Via MCS
- 19. Nov, 2010
Obama’s spin team made a heroic effort to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. They likened the Indonesia speech to his Cairo offering seventeen months ago, in which he likewise committed his administration to establishing a new, more convivial modality for dealing with Islamic nations. That speech was received respectfully and even positively in many quarters, but this time no one was fooled. It’s funny how a year and a half of inaction and even retreat can reshape how someone thinks. One Indonesian commented afterwards “What will Obama do in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If we don’t see any progress, what he says is just a speech.”
Obama’s offering was full of the usual bromides, about how respectful he is of Islam and its traditions. He even touched on Israel-Palestine, not surprisingly blaming both sides for not taking the necessary courageous steps to find peace. It is a familiar argument for American audiences who are used to hearing that the conflict is bilateral, but did not go down well in Indonesia where the listeners are all too aware of the details of the brutal Israeli occupation.
What Obama should have said was that it has now become clear that Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has no desire for any peace agreement that does not provide for perpetual and absolute Israeli dominance over the Palestinians. He should have added that he knows that Netanyahu has nothing but contempt for him personally in the wake of the midterm election debacle and he might also observe that his ability to act independently is conditioned by the Israel Lobby so he can do nothing to help the Palestinians achieve statehood or even to recover a measure of dignity under Israeli occupation. He might admit that he has now been reduced to offering multi-billion dollar bribes of military equipment to Israel just to tempt it to suspend some settlement activity for ninety day. Obama’s words would not have changed reality on the ground, but at least he would have told the truth for a change and the candor would have been refreshing.
If Obama wants to establish some kind of modus vivendi with the Islamic world he must speak to it in language that it understands and not lie about things that all Muslims know to be true. And it is also past time that he begin to speak the truth to the American people also. His administration’s retreat from any confrontation with Israel in an attempt to make a recalcitrant Netanyahu conform even to minimal standards of behavior confirms what all the world already knows: Israel will act and the United States will follow, even if those actions will inflict grave damage on the American people and on the US national interest.
And what will that mean for the United States? It means that the decision about going to war for the US is essentially controlled by Israel because Tel Aviv can start a conflict with Iran at any time that will quickly draw Washington in. Those who think that the White House still is managing the situation are completely naïve. There is no indication that the Obama administration has warned Israel against bombing Iran because the US has no cards to play, having ruled out exerting any sort of economic or military pressure on Netanyahu. And there should be no doubt that an attack by Israel on an Iranian nuclear facility would trigger Iranian retaliation and immediate calls in Congress and the media to support Tel Aviv, leaving the president no option but to enter the conflict. A third war in the region would mean goodbye to any American ability to disengage from the other conflicts that are bleeding the US white and would possibly lead to even more dire consequences if neighbors like nuclear armed Pakistan and India somehow enter the fray.
Bibi Netanyahu surely understands that the cost to the United States in lives and treasure from war with Iran could potentially be catastrophic but it is a price he is willing to pay as his own people and economy would largely be spared, at least initially. No American leader should tolerate such a situation but, deplorably, those who have spoken out at all on the Middle East have lined up behind the Israelis as if they were part of the United States, or even more esteemed than any of the fifty states. Vice President Joe Biden told the Jewish Federations of North America annual gathering in New Orleans last week that “the ties between our two countries are literally unbreakable” and described how he is “absolutely certain that our support for Israel must continue … forever,” echoing similar statements made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Biden knows full well that Israeli and US interests do not coincide and his comments amount to political pandering of the worst sort. It is even more disconcerting to think that he might actually mean what he says.
Meanwhile Steny Hoyer, who calls himself a Zionist and frequently expresses his love for Israel, and has spoken of “our responsibility to stand by Israel and the Jewish people,” is poised to take over as Minority Whip in the House of Representatives. On the other side of the aisle, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Eric Cantor are unrelenting advocates of Israel who are about to step into senior positions in the Republican dominated congress. Cantor recently met privately with Bibi Netanyahu and said the Republican Party would serve “as a check on” the Obama Administration over its policies in the Middle East. Then “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.” In other words, Cantor was meeting with the leader of a foreign country and promising to do whatever he could to influence and even subvert the foreign policy of his own country. Think about that one for a minute or two.
His “Deep Background” column appears every month exclusively in The American Conservative
Barack Obama’s Speech in Jakarta
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-bronzed-in-indonesia/
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
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