“No I can’t” Obama says
Obama’s overview of the prospects for peace, given in Ramallah in answer to a question, was this:
Peace is possible. It’s not guaranteed. I can’t even say that it’s more likely than not. But it is possible.
So, too, is a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
That being so I have to bring this article to a conclusion by saying that I think Obama’s decision not to use the leverage he has to cause or try to cause Israel to end its occupation, and effectively pass the make-it-happen buck to a new generation of Israeli Jews, is both disingenuous and reprehensible, to say the very, very least.
As things are and look like going, it is also possible that Obama will be seen in history as the president who, by default, gave Zionism the freedom to extinguish the light of hope for peace and complete its ethnic cleansing of Palestine, an outcome that could set the region and perhaps even the world on fire. (That is the outcome desired by American Christian fundamentalists who support the Zionist state right or wrong and bankroll its on-going colonization of the West Bank).
A judgment of history as indicated above might contain a mitigating reference from Miko Peled. “The Israeli-Palestinian issue is, politically, a toxic wasteland that no U.S. President in his right mind would want to clean up. It has become a vicious cycle of deceit and double standards, and it will contaminate any U.S. politician who tries to clean it up.”
He added: “One after another, American presidents have run away from the challenge.” (Eisenhower was the first and the last president not to do so, and it is possible, in my view probable, that President Kennedy would have taken on the challenge of confronting the Zionist monster if he had been allowed to live and serve a second term).
My only disagreement with Miko is that Obama is not “running” away. He is gliding gracefully away at his rhetorical best.
After she resigned from his government because of her opposition to the war on Iraq, Claire Short described Prime Minister Tony Blair to me as an “actor manager”. That seems to be an appropriate description of a second-term Obama at least so far as his handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict is concerned.
At the time of writing the main question waiting for an answer from the Palestinian side is this.
Will “President” Abbas be submissive enough to do what Obama indicated he wants and drop the Palestinian demand for a complete freeze on Israeli settlement expansion as a pre-condition for resuming talks (let’s not call them negotiations) with Netanyahu’s government?
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Michael:
March 23rd, 2013 at 8:22 pm
another, rather dire, interpretation of Obama’s sycophancy is simply that the US is actually threatened militarily by the zionist colony…….he is a puppet……
Confoundmeonce:
March 24th, 2013 at 3:06 am
Alan < When do you think you might consider Changing your Heading-Format A Tinge ? It Makes you look like you are All For The Zionist views ( Tho I Have read enough of your POSTS…that I Get an entirely different Slant. Is there a reason why you do this ? I Agree with Almost all of your Views..And Do comment < occasionally. I Admire your clear minded Approach so much..it is Basically present in Everything YOU Write. Thank YOU.
pete:
March 24th, 2013 at 4:03 am
I voted for O,Bama because I honestly believed since he can,t be relected for a third term that he would grow a set of balls and tell Israel to stuff it. Since he cannot be elected for a third term what is he so afraid of. Please enlighten me what can Israel do about except assassinate him which I am sure has been discussed. Alan do you honestly believe it will ever change? I for one doubt it. We both know it is only a short matter of time until we attack Iran. We are Israels bitch and I think America is starting to wake up to this fact.
ontogram:
March 24th, 2013 at 6:22 am
You will no trouble understanding Alan if you read the three volume masterwork.
As for Obama — he is just not going to expend political capital on the hopeless Palestinians. If he uses it at home for domestic issues, fine. I will begrudgingly go along with him. But it is a shame that something was possible here and now for Palestine and he failed to deliver. That will be his epitaph in history.
Vera Gottlieb:
March 24th, 2013 at 9:03 am
One way or the other, the US has always endorsed and supported despotic governments. Obama is a great orator and here it ends.
maryam:
March 24th, 2013 at 2:18 pm
The US has no interest in ending the occupation. It has an interest in keeping Israel as its strategic ally. The occupation is at the center of middle east instability, said instability justifying the US having a big military presence there.
If the US wanted peace, it could have simply shoved the Israelis back behind the green line way back in 1967.
