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TechnoratiObama in Cairo: A Bush in Sheep's Clothing?
His speech shows little real change. In most regards his analysis maintains flawed American policies intact
Once you strip away the mujamalat - the courtesies exchanged between guest and host - the substance of President Obama's speech in Cairo indicates there is likely to be little real change in US policy. It is not necessary to divine Obama's intentions - he may be utterly sincere and I believe he is. It is his analysis and prescriptions that in most regards maintain flawed American policies intact.
Though he pledged to "speak the truth as best I can", there was much the president left out. He spoke of tension between "America and Islam" - the former a concrete specific place, the latter a vague construct subsuming peoples, practices, histories and countries more varied than similar.
Labelling America's "other" as a nebulous and all-encompassing "Islam" (even while professing rapprochement and respect) is a way to avoid acknowledging what does in fact unite and mobilise people across many Muslim-majority countries: overwhelming popular opposition to increasingly intrusive and violent American military, political and economic interventions in many of those countries. This opposition - and the resistance it generates - has now become for supporters of those interventions, synonymous with "Islam".
It was disappointing that Obama recycled his predecessor's notion that "violent extremism" exists in a vacuum, unrelated to America's (and its proxies') exponentially greater use of violence before and after September 11, 2001. He dwelled on the "enormous trauma" done to the US when almost 3,000 people were killed that day, but spoke not one word about the hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows left in Iraq - those whom Munathar al-Zaidi's flying shoe forced Americans to remember only for a few seconds last year. He ignored the dozens of civilians who die each week in the "necessary" war in Afghanistan, or the millions of refugees fleeing the US-invoked escalation in Pakistan.
As President George Bush often did, Obama affirmed that it is only a violent minority that besmirches the name of a vast and "peaceful" Muslim majority. But he seemed once again to implicate all Muslims as suspect when he warned, "The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer."
Nowhere were these blindspots more apparent than his statements about Palestine/Israel. He gave his audience a detailed lesson on the Holocaust and explicitly used it as a justification for the creation of Israel. "It is also undeniable," the president said, "that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation."
Suffered in pursuit of a homeland? The pain of dislocation? They already had a homeland. They suffered from being ethnically cleansed and dispossessed of it and prevented from returning on the grounds that they are from the wrong ethno-national group. Why is that still so hard to say?
He lectured Palestinians that "resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed". He warned them that "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered." (Note: the last suicide attack targeting civilians by a Palestinian occurred in 2004)
Fair enough, but did Obama really imagine that such words would impress an Arab public that watched in horror as Israel slaughtered 1,400 people in Gaza last winter, including hundreds of sleeping, fleeing or terrified children, with American-supplied weapons? Did he think his listeners would not remember that the number of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians targeted and killed by Israel has always far exceeded by orders of magnitude the number of Israelis killed by Arabs precisely because of the American arms he has pledged to continue giving Israel with no accountability. Amnesty International recently confirmed what Palestinians long knew: Israel broke the negotiated ceasefire when it attacked Gaza last November 4, prompting retaliatory rockets that killed no Israelis until after Israel launched its much bigger attack on Gaza. That he continues to remain silent about what happened in Gaza, and refuses to hold Israel accountable demonstrates anything but a commitment to full truth-telling.
Some people are prepared to give Obama a pass for all this because he is at last talking tough on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In Cairo, he said: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop."
These carefully chosen words focus only on continued construction, not on the existence of the settlements themselves; they are entirely compatible with the peace process industry consensus that existing settlements will remain where they are for ever. This raises the question of where Obama thinks he is going. He summarised Palestinians' "legitimate aspirations" as being the establishment of a "state". This has become a convenient slogan to that is supposed to replace for Palestinians their pursuit of rights and justice that the proposed state actually denies. Obama is already on record opposing Palestinian refugees' right to return home, and has never supported the right of Palestinian citizens of Israel to live free from racist and religious incitement, persecution and practices fanned by Israel's highest office holders and written into its laws.
