During his time in Israel/Palestine, Obama made two important statements. On Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy he reaffirmed his longer-standing pledge to “make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key diplomatic priority” when he said,
- ”My goal is to make sure that we work starting from the minute I’m sworn in to office to try to find some breakthroughs.”
That is excellent news.
He also made the much more Delphic comment that ““A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation not just in the Middle East but around the world.”
What, pray, does this mean?
It sounds somewhat threatening, but has no immediate meaning.
The NYT’s Jeff Zeleny (link above) also had these snippets about what Obama said on Iran:
- “Iranians need to understand that, whether it’s the Bush administration or an Obama administration, that this is a paramount concern to the United States.”
… [H]e was left to defend a proposal he made a year ago to negotiate with Iran. He said he would “take no options off the table” to persuade that country’s leaders not to develop nuclear weapons.
“My whole goal,” he said, “in terms of having tough, serious direct diplomacy is not because I’m naïve about the nature of any of these regimes. I’m not. It is because if we show ourselves willing to talk and to offer carrots and sticks in order to deal with these pressing problems — and if Iran then rejects any overtures of that sort — it puts us in a stronger position to mobilize the international community to ratchet up pressure on Iran.”
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, suggested that Mr. Obama had reversed a position he took a year ago when he said he was willing to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. For months, Mr. Obama has struggled to explain consistently about whether — and how — he would sit down with rogue leaders.
As I’ve noted numerous times, the “taking no options off the table” (or, “leaving all the options on the table”) rhetoric is militaristic and escalatory.
Since Obama is not the US president, no position he expresses about options and tables has any operational force at all, anyway. So rather than engaging in empty chest-thumping,wouldn’t it be much better for him simply sto tate that Iran’s nuclear program is a cause for strong concern, and that he will seek– or even, “aggressively” seek– a resolution to the impasse with Iran that ensures that these concerns can be allayed and the important principles of the NPT upheld while avoiding any actions that would undermine the security of the US and its friends and allies around the world?
Regarding Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, his vow to work on it “from Day One” is important and valuable.
As The Nation‘s John Nichols noted here, the key shortcoming of the peace diplomacies pursued by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush was that both president fatally delayed real engagement in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy until the very last months of their presidencies.
Both instances of prolonged delay proved extremely damaging. In Clinton’s case, within the first nine months of his presidency he was handed the Oslo deal, already completed, on a silver platter by the Norwegians… But with the clear requirement (as stipulated in its terms) that further US diplomacy would be needed to nail down the final status peace agreement between the two sides that, Oslo declared, should be completed by May of 1999.
Did Clinton roll up his sleeves and immediately set to work on that? No, he did not. Taking the advice of the ubiquitous Dennis Ross, he dallied and dawdled, and diddled his time away concerning himself with ever smaller subsets and subsets of subsets of the real issue… Until US diplomats found themselves investing huge amounts of time and energy on trying to figure out– within what was still only an interim arrangement— which portion of a certain downtown street in Hebron should be used by Israelis on which days of the week, and which by Palestinians.
What time-wasting!
Clinton was the one responsible for that entire peacemaking “strategy” (or lack of one.) But as he did so, he was relying on the “expert” advice of Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk.
Meanwhile, the Israelis continued to pour concrete and people into their ever-growing settlement project in Greater East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. The number of settlers just about doubled between Oslo and the end of the 1990s. Palestinian frustration grew; and violence started escalating among both Israelis and Palestinians.
That’s why it’s particularly depressing to learn that listed as one of Obama’s key advisers on the Middle East we now have none other than– Dennis Ross, who came over to his campaign with some of the others from the failed Hillary campaign.
Maybe Dennis has seen the light and can get seriously behind a “From Day One” commitment to finalizing the Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement?
I hope so. But I’m not holding my breath…
But anyway, it’s not nearly as certain now as it was back in 1993 that the US can still be the Numero Uno peace-brokering supremo in the region… Probably, some other, broader and more politically legitimate model for peace-brokering will be needed going forward.