Graham Griffiths:
March 24th, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Naively, I was hoping that now he has his second term, Obama might show some mettle in dealing with Israel, but I think you sum up the situation very clearly, Alan. The news reports of his visit I have found very disappointing, and I really fear for the future of the region if this disgraceful colonialisation by ‘settlements’ continues, as it clearly will.
The article also points out another depressing fact: it’s not just the Zionist lobby that exerts so much influence in the US. The Christian fundamentalists are also instinctive cheerleaders for Israel. If you want an example of these loonies, go onto Facebook and look at ‘Jerusalem Prayer Team’ or one of the many groups supporting Israel. There are at least as many posts from Christians as well as Jews who subscribe to this strange belief in a racist deity who donated a tract of land many years ago in the Middle East to one group of favoured people.
Jay:
March 24th, 2013 at 10:03 pm
(Great article as usual Alan. The only little problem I have is that you seem to gloss over the behavior of your G.B. and its horrid history of, let us say, “mistreating the natives” at various places around the world.)
One thing you mentioned was that the Israelis would likely tell any US president to go to hell if he ever decided to get firm with them. I believe such a president may well find himself in real danger of being assassinated by our great friends, the Israelis, with Muslims likely being the fall guys. And JFK, if only he had lived….
Debbie Menon:
March 24th, 2013 at 10:17 pm
Even talking about peace in the Middle East is going to frighten a lot of people.
This includes not only those who are making a very good living, enriching and empowering themselves out of the “war” and strife which Israel has brought to the Middle east now for seventy years, but for all of those wonderful people who have been working and struggling, making Peace in the Middle East their life’s careers, upon and by which they have become nearly as wealthy and powerful as the war-mongers who promote all the unrest, blood and valuable carnage!
For “Peace has been turned into marketable commodity also. an Industry as large and as profitable as the holocaust” industry and the Zionist Movement, neither of which could exist without the other two, and we do not need one more farmer of peace coming along and attempting to destroy a good thing offering free olive branches to just anyone for the asking.
With Peace in the Middle East, where would each of the big and important players be tomorrow, and what would they be doing? Netanyahoo? Abbas? Whassisname over at Hamas? The Hezbollites? Barack Obama? Any of them?
Think on it a bit.
We are talking about the future of small town speedcops who suddenly discover that they have stopped everyone from speeding down Main Street; the Anti-Drug Czar who suddenly discovers that he has, unfortunately for him and his well funded bureau, miraculously rid the world of the drug problem! Where would they all go, and what would they do?
An old WWI song asked the question, “how ya gonna keep them down on the farm… after they’ve seen Paree?”
They couldn’t! Colonel Douglas McArthur had to use an entire Battalion of mounted Cavalry, firehoses, the flats of sabers, and machine guns to drive them out of Washington DC. Damned few of them ever went back to the farm! They went into the big Cities and turned their military skills to good use in private enterprise.
After we’ve acquired Peace in the World, what on earth are they going to do with all of these Armies, and their high riding Colonels? Put them to work for the National Parks Agency planting fir trees?
Lets get real, and see who butters whose bread, and which side gets the most.
maryam:
March 25th, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“Natural black face”? Is it at all relevant to make a racial remark about Obama?
Brad Brzezinski:
March 25th, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Owing perhaps to the ongoing cold weather, I feel like responding to two items in Alan’s article.
1)”Israeli government committed to ever expanding settlement…” This phraseology, used by the world’s media everywhere, (Zionist controlled or not), gives the impression of an Israel growing inexorably in area. It is false. Since Oslo, although more Israelis have moved into certain disputed areas, the footprint of those areas has not enlarged. The Israeli departure from Gaza means that Israel has in fact shrunk this century.
2) The reference to Israel as the “historic homeland of the Jewish people:” Well it is. The ethnic make-up of Jews is quite irrelevant. It’s somewhat analogous to Muslims making the Hajj to Mecca in their lifetimes; they do not have to be Arabs to do this. Antisemitism has never limited itself to only Semitic Jews. With Israel established as a bulwark against antisemitism, it would be odd to restrict it to only some Jews, not to mention the determination of the ethnic origins of people being creepy ala South Africa.
