ANOTHER DAYDREAM: How President Obama could earn his Nobel Peace Prize
A recent opinion piece in Ha’aretz by Gideon Levy, the beleaguered conscience of Israeli journalism, speculated about what Prime Minister Netanyahu would have said when he addressed the UN General Assembly if he was remotely interested in peace with the Palestinians. It was headlined It’s all a daydream. In this article I’m going to share my daydream about what President Obama would say in a prime time address to his fellow Americans, after the November mid-term elections, if he wanted to earn his Nobel Peace Prize.
Before he speaks he extracts some folded notes from his inside jacket pocket and waves them.
“This is the text of the address my advisers and others who made inputs to it think I am going to deliver.”
He tears it up and says, “It’s for the trash can.”
Then he begins.
QUOTE
My fellow Americans, tonight I’m going to tell you what I want to do on a critical matter of foreign policy in what remains of my Presidency and why it is in America’s best interests that you assist me to overcome the obstacles I will encounter in Congress.
But l’ll begin by saying I am fully aware that many of you are very disappointed in me. There are three related reasons why to date my presidency has fallen short of its promise.
The first is that I inherited a terrible mess on many fronts, at home and abroad.
The second is that when I entered the White House I was not experienced enough to deal with the mess. I was somewhat naive and had a lot of on-the-job learning to do.
The third is that American presidents are effectively the prisoners of a corrupt political system. We think we are a democracy but in one most important respect we are not. What passes for democracy in our nation is for sale to the lobbies of powerful vested interests which provide most of the campaign funding for elections to Congress and, yes, the White House. They provide the funding to guarantee that those in receipt of it will do their bidding, even when doing so is not in America’s own best interests.
Tonight I am declaring my intention to try to break out of this prison, but if I am to be free to put America’s own best interests first I will need your help. I’ll get to how you can help me in a moment.
There is one main reason for what is wrongly called the growth of anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and wider Muslim world. I say wrongly called because most Arabs and other Muslims do not hate American people or our way of life. As a matter of fact very many Arabs and other Muslims would come to live in America if they could in order to have a better life and prospects than they do in their own countries. What very many Arabs and other Muslims DO hate is the double standard of American foreign policy.
We assert that our mission in the world is to enforce international law and that we are true and passionate supporters of political and human rights and justice for all. But so far as almost all Arabs and other Muslims are concerned the reality of some aspects of our foreign policy gives the lie – a big, fat lie – to this assertion.
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