I think the United States has used up whatever credibility it might have once had as a “peace broker”. And Obama has not inspired a lot of confidence on the part of Palestinians in particular or Arabs in general by his headlong rush to pander (it was beyond pandering, actually, and downright embarrassing) to AIPAC as soon as he had the primary won, and the favoritism toward Israel and lack of comprehension and empathy toward the Palestinian’s that he displayed on his trip. He spoke so lightly of the Palestinians’ horrific situation that he made it sound like what they have been enduring is really little more than inconvenience. I believe the word he used was “difficulty”. Really! I would like to see him have to live under that kinds of “difficulty” and then have it taken so lightly.
The more I see of Obama, the less hopeful I feel. Yes, McCain would be a great deal worse, but Obama is no great gift after all.
Helena,
Meanwhile, the Israelis continued to pour concrete and people into their ever-growing settlement project in Greater East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.
There is more than that Helena, please read this from inside Israil:
If you still think there are red lines that Israel has not crossed with regard to its treatment of Palestinians, don`t be too sure. In recent days and weeks, the Israeli army has been vandalising, ransacking and confiscating Palestinian civilian institutions in the West Bank`s largest towns and cities, including Ramallah, the seat of the so-called Palestinian government.
Frustrated eyewitnesses and tearful victims spoke of `unprecedented brutality` and `Gestapo-like behaviour` as Israeli occupation forces moved throughout the central and northern West Bank to destroy what was left of the Palestinian charity sector upon which thousands of impoverished Palestinian families depend for their livelihood.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_27672.shtml
”My goal is to make sure that we work starting from the minute I’m sworn in to office to try to find some breakthroughs.”
What make him different from all US presidents from 1948 till now?
BTW, why should US president be involved in this?
This a miss created by UK went to UN, should UN handle this case? If not why US which proved biased and in favour of Israelis all along the time.
If UN has no power to solve this issue (of course because of US veto power) what about G8 countries come together and solve the problem?
Lat take Iran Issue here US involved Europe to solve Iran issue why not same as Palestine what the problem here?
Is time should we got the craps that US doing with us in the region empire of liars, as Obama he was put his voice with war in Iraq before 2003, what make him different? His words I not can by one letter from his steams of words….
Btw, each US president and high rank officials when goes to Israel should visited The West wall of the Temple Mount is said to be what was left of Solomon’s original Temple after it destruction in Jerusalem!!! Are all of them Jews to practice this?
Is the Christianise should go and visit Christ place and cites or is just as you call it Judo-Christianity hidden things here?
Any answerers here from real Christians, like what we knew from our Iraqi Christian in old days they visited Jerusalem and they returned with Cross Tattoo stamped on their hand to show that they pilgrimage to Jerusalem not The West wall of the Temple Mount is said to be what was left of Solomon’s original Temple after it destruction.
“Every aspect of Obama’s visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed to further appease pro-Israel groups. Typically for an American aspirant to high office, he visited the Israeli Holocaust memorial and the Western Wall. He met the full spectrum of Israeli Jewish (though not Israeli Arab) political leaders. He travelled to the Israeli Jewish town of Sderot, which until last month’s ceasefire, frequently experienced rockets from the Gaza Strip. At every step, Obama warmly professed his support for Israel and condemned Palestinian violence.
“Other than a cursory 45-minute visit to occupied Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians got little.”
“But Obama missed the opportunity to visit Palestinian refugee camps, schools and even shopping malls to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the Israeli army and settlers, or to see how Palestinians cope under what many call ‘apartheid’. This year alone, almost 500 Palestinians, including over 70 children, have been killed by the Israeli army – exceeding the total for 2007 and dwarfing the two-dozen Israelis killed in conflict-related violence.
“Obama said nothing about Israel’s relentless expansion of colonies on occupied land. Nor did he follow the courageous lead of former President Jimmy Carter and meet with the democratically elected Hamas leaders, even though Israel negotiated a ceasefire with them.”
The first rule of politics is to get elected. But at what cost? Bill Clinton apparently started out his political career with some ideals and convictions about policy. By the time he was elected president, he had sold out so much to get there that he could and did accomplish nothing. One of the great tragic losses of the twentieth century. Obama, because of his meteoric rise, has had less time and opportunity to sell out, but he seems to be working overtime to make up for it. His pandering (to put it politely )to the Israel lobby is not the only disgusting move to the right that he has made and I am sure there will be much more before November. (Dennis Ross, for God’s sake?) Will there be anything left of the Obama that inspired millions of young progressives come January?
