Obama continues to move fast, surefootedly…

…on Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Yesterday he gave an interview to Hisham Milhem of al-Arabiya TV channel. That was in connection with the ceremony at the White House where he sent off former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell on his first “special envoy” fact-finding trip to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, France, and Britain.
The NYT wrote:

    “The charge that Senator Mitchell has is to engage vigorously and consistently in order for us to achieve genuine progress,” Mr. Obama said in the Cabinet Room of the White House, according to The Associated Press. “And when I say progress, not just photo ops, but progress that is concrete.”

It is significant that Obama himself is taking such a high-profile interest in this mission. It seems Mitchell will report back to him more than to Hillary Clinton.
Also, though Rob Malley is quoted in the NYT piece as saying there’s not much political work that can be done before Israel’s Feb.10 elections, I disagree strongly with that assessment.
Obama is already doing some of the much-needed political work! He’s doing it by appointing Mitchell so very early in his term and by sending him off the region so quickly, too.
What he’s doing is signaling, at the very highest level possible, that the US has its own very strong interest in the Arab-israeli peace process making rapid progress at this time.
That sends exactly the right message to Israeli voters, who need to think carefully whether they want to elect a party/leader who could be expected to clash early on with this politically popular and sure-footed US president.
Of course we want more details as to what kind of a peace agreement Obama plans to work for. Probably he’ll let us know more when he’s heard back from Mitchell.
But to say he’s not doing any political/diplomatic work on the peacemaking right now is just plain wrong.

14 thoughts on “Obama continues to move fast, surefootedly…”

  1. What I want to know is why isn’t Mitchell visiting Palestine but visiting other Arab nations? Why would that not be considered as a slight to the Palestinians?

  2. I think that this is merely a public relations cover (‘we tried but failed’) for Israel to re-occupy Gaza. Israel won’t be happy until it controls all of Palestine entirely and completely, and the US wants Israel to be happy.
    George Mitchell is a great guy (he’s from Maine, after all) but he’s been sent on a fool’s errand.
    US policy: The Gazans elected Hamas, Hamas is terrorist, so Gazans are terrorist sympathizers. It is US policy to eliminate terrorist sympathizers or “detain” them in prisons. That’s what the ‘war on terror’ is about.
    Israel has destroyed Gaza infrastructure, including agricultural crops, and many of its people. The Israeli people mostly want all Palestinians dead or incarcerated. The US government apparently has no objection to that, even from Mr. Change. The bogus ‘war on terror’ goes on, in this case under the Star of David.

  3. I believe that Helena is right about Obama being serious about an agreement and that this early symbolism is very important. Still, it is hard to see how Mitchell can have a successful factfinding mission if he does not visit the West Bank and Gaza and talk with Hamas. The symbolism of this snub and appearance of the old Bush one-sidedness is important too.

  4. It is very sad but Don is, I think, voicing the underlying realities.
    The IDF war machine is marching in lock step with its Imperial US sponsors and underwriters.
    The current political flim-flam that cravenly kowtows to the institutionalized Imperial war agendas is invariably mere PR cover – smoke and mirrors, a fog of political posturing and deception.
    For politics like war is more about deception than anything else!
    Sorry – but if your naive enough to believe otherwise then I think a history of rude awakenings inevitably awaits you. (strangely our history of past rude awakenings doesn’t seem to make it any easier to believe that the next ‘sure footed’ political ‘savior’ is any ‘less’ -genuine!!!)
    If there is an answer, and I believe there is, it will never come trickling down from the ‘corrupt-to-the-core’ political power hierarchies, but will rise up like fresh spring water from the grass roots of honest to goodness citizens of planet earth.
    Social awakenings are what’s needed.
    Looking for ‘sure footed’ presidents to lead us out of this morass is a no-brainer! The system they rise to the top of is too corrupt to allow it to happen – and besides, to get to the ‘top’ they need to have drunk the Kool-aid!

  5. al-Arabiya TV channel
    Helena, Did you asked any Muslim/Arab what this al-Arabia TV?
    Next time when you were in the region ask please about al-Arabia TV channel.

  7. Perhaps surefootedly, but why is Obama escaping serious criticism for Mitchell’s expressed refusal to talk to Hamas? What did all that campaign rhetoric about talking to everyone mean? What sense does it make to be a peacemaker who won’t talk to one of the parties?

  8. John Frampton–
    I think what it means, and I’m serious about this, is that Obama would talk to people if they are too powerful to ignore–so if he wants to prevent Iran from having anything that even vaguely resembles a nuclear weapons program he will have to talk to them. But he may think the US can bully or bribe the Palestinians into accepting whatever Palestinians we decide are worthy representatives for them.

  9. Al Arabiya – the Bush regime’s favourite Arabic channel!
    If Obama wishes to show respect for Arabs and Palestinians he will not give interviews to Al Arabiya, which is known to be a pro-U.S. puppet channel, but to Al Jazeera, which has far more respect in the Arab World, and deservedly so. Does he not realize what signals he is sending with his choice, or is this his intention?