He may have more determination than his predecessor but he remains committed to an unworkable two-state "vision" aimed not at restoring Palestinian rights, but preserving Israel as an enclave of Israeli Jewish privilege. It is a dead end.
There was one sentence in his speech I cheered for and which he should heed: "Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail."
74 Comments so far
Show AllHello everyone, I am a Pakistani Muslim and I am very appreciative of Obama's speech. The mere fact that he is the first American president to speak frankly goes a long way.
We live in paranoid times, and it is disappointing to see so much skepticism in all of you, including the original author. We live in times where we sit on our asses doing nothing, and think its cool to dissect and criticize anything good that comes our way. We seem to have it all figured out already!
None of you has a looking glass. So have some faith until Obama gives you a reason otherwise. I challenge any Arab leader to go quote from the Bible the way Obama's quoted from the Quran.
Obama acknowledged the Arab world's contributions in medieval times. Does any Arab ever acknowledge America's contributions to the modern day? We live and breathe technology created by the west...your cars, homes, clothes, digital music, communication and this very keyboard for typing. Freedom of vote, belief and speech is known in the west, but still absent in dictatorial mideast countries. If Americans are so bad, why do so many Muslims want to go and settle there?
Now Mr. Ali Abunimah, you listen to me. I am a Pakistani and your writing is clueless about the real Pakistani situation. The Pakistani Taliban are a direct fault of Pakistani incompetence, double-game and insincerity. Pakistani rulers have never kept the country's progress in mind...they've always played along happily to foreign demands, as long as their pockets are filled up with money. Why couldn't America control India or China in the same way? Simply because they're not dumb or clueless like the Pakistanis.
Pakistan's ISI (state within state) has happily played the double game by nurturing militants for use against Russia, India and Afghanistan. Now they're coming back to haunt. What's founded on lies ultimately shows itself, no matter how controlled it is kept. Even until last year, the Pakistani authorities were making a show of killing the Taliban but were actually conducting a sham operation.
It is not until now that the Pak army has whole heartedly and successfully killed out militants.
A lot of the world's strife is not the fault of America alone, but that of Russia and the Muslim world as well. No matter how false or oppressive the wars get, is it justified to bomb innocent children on train stations?
Now that an American president has stepped up and admitted his part of the guilt, why doesn't the Muslim world give him credit and admit their share of the wrong?
Thank you for your post, which I very much appreciate. As you say, why so much skepticism? It IS possible to make changes, and the skeptics who have posted here seem to me to be trying to one-up each other in their cynicism and their desire to seem too sophisticated and knowledgeable to believe that change is possible - so any attempts to make a real change in the situation aren't given any kind of hearing. Talk IS cheap, as I mentioned earlier - and change IS possible if we give it a solid unremitting try and refuse to allow ourselves to be easily discouraged by a broken agreement or any more "I am right and you are wrong" arguments. If each side tries their best to get the other side to win, and keeps persisting until a win-win situation develops, we can effect change.
I hope you are right. I would be very very happy if my cynicism turned out to be unfounded. But still... the facts, maam.
Joe
Your comments are reasonable. It is true that the United States is not the only source of violence and error in the world. Things are complicated. But we live here and we have a responsibility to look at our country with open eyes. We have been through the unprovoked attacks on Vietnam and all the misery that caused while we were lied to for years. We are wary of the warlike nature of our government.
I love the conciliatory elements in the speech, I really do, but the actions have to match. Why have we recently started bombing your country? Why are we beefing up troops in Afghanistan? Why are we building up mercenaries and not reducing our forces in Iraq? Why are we sending $30 billion a year to Israel?
Joe
Yes Joe I'm not saying that the US is a white-knight or angel. I'm aware of the atrocities it has committed...torture in Bagram prison, genocide of Iraqis, supply of chemical weapons to Saddam for use against Iranis, installation of dictators in strategic latin/asian countries, using Osama as an excuse to bomb countries without evidence, disguising invasion as "freedom", occupation of oil fields etc etc. The list can go on.