One tip: Shlomo Sand is hardly a paragon of academia. He has an obvious axe to grind that affects his work. He has also made some revealing slips that should make him a laughing stock.
ontogram:
March 25th, 2013 at 8:40 pm
Brad — there you go again. The subtle complex points of hasbara, the complications that keep decent folk from understanding easily the issue and lining up properly. Say what you will, we all know that Israel’s policies are intended to exhaust or otherwise disappear Arabs. As Israel makes such an ethnic distinction, it is only fair to use the distinction in calibrating “Jewishness” and its claim to Palestine. So, you lose on that one.
As the NY subway posters demonstrate so darn effectively, Israel is an aggressive, aggrandizing state, one which stirs up troubles whenever it wishes to go occupy someone else’w property. In Israeli parlance, this is called “defense.” Lost on this one as well.
As for Shlomo, when will we have the opportunity of laughing over your compelling research?
Brad Brzezinski:
March 26th, 2013 at 1:32 pm
ontogram: — hasbara —
I have seen this term used frequently on this forum and others. From the context, I take it to mean: “An argument that people who bash Israel, right or wrong, cannot refute.”
ontogram:
March 26th, 2013 at 5:08 pm
@Brad — Now look up “evasion.”
ontogram:
March 26th, 2013 at 5:19 pm
@pete — I had a similar fantasy. Obama has thrown Palestine under the train in order to build political capital domestically, for his domestic programs. Clearly, he has chosen to be remembered for these programs — healthcare, jobs — rather than settling the ME nightmare. He might have elected otherwise: He might have elected to be the great foreign policy president, Nixon visiting commie China or Kennedy “Ich bin (ein) Berliner”, but he coolly elected otherwise. Instead, he insists that PA come to the table even while further settlements are being constructed. If the PA does so, it will be complete surrender to Israel forever, Palestinian life will corrode and disappear and future generations will have trouble understanding what all the fuss was about. By requiring the unthinkable of any Palestinian organization, Obama solidifies his political clout in the US, Zionist, Jewish and Evangelicals will line up with him and his healthcare program will succeed. Palestine will then have died so that the US could join the developed world of universal healthcare. I think it’s that simple.He had to give something and Palestine looked so hopeless anyway.
ontogram:
March 26th, 2013 at 5:31 pm
@Debbie — I think you are putting the cart before the horse. The political realities of the ME determine what is what. The reality of a “Jewish” military state sets this stage. If people are drawn to the fray as mischief makers and hawkers, well it is only human to try to capitalize on things. So, a nothing, a nebbich like Netanyahu exploits fear and gets into a top dog position. Seedy organizations encourage violence by demanding “peace”, e.g. ADL, SWU, Simon Weisenthal, etc. And etc. But this is all after the fact. There is nothing new in the proposition, the one you vividly articulate, that humans crap up almost everything. And, sure, some of these guys stir the pot only for the money in armaments or for power. But these are consequences, not causes.
ontogram:
March 26th, 2013 at 5:55 pm
@Griffiths You’ve hit the nail on the head: “…this strange belief in a racist deity who donated a tract of land many years ago in the Middle East to one group of favoured people.”
The heart of Zionism is the “specialness” of Judaism and Jews and its corollary – hatred for gentiles. When you turn the desperate struggle of Jews throughout history inside out, one can begin to understand what’s what. The racism is not in the anti-semites, it is in the Jews themselves (and I am one.) The segregation of Jewish life from gentile life was driven by Jews themselves. They created their ghettos, they proscribed themselves from general society, they insisted on their racial uniqueness. This is why all those Jewish organizations trumpeting against “hate” and “anti-semitism” shy away from the question of why such “hate” and “anti-semitism” exists. They say it is just irrational and hastily move the conversation forward. In fact, this opposition to Jewry has a foundation in racism of Jewishness. Everybody shies away from this discussion.
Israel is the proof in the pudding: It has erected a wall sealing inside a “Jewish” state (20% are not Jewish!). This is why it is never clear just what constitutes “Jewishness”. Are we a people, a race, an ethnicity, a religion, a party, a book club….what? To be a Jew is to share the conceit of special DNA and a special relationship with the Ruler of the Universe. Jewish history is not a history of persecution but of persecuting. The real racism is anti-gentilism.