  13. Let’s conduct a thought experiment.
    Obama wants the continual suffering and dying in Middle East and the expropriation of Palestine to end, so he wants Israel to obey the UN and to withdraw from the parts of Palestine it occupied about 42 years ago.
    He notes that Israel has been able to occupy those territories because the US has financed the occupation. Obama is after all “well-informed, bright, and intellectually agile”, in the words of Juan Cole.
    Obama is the President of the United States of America, self-proclaimed Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
    Not only that but Obama is the man on the white horse, whose mandate is “change”.
    So Obama picks up the phone and has a word with each of those vying for power in Israel and says : “There will be no more US military or financial for Israel until Israel has withdrawn from the land illegally occupied since 1967 and the blockade of Gaza is lifted. I am going to send aid to Gaza by sea, and if you attack Americans delivering aid to Gaza… you will be sorry you did so.” He then phones Hamas in Gaza and explains that the US Navy ships arriving at the beach will be bringing food, medical supplies, and Seabees to help reconstruct what the Israelis have destroyed with their American weapons and his former acquiescence.
    What is the downside for even the most ambitious politician if he were to do that? There will be a thriving Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank by the end of his first term. An overwhelming majority of Americans will be overjoyed at that, and will give him a second term, based on their approval along this one dimension at any rate. And the “war on terror” will be just a bad memory, as long as Obama gives up his ridiculous plans for its escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.
    That action will do the job. All the other proposed “solutions” I read are doomed from the start because they fail to provide the sine qua non : justice for the Palestinian people.
    The conclusion that mus be drawn is that Obama is unconcerned with justice for the Palestinians, that he is concerned for the expansion of Greater Israel at the Palestinians’ expense.
    The argument that he really feels otherwise, would act differently if he “could”, is an argument that recognizes the President of the United States on his knees, knuckling his brow to his Overseas Lord, whoever that may be.
    If you are not appalled at the injustice of it all, don’t you find that image even the least bit distasteful?

  14. Shreen,
    Al Arabiya – the Bush regime’s favourite Arabic channel!
    Read this!!
    (عبد الرحمن الراشد ( السعودية/مدير قناة العربية
    في سابقة هي الأولى من نوعها :
    وزيرة الخارجية الإسرائيلية توصي بنشر مقالات عدد من الكتاب العرب على الموقع الرسمي للوزارة باعتبارها ” مقالات تمثل وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية في العالم العربي ” !؟
    ليا أبراموفيتش تل أبيب ـ ( خاص) : تسيبي ليفني أوصت بإعادة نشر ما يكتبه عدد من الكتاب العرب على الموقع الرسمي للوزارة . ليفني قالت في اجتماع خاص بخلية أزمة تم
    تشكيلها في الوزارة خلال الحرب على غزة ” إن هؤلاء سفراء إسرائيل لدى العالم العربي ، وأفضل من يوصل وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية إلى الشارع العربي بشأن حركة حماس” . الوزارة اختارت عددا من الكتاب العرب لتكون مقالاتهم المنشورة في الصحف السعودية ، ومنابر أخرى ، ضيفة دائمة على الموقع الرسمي للوزارة باعتبارها تمثل وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية الرسمية ” . هذا الإجراء ” يعد سابقة في تاريخ الإعلام الرسمي الإسرائيلي ، إذ لم يسبق أن نشر من قبل مقالات رأي على الموقع الرسمي للوزار ” ! توجيهات الوزارة هي إعادة نشر ليس المقالات الجديدة التي كتبها هؤلاء إبان الحرب ، بل جميع المقالات التي نشروها في السابق ضد حركة حماس” . رئيس الوزراء إيهود أولمرت ،عندما ترجم له مقال الكاتب الكويتي عبد الله الهدلق ، قام عن كرسيه ورفع يديه في الفراغ متلفظا بكلمات النشوة ، واقترح ترشيحه لأعلى وسام في إسرائيل ، ووصفه بأنه أكثر صهيونية من هرتزل ” . ويدعو المقال إسرائيل إلى سحق ” الخونة والغدارين الفلسطينيين بلا رحمة ولا شفقة كما سحقوا حزب الله من قبل ، باعتبارهم مجرمين وقتلة وإرهابيين يعضون اليد التي تمتد إليهم بالخير”!
    أما الكتاب الذين نالوا هذا الشرف ، شرف تمثيل وجهة نظر وزارة الخارجية الإسرائيلية في العالم العربي ، فهم :
    1. تركي الحمد , طارق الحميد ( رئيس تحرير الشرق الأوسط ) ,
    2. عبد الله الهدلق ,
    3. مأمون فندي ,
    4. علي سالم ,
     عبد الرحمن الراشد ( السعودية/مدير قناة العربية ) ,
    5. نضال نعيسة ,
    6. جهاد نصرة ,
    7. أبيّ حسن ,
    8. طارق حجي , مجدي الدقاق ,
    9. فؤاد الهاشم ,
    10. عثمان العمير ,
    11. حسام عيتاني ,
    12. حازم صاغية ,
     نديم جرجورة ,
    13. حمزة رستناوي ,
    14. لؤي حسين ,
    15. جمال عبد الجواد ,
    16. عبدالمنعم سعيد ,
    17. هاني النقشبندي ,
    18. نصير الأسعد , وغيرهم .

Comments are closed.