But a similar list would apply to the Muslim world, to colonial Europe, to the Russian KGB and the German Gestapo...all civilizations when on the rise commit plunder and murder. It is however rare that a "current" superpower would "fess up", as your president has done...and this is exactly why I appreciate Obama. He has made history by speaking the truth. Look around in modern history...no powerful head of state has ever confessed to his errors. Obama has.
Therefore I state that the rest of the world, especially Muslim countries, should also admit their crimes, crack down whole-heartedly (and not half-heartedly) on evil terror organizations.
Obama has set the right pace: it is time for everyone to come clean. Today's world has too much of "instant communication" to be tricked by double games.
Now to answer your question about why the US started bombing Pakistan. I agree that people in my country are very upset that the US was bombing us from across the border. But if you look closely, the reason is Pakistan's own incompetence and double-games. Our establishment secretly continued to give the terrorists a free hand, while simultaneously making a show of "anti-terror" war. Our military dictator thought that this way his survival would be ensured, because he would tell the US "Look I have this serious problem, which I am earnestly fighting...so back me up and keep the money pouring in".
Little did he know that this secret game would spread uncontrollably, and that the US would see through it.
That bastard dictator is now gone, and just recently, for the first time in years the Pak army has swiftly and decisively cleared our land of the coward and despicable Taliban.
So Obama's speech has this message...it is time for everyone to come clean. No more double games on anyone's part. The US cannot pretend to be a friend and cop of the world, while it behaves like a colonial power. It cannot aspire to high ideals while it backs up genocide. Similarly, the Arabs cannot claim their right to peace if they continue to harbor guerila militants targetting innocent civilians. They cannot call America a friend in the face, and enemy in its back.
I think this is an exciting start...we are living in interesting times. Perhaps, history is in the making? :)
The line where he stated no nation can elevate another higher than another and survive is historically true; however, as he seems to be one more Imperial President, it is safe to assume he exempted the US from that analogy. He has stated more than once we are the most powerful militarily, the most humane, yada, yada--He has been to the mountain my friends, and drank the Koolaide. Cairo was turned into a police state lock down for his visit and any who would have protested were locked up or ordered to stay inside. All present were carefully chosen so it was all staged, and in that aspect, it was no different than what was done for Howdy Doody Bush when he took his show on the road. This is not the change we were anticipating.
It is important to remember, that America (the USA) was not only founded "...fighting an empire..." but from its very beginning until its completion from sea to shining sea ON ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE on a scale never seen before or since ... Did the growing accumulation of European immigrants Do Unto the Native Populations as they would have had the Native Populations do unto them????? i don't think so ... it was through overwhelming firepower against a nearly defenceless collection of native tribal nations ... sound familiar???
if this is not recognized in a global forum by our leaders and some form of an APOLOGY made, nothing is going to work and the unhealed past will be doomed to repeat again and again until the nations that sourced and created the USA will fade into unrecognizability as they are absorbed ...
the modern world started in the late 1500's not after WWII ... and injustices were well underway long before the first slaves arrived from Africa on the "white man's" ships ...
Peace and Love and Understanding bring Peace and Peace brings Love and Love Understanding ....
Nice article.
May Obama detractors appreciate a great, progressive speech unfettered with impractical suggestions about how to implement policy.
And Cairo was an outstanding locale- Arabs knowing that
if the US wants to Interrogate someone they turn them over to Jordan,
if the US wants to Torture someone they turn them over to Syria, and,
if the US wants to Disappear someone off the face of the earth they turn them over to Egypt.
Obama's message of Hope was clear to Arabs everywhere.
Here we go again.
Speeches like that won't fly over Ali Abunimah's head. He is very connected to the region, and understands the suffering and feelings of the average person on the street in Gaza, Cairo, Amman or Ramallah.
It is utterly disappointing that Obama had to burden his royal self by flying thousands of miles to deliver the same old broken record. He could have done it from Chicago or Washington DC, and saved us, tax payers, the jet fuel expense of travels to the Mid East.
