In the year of the Arab Spring, the president offered praise to the people of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya for overthrowing their dictators. He lauded the Syrians for their courage in protesting peacefully – and for dying for the values the UN stood for.  He also offered muted support to the monarchy of Bahrain, a US ally in the Gulf that used brutal methods to crush its own peoples’ uprising, for ‘taking steps toward reform and accountability.’ He highlighted the success of foreign intervention in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya, but in the next breath he said that the Palestinians and the Israelis would have to work things out on their own.

The issue of Palestinian statehood took up a disproportionate chunk of the president’s half-hour speech. Given that the Israel-Palestine story stagnated in 2011,while the rest of the Middle East is experiencing relentless upheaval and change, the attention given to Palestine is significant. Here credit is probably due to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: He forced his peoples’ struggle to the front of the news agenda, despite all the competition from various headline-grabbing Middle Eastern uprisings and revolutions.

Nevertheless, the only people who seemed to be happy with President Obama’s speech were members of Israel’s governing coalition. This was because the president made it clear that the United States would not support the Palestinian bid for statehood; nor would the United States take an active role in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the upcoming year – which is an election year.

“Peace,” said the president, “will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN – if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.”

President Obama reminded his audience that he had called for an independent Palestine last year, and that he had put forth a new proposal for negotiations in May. But the two parties were at a stalemate and, said the president, “I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. So am I.”

The president did sound frustrated. He knew that if he wanted to win the next election, he could not support the Palestinians’  bid for statehood; nor could he be perceived as a critic of Israeli policy. This is the tragedy of US domestic politics: It prevents the president from exercising an honest foreign policy. According to an article in this week’s New York Magazine, the president is furious with Netanyahu for his refusal to stop building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and for his unwillingness to show any of the flexibility necessary for a resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians. And yet, the president spoke words that would warm the heart of any professional Israel advocate.

Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were.

And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day…The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition.

In other words, the president mouthed 1970s-era slogans that have little to do with contemporary reality. Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. It has a standing offer from the Arab League:  Full diplomatic recognition in exchange for a withdrawal from the territories occupied in the 1967 war. The idea that the Arab states want to wipe Israel off the map is “nonsense,” said senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath at a press conference that followed the president’s speech. But that is what Obama knew he had to say if he wanted to be re-elected in 2012.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, said he was “ready to sign on the speech with both hands.” One day earlier, Mr. Lieberman reiterated his long-held opposition to a Palestinian state.

A participant at a right-wing Israel advocacy rally outside the UN (photo: Lisa Goldman)

Just outside the UN, at a rally organized under the auspices of the Hudson Institute and various other conservative, mostly Christian pro-Israel organizations, Likud MK Danny Danon addressed an ecstatic crowd that waved Israeli flags and called out, “Amen!” and “Preach it!” as he thanked them for their uncritical support and vowed that Jerusalem would never be divided. A few Orthodox Jews looked slightly embarrassed at the revival tent atmosphere, but they waved their flags and cheered enthusiastically nonetheless. At the back of the crowd stood a man wearing a T-shirt that read, “Definition of naïve: Any Jew who votes for Obama.”

It might be hard to believe that a Palestinian would wish an Israeli Jew a happy Independence Day, but I am only following in the footsteps of another Palestinian I know, Ibrahim from Hebron.

Three years ago, I was cohosting a bilingual (Arabic and Hebrew) radio show at Radio All for Peace in Jerusalem with my Israeli cohost, Sharon Misheiker. Our weekly show happened to air on Israeli Independence Day, and on that day we invited Ibrahim, a peace activist, to talk about the land that had been confiscated from him for the building of the separation barrier.

I remember that Ibrahim spoke with compelling passion and heartbreaking emotions about the loss of his farmland, which had been a main source of income. Before ending the conversation, we asked him how he felt about Independence Day, and we received a surprising answer.

With his characteristic candor, Ibrahim told us that he had already called his Israeli friends and wished them a happy Independence Day.

Sharon and I were shocked.

Ibrahim told us that he received the same response from all his Israeli friends: silence, shock and disbelief. They didn’t know what to say. They were caught by surprise. They had never heard a Palestinian wishing them a happy Independence Day.

Some of his left-wing friends asked how he could do so, when the holiday was celebrating the same event that was causing much of his suffering. He could have used that chance to recount history according to the Palestinian narrative: He could have said something about the Deir Yasin massacre, or the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who were left homeless after 1948 war. But he didn’t. Instead, Ibrahim simply said happy Independence Day, and in doing so took the first step toward building a different kind of relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.

WHY WAS this step important? Part of the Israeli narrative describes a long history of suffering which hit the highest point with the Holocaust and the fear that Arabs would drive the Jews into the sea.

For years, Israelis have heard that Palestinians would never accept Israel’s existence and would always work to destroy it. Many Israelis don’t believe that Palestinians accept the reality that we are stuck here together. They doubt that Palestinians also dream of a peaceful tomorrow, where freedom prevails and safety is realized. This narrative of pain and fear has captured the minds of Jews, even though Israel has developed one of the strongest militaries in the world.

When Ibrahim uttered the words “happy Independence Day,” he challenged that narrative of fear and doubt, and assured his Israeli friends that he knows they are here to stay, and accepts that. He wanted to let them know that he is not waiting for a chance to strike back. In essence, Ibrahim was digging a grave for the narrative of fear and replacing it with a narrative of hope.

For all of us, the past is painful and our narratives are very real to us. For the Palestinians, our pain of the Nakba is still fresh. The lost olive groves, orange groves, vineyards and homes which are part of the Palestinian identity and heritage, the stories, poetry and songs of Palestinian life in what became Israel will always be there.

These are collective memories that will always be carved in the heart of every Palestinian. But memories, pain and longing do not have to lead to revenge and destruction: They can also be motivation for a new tomorrow.

When Ibrahim’s friends asked him how they should respond to his wishes, Ibrahim had a simple answer. He asked them to wish that next year both Israelis and Palestinians can celebrate Independence Day together, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to the Israeli one.

Although Palestinian and Israeli narratives are different, our vision for the future can be one. We can all unite and work toward the overdue dream of a viable Palestinian state before it is too late. It is time for our people to not let the past rob us of our future, but rather let it motivate us toward actions of hope.

Update;

Israel celebrates its sixty third independence day while Palestinians still yearning for their own state. However Israelis have the opportunity to actively work for the creation of the Palestinian state coming this September. I hope that next year both Israelis and Palestinians will be free from the yoke of the occupation and can celebrate an independence day without being oppressors or oppressed.