinians as - through the eyes of - well, they commit atrocities against Israel, Israel has to respond, it’s all terrible but the fact is until they stop doing that, you know -

The Palestinians could cut a very good deal with us.  I mean, I’m telling you that any President would be thrilled to be pouring billions of bucks into a Palestinian state and declare ‘I’m the one that brought peace to the Middle East!’  I’m telling you that there is a strong incentive for any President, but the Palestinians just don’t get it.

George Edwards is the author of Overreach: Leadership in the Obama Presidency