When he was on the campaign trail, Pres. Obama gave Israel nearly “carte blanche” to act as it wanted against Gaza by saying– in southern Israel– that if his daughters were threatened by rocket attack in the same way that kids in southern Israel were, then he couldn’t imagine what he would do in response.
So I hope he reads this piece by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT today, about what happened to Sabah Abu Halima’s family in Atatra, Gaza during the recent war:
- The phosphorus smoke bomb punched through the roof in exactly the spot where much of the family had taken refuge — the upstairs hall away from the windows.
The bomb, which international weapons experts identified as phosphorus by its fragments, was intended to mask troop movements outside. Instead it breathed its storm of fire and smoke into Sabah Abu Halima’s hallway, releasing flaming chemicals that clung to her husband, baby girl and three other small children, burning them to death.
But that’s not all. Later on,
- Omar Abu Halima and his two teenage cousins tried to take the burned body of his baby sister and two other living but badly burned girls to the hospital on that Sunday.
The boys were taking the girls and six others on a tractor, when, according to several accounts from villagers, Israeli soldiers told them to stop. According to their accounts, they got down, put their hands up, and suddenly rounds were fired, killing two teenage boys: Matar Abu Halima, 18, and Muhamed Hekmet, 17.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that soldiers had reported that the two were armed and firing. Villagers strongly deny that. The tractor that villagers say was carrying the group is riddled with 36 bullet holes.
The villagers were forced to abandon the bodies of the teenage boys and the baby, and when rescue workers arrived 11 days later, the baby’s body had been eaten by dogs, her legs two white bones, captured in a gruesome image on a relative’s cellphone. The badly burned girls and others on the tractor had fled to safety.
Matar’s mother, Nabila Abu Halima, said she had been shot through the arm when she tried to move toward her son. Her left arm bears a round scar. Her son came back to her in pieces, his body crushed under tank treads.
Bronner and Tavernise’s piece is tragic. (Though the NYT gave it an inappropriate headline, I think.)
It’s also notable because they make a point of noting how many Palestinians were killed by Israel’s security forces in the 39 months between the IDF’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, and the outbreak of the hostilities last December: about 1,275.
Israeli hasbaristas have argued throughout this time that the siege the Israeli government has maintained around Gaza has been the main (or sometimes, the only) Israeli “response” to the rockets launched against Hamas and other militants in Gaza over this time. I have always argued that this was never a simple situation of “rockets versus siege” but that during this period, in addition to the siege, the Israelis maintained very lethal military ops against Gaza, as well.
Also, few if any of Israel’s actions against Gaza have been undertaken solely “in response to” Palestinian rocketings. There has always been a cycle of violence; and very frequently (including, most notably, last December 27) Israel has been the one to initiate a new round or significantly escalate an existing round. The number of Israelis killed by the Gazans’ for the most part extremely primitive, home-made bottle rockets has been very low. Certainly, far fewer than 100 killed over that same time. (Though Bronner and Tavernise somehow omit to mention the number. I believe it’s available at B’tselem’s site.)
But anyway, main point of post: Pres. Obama, what would you do if your family members got treated the same way Sabah Abu Halima’s family got treated? I am assuming, of course, that you and everyone else agrees that a Palestinian life is every bit as valuable as an Israeli life…
I’ve always maintained – and I continue to do so – that Obama is not up to speed on Middle Eastern issues. That he hasn’t been personally sensitised either to what is possible, or to what real US interests are. I’ve been much criticised by Don Bacon and Shirin amongst others, for saying this.
But it is true. The proposed surge in Afghanistan is mad, and pointless. He continues to believe that Iraq will be reduced to a sort of Korea next year, fat chance.
On the other hand in his domestic policy, as far as I understand it, he has been relatively liberal. The latest idea of putting a cap on the salaries of bankers who receive state aid seems to me good.
I would think he is going to be face to face with reality, when Netanyahu is elected Prime Minister this month. Netanyahu who has declared he is going to deal with Gaza for good. Sends shivers down my spine.
Is Obama going to give the nod to turning Gaza into a heap of rubble (not that it hasn’t been done already) with the blood of the remaining Palestinians coursing down the streets? There are lots of Israeli soldiers who are ready to do it. The photographic evidence of the last round is all there. What was the name of that Israeli interlocutor of yours, JES, wasn’t it, who gave such powerful intellectual defences of Israel? We haven’t heard much from him recently. Nor from Jonathan Edelstein. Not much law left after what has happened in Gaza.
Or is Obama going to put a brake on it? I hope so, for his sake (if not for the rest of us). Having your presidency curdled in the blood of Gaza will not be his idea of success?
Let’s hope.
I’ve always maintained – and I continue to do so – that Obama is not up to speed on Middle Eastern issues. That he hasn’t been personally sensitised either to what is possible, or to what real US interests are. I’ve been much criticised by Don Bacon and Shirin amongst others, for saying this.
But it is true. The proposed surge in Afghanistan is mad, and pointless. He continues to believe that Iraq will be reduced to a sort of Korea next year, fat chance.
On the other hand in his domestic policy, as far as I understand it, he has been relatively liberal. The latest idea of putting a cap on the salaries of bankers who receive state aid seems to me good.
I would think he is going to be face to face with reality, when Netanyahu is elected Prime Minister this month. Netanyahu who has declared he is going to deal with Gaza for good. Sends shivers down my spine.
Is Obama going to give the nod to turning Gaza into a heap of rubble (not that it hasn’t been done already) with the blood of the remaining Palestinians coursing down the streets? There are lots of Israeli soldiers who are ready to do it. The photographic evidence of the last round is all there. What was the name of that Israeli interlocutor of yours, JES, wasn’t it, who gave such powerful intellectual defences of Israel? We haven’t heard much from him recently. Nor from Jonathan Edelstein. Not much law left after what has happened in Gaza.