While Judaism should have disappeared into one of the universal faiths long ago, it persisted BECAUSE of its racism and now Israel has given that racism full vent. This is why “Jewish” organizations promoting the Palestinian cause are still supremacist (or they are just wrong-headed.) Jewish Voice for Peace and Tru’ah are nonsense organizations. There is no “Jewish” tradition of universal ethics or universal dignity of man etc. There is, I will note, a long tradition of opposing Jewish racist values among Jews, opposition to Jewishness, including guys like Finkelstein, Chomsky, Kove, and, if I may, myself, but this is not a Jewish tradition.
Jay:
March 27th, 2013 at 2:04 am
ontogram, talk about hitting the nail on the head… your posts here should be widely published (yours too Griffiths). Very well said my friends. It’s a pity only a tiny few will read them here.
ontogram:
March 28th, 2013 at 8:07 pm
@jay Thanks. It has taken me a lifetime to crack the code, but I’ve got it now. Alan’s books were a big part of my re-education, the history part. Michael Oren’s book “Six Day War” raised so many questions with me that I started down the anti-Zionist path. I have written Ambassador Oren thanking him for his oversights in telling the tale and how it re-created my own thinking! Wished him many new royalties. Ambassador to the US, born in NYC and raised in NJ.
One of the hard truths of our time is that the Zionist program was always radical, extremist and racist, even in its earlier liberal days: Israel has given political form and clout to Jewish racism, shaming humanity everywhere.
rosemerry:
March 28th, 2013 at 9:21 pm
“We stand together because we share a commitment to helping our fellow human beings around the world.”
This could hardly be further from the truth. The USA IS like
Israel in its takeovers, cruelty and self-aggrandisement.
rosemerry:
March 28th, 2013 at 9:27 pm
Brad Brzinski you are showing such ignorance and bias.
“It’s somewhat analogous to Muslims making the Hajj to Mecca in their lifetimes; they do not have to be Arabs to do this”
Most Muslims eg the huge number in Indonesia, ARE NOT ARABS. It is NOT anamagous to “Jews”, however defined.
As for the “leaving” of Gazabeing equivalent to giving land back to Palestinians-look at how the poor crowded Gazans live, with “security zones” stopping farming or other acts, fishermen being restricted,constant attacks and destruction, no freedom of movement, no exports allowed. You call this the same as Israelis living on stolen land using stolen water and expelling their sewage onto Palestine,
Rehmat:
March 30th, 2013 at 6:03 am
I’m least surprised by Obama’s failure to convince Israeli Jews and zionist leaders that Zionist entity’s existence depends on the establishment of a viable, democratic and totally independent Palestinian state side-by-side it. In fact, Obama, like the other US presidents before him, is a poodle of the powerful Jewish/Zionist lobby groups. He could force the Netanyahu government to come to its senses by understanding that Obama administration is tired of playing a Zionist poodle and wants to act like a patriotic government by putting American interests over Israel’s security.
Obama can achieve that objective by canceling all aid to the Zionist entity for only 2-3 years.
Only naive people believe United States to be a democracy in the real sense.
In the US, no political leader can dream of working for the interests of his own country. They all compete with each other to prove to the Israel lobby groups (AIPAC, ADL, AJC, etc.) that he/she can look after the interests of a foreign country (Israel) better than his/her opponents. Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has pulled the mask from the US democratic charade: “There are many Members of Congress who wants to be free. I am one of them. I wanted to be free to vote according to my conscience, but I had been told that if I did not sign a pledge supporting the military superiority of Israel, no support would come my way. And sure enough, I did not sign the pledge and no support came my way. I suffered silently year in and year out, because I refused to sign the pledge. An then like a slave that found a way to buy his freedom – I went to work – I wanted to be free – Free to cast the vote in US Congress as I saw fit and not as I was dictated to…..” – Cynthia McKinney.
http://rehmat1.com/2010/01/16/it-is-not-a-democracy-stupid/