Jack, Obama is and always has been a politician. I don’t see his record as being particularly progressive, and therefore I have never viewed him as a progressive or expected him to be one. And now he is showing his true colours, which seems to be surprising everyone but me.
The article I linked to points out that prior to developing serious presidential aspirations, Obama used to have a great deal more concern and understanding of the Palestinians’ situation, and their rights and needs. Now he cannot even be bothered to see for himself what life is like under occupation, and dismisses it all as “difficulties”.
And today I hear that he has actually stated explicitly that he will keep a “large” force in Iraq even after that non-withdrawal “withdrawal” he has been promising. Of course, that is what some of us have been trying to tell his loving fans from the beginning. Oh yes, and he reserves the right to “intervene” if there is too much ethnic violence. Intervene, of course, means Americans will come in and kill more Iraqis and destroy more of Iraq than any internecine violence could possibly kill or destroy. We have to destroy the country in order to save it, you know.
As for his foreign policy team, it started out bad, and has gotten steadily worse ever since. Dennis Ross? OK, now we know where THIS is headed!
Heaven help the world!
Obama … is showing his true colours, which seems to be surprising everyone but me.
A chameleon with true colours? A Dennis Ross chameleon?
Happy days.
It amuses me that some of those who criticise the present US Administration for its Manichaeism – its division of the world into good and evil – themselves allocate all past badness to Bush and all prospective goodness to Obama. As the ever-improving myth has it, on the morning of September 12, 2001, George W. and America enjoyed the sympathy of the world. This comradeship was destroyed, in a uniquely cavalier (or should we say cowboyish) fashion, through the belligerence, the carelessness, the ideological fixity and the rapacity of that amorphous and useful category of American flawed thinker, the neoconservative. They just threw it away.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article4374704.ece
Ugh, say it isn’t so — Dennis Ross now advising Obama????? (after they brutally got rid of Bob O’Malley)Alas, I just saw the memo at WINEP.
If so, then all the Obama rhetoric about “changing the culture” of the way foreign policy is made in Washington just went out the window. (Ross is precisely the reason why time and again, recent administrations did nothing or little until it was too late — usually AFTER Ross left)
This is a very, very bad omen.
So much for Obama taking Chuck Hagel with him to Afghanistan. With Ross nearby, one wonders….
Now I also understand Obama’s one awful line in the Berlin speech — the line about not permitting Iran to go nuclear. (without specifying what the heck that means — so is Obama now going to the right of Bush, who acknowledges that Iran as a signatory to the NPT has a right to nuclear technology?)
The starting point for defusing the nuclear cycle issue with Iran is simply a pledge of security for Iran.
Iran submitted a package to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in mid-May 2008 as well as to world powers, including Russia and the United States. The proposal suggests “the creation of uranium enrichment consortiums in various countries, including Iran.” It also requires that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) step up its supervision of nuclear sites around the world and asserts that more should be done to ensure nuclear programs would not diverted materials for fabrication of nuclear bomb.
“Thomas Pickering, the US ambassador to the United Nations under President George H.W. Bush, endorsed the idea of such a consortium in a March article in the New York Review of Books.” And the plan is “getting increased interest from senior members of both parties in Congress and nonproliferation specialists”[Boston Globe June 10].
Senators Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, have said publicly that the consortium plan should be explored. Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat, went further, calling the plan “a creative, thoughtful, and productive potential solution.”
Robert Naiman, Tue Jun 17, 3:08 PM ET, NYT Exposes Fraud of “Generous Offer” to Iran reported: “The same PIPA poll found that 58% of Iranians support the idea of making a deal with the UN Security Council that would allow Iran to have a full-cycle nuclear program while giving the International Atomic Energy Agency “permanent and full access throughout Iran to ensure that its nuclear program is limited to energy production” and not producing nuclear weapons. PIPA notes that in a March 2008 poll for the BBC World Service 55% of Americans approved of such a deal.”
“In April, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland published a poll of Iranian public opinion. PIPA found that 81% of Iranians consider it “very important” for “Iran to have a full-fuel-cycle nuclear program” which would give Iran the capacity to produce nuclear fuel for energy production. Four out of five. Only 5% think Iran should not pursue a full-fuel-cycle program.”
