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During His Trip to Egypt, Obama Should Visit Gaza
Obama will give a major policy talk at Cairo University on June 4, intended to start mending the rift between the United States and the Arab world. During the Bush years, many Arabs turned against the United States because of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Graib. But the issue that is really at the crux of the tensions with the United States is the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what many perceive as a one-sided U.S. policy in support of Israel.
The Obama administration has taken a positive stand on the Israeli settlements, calling for a complete freeze. “[Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told reporters.
But the administration has said almost nothing about the devastating Israeli invasion of Gaza that left over 1,300 dead, including some 400 children. To many in the Middle East, this is an unfortunate continuation of past policies that condemn the loss of innocent Israeli lives, but refuse to speak out against the disproportionately greater loss of Palestinian lives at the hands of the Israeli military.
The Israeli invasion of Gaza began on December 27, 2008, when Obama had just won the election but had not yet taken office. While he spoke out against the November 26 Mumbai terrorism attack, he refused to even call for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying coldly, “When it comes to foreign affairs it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time."
Once inaugurated, Obama appointed George Mitchell as a special peace envoy and immediately sent him on a “listening tour” to key places in the Middle East—except Gaza. Mitchell returned for a second trip to the region in late February, visiting Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank but once again bypassing Gaza. The same thing happened on his third trip in April.
Hillary Clinton has never visited war-torn Gaza. She promised $300 million for rebuilding, but the aid won’t get to Gaza as long as the administration insists on dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank while shunning Hamas, which controls Gaza and was democratically elected.
Obama won great support from the American people during the presidential campaign when he said that America must talk to its adversaries, without preconditions. But his administration now puts ridiculous conditions on talking to Hamas: It must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous international agreements. Israel, on the other hand, does not have to recognize Palestine, renounce violence or abide by past agreements. Putting preconditions on just one side of the conflict makes it impossible to move a peace process forward.
While Obama prepares for his trip to the Middle East, more than 150 people—mostly Americans—are trying to enter war-torn Gaza through both the Egyptian and Israeli borders. Organized under the umbrella of the peace group CODEPINK, this is the largest group of Americans to travel to Gaza since the siege began.
The delegations, invited by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), are bringing medicines, toys, school supplies and playground building materials. An estimated 1,346 Gazan children were left without one or more of their parents as a result of the Israeli assault and the majority were left traumatized and depressed.
That’s why the peace group CODEPINK has launched an international
petition (see www.codepinkalert.org
Obama should take the opportunity, during this visit to Egypt next week, to visit Gaza. He should express his condolences for the loss of so many innocent lives, call for a lifting of the inhumane siege that continues to imprison an entire population, and support an investigation of how U.S. military funds to Israel are being spent.
Those actions, more than any fine words he may speak during his talk at Cairo University, will do wonders to repairs our relations with the Arab world that were so tattered during the Bush years.
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20 Comments so far
Show AllYes, Obama should indeed visit Gaza. In fact, he should do a lot of things, starting with the issues about which his campaign promises drew the support of Progressives and got his presidential run off of the ground.
He has broken just about every one of those promises. [sarcasm]Of course, he never promised to visit Gaza so perhaps he will. [/sarcasm]
Seriously, he won't do so simply because he sees no political benefit and fears a backlash from the zionists and the christian right.
q
quick - you are on the money with your comment
you notice bro o hasn't commented on the loyalty tests the zion state is setting up among other things to ratchet up their genocide of the palestian people
these tests are racist and fascist
no wonder israel -terror state - rogue state - one day to be failed state - no wonder the countryis an international pariah
by the way - israel is on violation of more un laws than the rest of the world combined
their prime minister and vice pm should be in the hague being tried for war crimes
hey - who knows - maybe one day they will be
let's keep a good thought
I hear that Obama, in the spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship, is going to reach across the aisle and help some progressives.
Naw... just kidding.
Gaza is in total disrepair to be visited. Obama is already against Israelis building settlements in Gaza so there is no need to visit Gaza. Obama is doing the right thing since he knows that Egypt has its own dictator that is against women too. If MB has any sympathy for the Palestinians, she would support the idea of allowing Palestinians into Egypt. MB should keep her big fat mouth shut for writing this idiotic article.
