Normalizing Relations: President Obama's Speeches Signal a Desire to Treat Israel Like Any Other Country. Now Events Have Converged to Test His Resolve (This Land is Whose Land?‪)‬

PRESIDENT OBAMA has probably studied the first President Bush's standoff with Israel. Then as now, the issue of contention was Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank and Jerusalem. George H.W. Bush was hopeful about moving toward a comprehensive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In the last days of the Reagan presidency, the Palestine Liberation Organization had finally laid down the only significant diplomatic card in its possession, accepting UN Resolutions 242 and 338, recognizing Israel's right to exist within its 1967 borders and limiting its aspirations to a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. In May 1989, Secretary of State James Baker addressed AIPAC's annual Washington conference. After praising Israel's commitment to democracy and role as a strategic partner, Baker went on to say, "Now is the time to lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel. . Forswear annexation. Stop settlement activity. Allow schools to reopen. Reach out to the Palestinians as neighbors who deserve political rights." AIPAC's delegates gave Baker a chilly reception. Relations between Israel's Likud Party Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and President Bush were frosty as well. Bush believed Shamir had lied to him about settlements in East Jerusalem, which the United States (and every other country) considered occupied territory. The embryonic peace process stalled.