Or is Obama going to put a brake on it? I hope so, for his sake (if not for the rest of us). Having his presidency curdled in the blood of Gaza will not be his idea of success.
Let’s hope.
Sorry for the double post, there was an excess question mark in the first. I didn’t think the first would take.
Alex,
I really don’t recall criticizing you for saying that Obama hasn’t been personally sensitized, whatever that means. But that does bring up a point, one I’ve made before.
The US is still presumably a democracy, with the people determining foreign policy through their representatives. It is not a monarchy or a dictatorship. There is no ‘decider’ in charge of things, including foreign policy. We shouldn’t expect Obama to pull a rabbit out of his hat by doing something that went against the wishes of the people.
Unfortunately the US government has had means at its disposal to wrongly affect the wishes of the people, to create a false reality (see my recent article) and propagandize it. The murder of people — “terrorists” — is then called a ‘peace and stability operation’ and everyone buys it. As a part of these supposedly benign activities War crimes have been committed by the US military and the Israeli military on a grand scale.
The unfortunate fact is that the false realities so created can’t be easily countered. Sadly, the death of children in Gaza, Palestine; Baghdad, Iraq; or Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan are of even less import to Americans than the death of Spc. Darrell L. Fernandez, 25, of Truth or Consequences, N.M., who died Jan. 31 in Kirkuk, Iraq and CW4 Milton E. Suggs, 51, of Lockport, La., who died Jan. 30 at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti.
Recognizing all these unfortunate facts, and still hoping for the best as HC continually does, it would be helpful if the new and popular US president would use the ‘bully pulpit’ to recall MLK’s words: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
I’m just happy to see that “HC”, Helena Cobban, is capable of reassessing her hopes and beliefs in view of reality. I’m probably much more recalcitrant than she is when it comes to my beliefs than she is, so it’s been painful, presumptuous, and embarrassing on my part to have been raising my voice to her these past few weeks. I apologize for testiness shown to my betters.
But Obama is personally desensitized to anything that he believes will not further his grasp for power. He’s no worse than George Bush or Hillary Clinton, just no better. The hard part to accept is the fact that he is so “well informed, bright, and intellectually agile”, in Juan Cole’s words, and still an inhuman opportunist.
I take no joy in this fact either, Helena Cobban. But we have to start from reality if we’re going to change reality. And the reality is… nothing’s changed. Well, not for the better anyway.
in my opinion, anyone who is still waiting for Obama to do the right thing should share whatever they are smoking. Damn, I’d like to feel that euphoric in the face of the disasters befalling us.
We need to recognize that if there is going to be ‘change we need’, it has to come from us.
At least during the Vietnam War (for all the good it did) there were several senators (e.g. Morse, Gruening, Fulbright, Kennedys) providing other viewpoints, whereas now, except for spouting the official dogma, there is general silence.
news report:
A senior British Army officer has been arrested in Kabul and faces charges under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking figures about civilian casualty figures in Afghanistan to a human rights group.
Lt-Col Owen McNally was detained after details about people killed and wounded during Western military operations were leaked from Nato headquarters in the Afghan capital. According to defence sources, Col McNally had become friendly with a female employee of a human rights group which had been carrying out an inquiry into the extent of “collateral damage”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-officer-held-over-afghan-casualties-leak-1546407.html
great catch, Don. So human rights groups are now “the enemy” for NATO forces???
I would think Obama’s perfectly well “sensitized”–as well as any President. He was friends with the Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi in Chicago, pretty good friends I understand. It’s never just a question of “sensitivity” that keeps politicians from doing the right thing. (In 1958, john F. Kennedy told some people he wanted to solve the Palestinian refugee problem, until he was told that wouldn’t do much for his presidential prospects.) Obama wants to be a successful president, and picking a fight with a powerful domestic interest group when the economy is, for him and most Americans, much more important, isn’t something he’s likely to do.
The San Francisco Chronicle March 23, 2002:
“I don’t believe you have heard me or anyone else in our leadership talk about the presence of 1,000 bodies out there, or in fact how many have been recovered,” Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the Afghanistan operation, said Monday at Bagram Air Base. “You know we don’t do body counts.”///
They must have a new policy now. They do body counts of “collateral damage,” classify them SECRET and prosecute any officer that publicizes them. And people trust these officers with their son or daughter?
It’s all a part of bringing “peace and stability” to poor Afghanistan.
“sensitized” doesn’t have the same meaning as “sensitive”, Scott.
In any case, the issue of whether Obama is sensitised to Middle Eastern issues is not related to the Palestine/Israel issue, where he hasn’t particularly taken a line yet. Rather Iraq and Afghanistan. He doesn’t need to put in a pointless surge in Afghanistan, he can slip out of it. Same in Iraq, he is not obliged to follow a policy that obviously will not work. He could be more subtle, if he’s as intelligent as we suppose.
Alex,
It is apparent that Obama HAS “taken a line” on I/P: “Obama gave Israel nearly “carte blanche” to act as it wanted against Gaza. . .” with his statements, plus Israel is using US weapons and bombs, and also Israel has been given support from Obama’s SecState.
Regarding Iraq, Obama is following a pre-conceived plan to back off his withdrawal position, which he previously signaled by his avoidance of the SOFA/SFA issue with its constitutional requirements. On Afghanistan he has been consistent for a wider war including Pakistan (and possibly India), which he is getting.
What Obama’s “sensitizing” has to do with any of this only you seem to know. We’ve just been through a two-year, seemingly interminable election process, and he isn’t ready? Do you think he requires special treatment of some kind?