What? Gaza is a large, open-air concentration camp, like the Warsaw Ghetto. There are no Israeli settlements there, though Israel continues to prevent Palestinian farmers from tending their land. There is no dictator in Gaza; the candidates of the Hamas party won a fair and clean election there, as attested to by international observers including former President Jimmy Carter, but most of the winners of the election were then kidnapped by Israel and still languish, uncharged, in Israel's jails, where torture is common.
Palestinian women are not subjugated, unlike the women of Saudi Arabia, where Obama plans to visit.
The Israeli "settlements" are being built in the West Bank, where Israel continues to steal Palestinian land and water resources and to kidnap and murder Palestinians. Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, gets $15 million dollars a day from us, money which Israel uses to continue their slow-motion holocaust against the Palestinians. In East Jerusalem, Israel is destroying the homes of Palestinians and giving their land to Israelis.
Egypt, which the U.S. pays handsomely to be Israel's sidekick, will not allow Palestinians in or out of Gaza unless Israel approves. That's why so many Palestinian students have not been allowed to go to Europe and study in colleges where they have won scholarships. Egypt/Israel wouldn't allow Palestinans to flee from Israel's relentless 3-week bombing and terror campaign. That's why so many Palestinians were killed and injured. Egypt/Israel won't allow Palestinians to leave Gaza to get medical care. That's why many of the patients die, since Israel/Egypt also limit Gaza's access to medical supplies and even medical textbooks.
Egypt/Israel won't allow international humanitarian aid into Gaza. That's why most of it is rotting in the sun on the Egypt side of the border. Egypt cooperates fully with Israel, so supplies for rebuilding all the homes and buildings destroyed in Israel's recent 3-week massacre in Gaza are not allowed in to Gaza, so the Palestinians there are still living in tents and trying to build homes out of mud bricks, since Israel/Egypt won't even let cement into Gaza. Drinking water in Gaza is unsafe because Israel/Egypt won't allow supplies for water treatment to be brought into Gaza.
Given Israel's ongoing savage and criminal behavior for the past 60 years, it was very funny to hear Obama say yesterday that the Palestinians must decrease anti-Israel settlement. Obviously, Obama needs to go to Gaza and get a clue.
Nebraska Nathan1's brain is too corn-fed to listen and learn. If his state were just like Gaza, maybe then he's learn. He's generally a rightwing troll on this site. NN should live in Gaza for 1 month and tell us how long he can sustain his farm there. I would much rather see Israel kidnapping and torturing corn-fed crooks such as NN instead of those innocent Palestinians who had nothing to do with terrorism but are being terrorized.
Are you Bill O'Reilly?
Joe
Joe,
Let's just ignore that cornfed troll NN. His idiocity knows no bounds and is always hungry like a hippo for flames. Ignore NN and he'll finally learn to keep his own mouth shut and bug off.
Good on Medea Benjamin, we need more people like her and fewer ignorant hate-mongers like Nebraska Nathan.
Is this a joke?
If Obama DID visit Gaza, it would probably be to wag his finger at its inhabitants and scold them for daring to resist their Israeli masters and oppressors.
He and Hillary must continue the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, you know.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Exaclty,
Besides, the Emperor would never do such a thing wihtout prior approval from AIPAC, JINSA and Israel.
Three cheers for Medea Benjamin and her Code Pink colleagues! Would that more of our fellow citizens had their forthright courage and steadfast loyalty to principle. Show us how it's done, ladies!
Tony Vodvarka
Obama has a zionist for a vp and a zionist for his chief of staff. The only thing Obama is going to do is wear his beenie and act the fool for Israel.
"...the administration insists on dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank while shunning Hamas, which controls Gaza and was democratically elected."
I have a real problem with that. I don't pay those people's salary to sabotage the democratic process in a foreign country. The Obama administration will rightfully be remembered as one that practiced opression right out in the open. What a shame.