If the basis for the 6-nation negotiation with Iran over her nuclear fuel cycle is enforcement of the United Nations Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), then the Iranian proposal has fully achieved the objective.
President Bush often stated that everything is on the table unless Iran stops nuclear fuel cycle activities. He further has asserted that his administration would only talk with Iran after the nuclear fuel cycle activities verifiably had been stopped. Iranian people have consistently rejected his precondition for diplomatic negotiation. He is using the 6-nation as a fake diplomacy knowing that Iran will not stop her nuclear fuel cycle activities. Iranians consider the nuclear fuel cycle a part of their national energy independence.
Israel and the United States advocate that Iran would be dangerous learning about nuclear technology; what if they use this knowledge sometimes in the future and make nuclear bombs. Israel, whose nuclear arsenals and airplane to deliverer the devices were subsidized mostly by USA, has been assured by both Republican and Democratic candidates that if Iranians would ever develop any nuclear bomb and if she would use the bomb on Israel, we will obliterate Iran to dust.
Israel and USA are insisting that unless Iran stops their nuclear fuel cycle, jointly they will destroy their country. It is reported that President Bush may not allow Western-made technology required for Iran’s oil industry, creating bottlenecks in Iran’s oil production. This action will result in increase of price of gas to a $10 per gallon and disruption of the International market. Also, it is reported that President Bush may consider a naval embargo of the Persian Gulf. This action is declaration of war and attacking Iran, the beginning of the World War III.
Should we set example and require Israel to eliminate her nuclear bombs. President Truman said: “Starting an atomic war is totally unthinkable for rational men.” [Truman, public Papers]. Benny Morris Israeli historian said: Killing of Millions of Iranians by Israeli Nuke is Justified. If the world cannot protect Iran, then can we force Iran not to protect herself?
Ugh, say it isn’t so — Dennis Ross now advising Obama?
If you have still illusions about Obama, I recommend watching his complete AIPAC speech, here
Discouraging remarks from Obama are reported in this recent article. Not smart. He got into hot water over this before.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30771
“US democratic candidate Barak Obama said during a press conference on Wednesday in Sderot, a city in the south of Israel, that he does not support the idea of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Obama made it clear that Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and that he would not see the city divided. He added that this position needed to be fixed through negotiations with the Palestinians.”
The last line seems so arrogant. The position of Palestinians will have to be ‘fixed’.
The Middle Eastern Dilemma: Israel, Arabs, and Persians
The two state models for Palestinian and Israeli are not working. Many experts on the Middle Eastern politics and people would suggest that a two state solution in not viable model. We have struggled with it for nearly 60 years.
Should we be looking at the region as a Federal States with one government elected by all of the people? This model may have a much better chance of survival as a solution for both Israeli and Arabs.
We have been forced into one box by the Israeli Lobby; we need to look outside of this box. We can’t afford war after war to support a failed two state model.
Both Jewish and Palestinians have paid a high price for a failed system to consider the human side of the Israeli-Jewish struggle for a lasting peace.
I suggest that only as one nation, Federal State of Israel-Palestine, the peace may endure. We, Americans, have failed to see the both side of the struggle for a lasting peace. As Semitic people, they have common historical and religious heritage.
Patrick said:
“Obama made it clear that Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and that he would not see the city divided.”
Those who advocate one state solution as a Federal State would also suggest Jerusalem as the capital of the Federation.
The advocates for one state solution stress that under a two-state solution, Jerusalem can not be the capital of Israel. This city is religious holy city belonging to Jews, Muslims and Christians. This city should not be controlled by a theocratic Jewish state; in that case, it should be an open international city.
Sure, but, to be clear, Obama has also advocated the two-state solution. In his recent remarks he certainly means Israel taking all, or nearly all, of Jerusalem.
Of course, this is a complete non-starter for the Palestinians. Hence the implication that their position needs to be ‘fixed’.
Frankly, I just haven’t heard or read of much coming from Obama that is encouraging.
Patrick, I have never been enthusiastic about Obama, and as time goes on and we see more and more of him I become less and less encouraged.
There was a time that I thought maybe if I held my nose closed hard enough I could bring myself to vote for him, but not anymore. He will not get my vote. Now I need to select a third party candidate or decide whom to write in.
“Obama made it clear that Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and that he would not see the city divided.”
Is he speaks from his Judo/Zionists believes or his US President?