Ambassador
James B. Cunningham

Biography

Speeches

Remarks by
Ambassador James B. Cunningham
Conference of Presidents
American Jewish Organizations
Inbal Hotel, Jerusalem
February 15, 2009

Ambassador James B. Cunningham with leadership of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations during their visit to Israel, Inbal Hotel, Jerusalem, February 15, 2009,

Thank you very much for that welcome.  It is a pleasure to join you here tonight.  I have been asked to have an informal discussion with you about U.S.-Israel relations.  What I would like to do is give you a couple of thoughts about where I think we are today as you start your conference here and some things that I think we ought to be thinking about in the future in this part of the world.

I will be short on predicting what my government will be doing in specific or what a new Israeli government will be doing.  So, you will forgive me if I don’t speculate very much on that sort of thing.

Our relationship with Israel, of course, is thriving and I think the way that President Obama has said of his approach to the Middle East is significant – a significant indicator of the importance he attaches to this region and to our relationships here and to his relationship with Israel.  In the first couple of days of his administration, despite fears that I had heard here over the last couple of months that somehow a new administration would be slow to engage and slow to pay attention to issues here, in the first couple of days of his administration the first day – his first international telephone calls were to Prime Minister Olmert and to President Abbas, President Mubarak and other leaders in this region.  On the second day he went to the State Department and introduced Senator Mitchell as his Special Envoy and shortly thereafter he gave his first international interview to Al Arabiya TV.  That is a very significant way of launching this administration’s engagement here and demonstrates, I think, his commitment to not losing time in addressing the issues that we are dealing with here.

Another indicator of the enduring depth of our relationship is the very heavy string of visitors that we are having here including you.  Senator Mitchell has already been here to begin his mission and he will be coming back for a second visit shortly and intends to be here every two to three weeks.  We will be setting up a small office here so he will have somebody on the ground and we will be working very closely together.  We have had a delegation of Senators and Congressmen led by Senator Cardin.  We will have Senator Lieberman here shortly, Senator Kerry, Congressman Kirk, Congressman Waxman with a large delegation from the House and we have Congressional staff visits and senior military officers all coming to begin their relationship in this new period of time. 

Our transition is underway.  Of course, there is a transition just beginning here in Israel that will be a complicated process if you have been following the press in your time here, but I think I feel confident in saying that whatever the outcome of that process that this government – our government – will work closely with whatever government emerges from the Israeli Democratic process.  We have too many interests in common, too many goals we share.  We have much to do over the next year with our two new governments. 

Let me talk a little bit about where I think things are right now and what we need to prepare for.  The central issue for this region, of course, is Iran, its activities in promoting instability and extremism and its nuclear weapons program.  Iran has a vision of the future in this region that is antithetic to our vision of peace and stability that needs to be dealt with. 

The Gaza crisis – the conflict in Gaza was provoked by Hamas perhaps in coordination with Iran; we don’t know that.  But it has provided a new element for the dynamic that we are dealing with in the region.  Maybe Hamas miscalculated the response to its provocation that lead to Israeli military action.  They may have misunderstood the timing of the Israeli response and the fact that the Israelis were prepared to go in on the ground as they did.  Hamas counted on an urban conflict being a deterrent to serious action against it and the result of that, unfortunately, were the civilian casualties that were incurred.  Each one of those is regrettable but it is the result of the tactics pursued by Hamas.  Hamas divided itself between the leadership in Gaza and the leaders in Damascus who were plotting strategy in cafés while the fighting was going on and people were being killed in Gaza. 

The conflict has changed in some important respects, I think, the regional dynamic.  It was probably certain that this was going to happen at some point given the ideology and purpose of Hamas and its need to secure legitimacy for itself and I think and hope that this legitimacy has been damaged over time rather than enhanced.  That has to be one of the goals of our policy.  It has also raised the issue of extremism and the impact of extremism throughout the region and highlighted the effect of Iran’s influence in a way that is felt more palpably and more concretely now as a result of the reaction within the region to the conflict.

If there was ever any doubt, and I don’t think people in this room had any doubt, it should be clearer now that for those who really want peace in this region, we need a strategy and we need to act in concrete ways to encounter the extremists that are trying to prevent that from happening.  That means my country, the United States, it means Israel, it means the Palestinians themselves, it means the Arab world and it means our friends in the international community in – Europe and the United Nations and other agencies that are involved in trying to promote peace and stability here.  We need military components to that strategy; we need political components; economic components and they need to be integrated in a way that makes sense and is more effective than has been up to now.  We need to be aware, all of us, that no one country or person can deal with this problem.  The United States cannot deal with it alone.  We need to be aware that actions or the failure to take action will have impacts on the viability of that strategy and of that effort.

Dealing with the presence of Hamas in Gaza has to be part of that effort and part of a long term, sustained effort that, in new ways, brings the international community together.  After the conflict – and we are focused now on several goals – several projects: One is to help create and sustain a real ceasefire with no rockets falling on Israel and no rearmament of Hamas.  We are working hard along with others and with the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to provide humanitarian assistance that is needed in Gaza and that effort is underway and happening and eventually we will work on reconstruction and rebuilding.

Eventually we hope to see reinstatement of something called the 2005 agreement on movement and access which provides for open border crossings as agreed by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority.  We support Egyptian efforts to promote a ceasefire and to unite the region around a more coherent strategy and will support a conference being held in Cairo on March 2nd that will be designed to facilitate recovery in Gaza and strengthen the Palestinian economy.

One of the principle goals of the international community has to be to work through the Palestinian Authority and strengthen moderates among the Palestinians and in the Arab community.  Now there is an opportunity to achieve a durable ceasefire, as I said, and another is to confront Hamas and make clear the misery that it has brought to the Palestinians in Gaza through its tactics and through its policies.  We hope, although we are not directly involved, but we hope, that in the course of this process, the Israeli government can succeed in bringing Gilad Shalit home.

These kinds of things are the business of today as our new governments are forming and as we look towards the future and what will become of the negotiation process.  I believe that we can use this time to lay the groundwork for the future in dealing with Iran, Syria and others who have aligned with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and lay the groundwork for continuing discussions between Israel and the Palestinians about their future and about peace between them.

The question is: how can we strengthen the basis for countering extremism and changing Iran’s course towards nuclear weapons and promotion of its stability?  That is the central issue in my view, and how can we work with all in the region who desire peace and are willing to work for it, and especially peace between Israel and Palestine and the two-state solution.

President Obama has spoken in general of his aspirations and I won’t repeat them here.  But the vision that he expresses in his statements, I think, is an important one.  He speaks of two different visions of the future, of those who would build and those who would destroy and those who would lift people up to a better life and those who would not, who would hold them down.

I have been an optimist in the course of my career.  I have been doing this for more than 30 years, and I wouldn’t be doing it if I weren’t an optimist.  I firmly believe that those who build and create have the advantage and I hope that we will see that proof out here with your support and with the support of my government and many other people who are working to do a better job in this part of the world.

Thank you very much.