I think he'll come around in his second term. He doesn't strike me as an "evil-doer".
Obama cannot visit Gaza. Even if he was carrying a white flag the IDF might shoot him. It is possible this could briefly effect the tenor of relations between the US & Israel and is best avoided.
Visit historic Gaza! Bring the kids!
Joe
Israel Puts Us All At Risk
"How?"
"Its Masada complex."
"Which is?"
"Our way or doomsday."
"The answer being?"
"That Jewish colonizer and colonized Palestinian sit down together for the purpose of working things out."
"Based on?"
"One equals one."
"Anything else?"
"Liberty and justice for all."
The Israelis have the USA by the balls. They get away with everything because of it, God only knows what dirt they have on politicians here:
NJ Man Fined for Giving Secret Documents to Israel
NEW YORK (AP) -- A judge spared an 85-year-old former U.S. Army engineer any prison time for passing secret documents to the Israelis in the 1980s but said it remains a mystery why such a grave assault on national security took 23 years to prosecute.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III on Friday scolded Ben-ami Kadish for letting the Israelis steal classified documents between 1979 and 1985 from the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., where he worked.
``What you did was a very grave offense,'' the judge told Kadish, who hobbled to a lectern with a metal cane to deliver a short statement before he was fined $50,000 but was given no prison time and no probation.
Kadish, who seemed to fall asleep while his lawyer argued for leniency, apologized.
``It was a mistake. It was a misjudgment,'' he said. ``I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States.''
The judge told him that it was difficult to dismiss his conduct as a simple error in judgment but that it would serve no purpose to send him to prison since he was so old and in poor health and because the government had drastically reduced the seriousness of the charges, which initially could have been punishable by death.
``This was not one mistake,'' the judge said. ``This was over many years.''
At the start of the sentencing hearing, the judge demanded that the government tell him why it took until 2008 to prosecute Kadish.
``Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded in mystery,'' he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Iris Lan said the government waited because the FBI wasn't able to assemble enough evidence until then.
Later, though, the judge praised the government for bringing the case at all.
``When someone jeopardizes national security, they should understand that no matter how long it takes -- even 23 years -- the government is going to seek them out and bring them to the bar of justice,'' he said.
In December, Kadish, of Monroe Township, N.J., admitted passing the documents to the Israelis by letting Yossi Yagur, an Israeli government agent who had requested them, photograph them in the basement of his home. He pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy.
The judge called Kadish's crime ``stealthy and sustained'' and noted that Kadish remained friends with Yagur for decades, even visiting him in Israel in 2004. He questioned how Kadish earned more than $100,000 in 2007 even though he hasn't had a job in years.
Kadish's lawyer, Jack T. Litman, said his client had nearly $1 million in securities that generated substantial revenue.
When the $50,000 fine was ordered, Kadish said, ``No problem.''
After his lawyer asked the government to return his passport, Kadish pressed him to also ask prosecutors to return stamps he had received from Yagur but that were seized by investigators.
Kadish was born in Connecticut but was raised in British-controlled Palestine from age 4 on a farm. He fought in the British and U.S. armies in World War II.
The government has said he let Yagur photograph documents about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.
Israel responded to Kadish's arrest in April 2008 with a statement that didn't deny the accusations.
``To remove any doubt, since 1985 there has been much care taken to observe the directives of the prime ministers not to engage in any activities of this type in the U.S.,'' Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said then.
TM & Copyright 2009 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO & EYE Logo TM & Copyright 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. TheAssociated Press contributed to this report.
The monstrous crimes of the murdering destroying and devouring thing which is the state that hides behind the name "Israel", come from a belief in he idea of us and them. The enormity of those crimes makes it easy, looking at those who call themselves israelis, to fall into the same error and say "us and them". We americans have left over a million dead iraqis, millions of widows and orphans, millions of refugees, for power and oil.- Again, from a belief in us as opposed to them...rather let us all say to the palestinians "you are our brothers and sisters", ..Rachel Corrie and others have given their lives to say just that.,,to say so and then to realize that we are all of us together passengers on spaceship earth, as r.buckminster fuller has pointed out...