Unfortunately, he took to the stage a wolf dressed as a sheep --- Welcome the new Crusaders! His mission was to bridge gaps and clear misunderstandings between Moslems and the US. A very small gesture like visiting Gaza and giving kids some candy or medicine or food, would've accomplished much more with the Muslim world. And what is up with repeating another broken record, "....blah blah blah we will learn to use diplomacy in the future..." REALLY? Let us see in the last 20 years alone: Iraq 1 (1990) and Iraq the sequel (2003), Panama, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Balkans ... just to name the overt operations, who knows how many other covert operations. When are we going to learn to use diplomacy? Obama tried to tell the truth, but unfortunately, it all sounded like the old lies from years past
Ye, talk IS cheap. However, NOT talking is lethal, and until I see differently, it seems to me that President Obama is the only person who has at least tried to reach out and mend these long-lived gaping wounds. We have to start somewhere; why not here and why not now? It's easy to criticise and pick one another apart, or endlessly parse speeches for hidden meanings and contradictions - God knows we had enough opportunities for that during the Bush years, and I certainly availed myself of all those chances. Maybe we can start by actually working to forge a consensus on these issues, and maybe we can build something that will work for everyone. I don't know if that's possible or likely, but wouldn't it be great altogether if we at least give it a solid try, and stick with it until we get somewhere instead of flinging up our hands the first time someone violates an agreement or breaks their word? We are human, not perfect - but if we don't try now, then when?
Poor Obama, seems he is trying to manifest Bush's failed promise of being a "uniter, not a divider". But by trying to be all things to all people--or in trying to make all things equal, you not only please no one, you duck important confrontations and realities that must be addressed--not swept under the rug to fester. This is why Obama is a coward because instead af embracing the opportune moment to shift the paradigm, he falls back on the manufactured perceptions to frame the way forward and that, my friend, is a dead end.
Gail M. says, "...but wouldn't it be great altogether if we at least give it a solid try, and stick with it until we get somewhere instead of flinging up our hands the first time someone violates an agreement or breaks their word? We are human, not perfect - but if we don't try now, then when?"
I agree that talking is a good idea, but if what Obama is talking about is continuing the "peace process" that has achieved nothing but preventing justice for the Palestinians while enabling Israel to continue to steal the Palestinian land and water resources without even slowing down, then it's time to change the conversation.
Stuart Littlefield, in his piece "Convenient Crutch: Forget 'Negotiations, Mr. Obama," on http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
today, provides an excellent account of what "talking" has achieved for the Palestinians. "Negotiations" while Israel has its jackboot firmly on the Palestinian neck is about as likely to succeed as "negotiations" between a rapist and his victim as he holds a knife to her throat.
It is time to call in the police, if only there were any. If Obama is serious about reconciliation and justice, he will cut off U.S. aid to Israel ($15 million tax dollars per day).
You are right - it IS time to change the conversation, and keep changing the conversations until some things shift for both parties. Both sides will have to make unwelcome, scary, painful concessions that challenge their most deeply-held convictions, and do it over and over again until something is created that will stick. It may take longer than we can imagine, be harder than we can conceive of and hold enormous terror for everyone. The hardest thing in the world to do is to build agreements, I think - but, God, can we at least start, impossible though it may seem to us now?
"Both sides will have to make unwelcome, scary, painful concessions..."
That is like saying that the African-American slaves or the Native Americans will have to make concessions..
Gail M. says, "Both sides will have to make unwelcome, scary, painful concessions that challenge their most deeply-held convictions, and do it over and over again."
I think we may agree on quite a bit, but I'm not sure what you think the Palestinians should have to "concede." The Israelis have stolen their land and water resources, have starved and murdered them, jailed their legally elected representatives, and continue to drive them from their homes and kidnap them. The Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal.
The homemade rockets of the Palestinians fall onto land that has been stolen from them. Resisting a crime is not a crime. For example, if a convenience store owner shoots the robber who is trying to shoot him, it is not a crime. Those Israelis who are injured by the Palestinian rockets are injured in the course of carrying out a robbery.
Are you suggesting that because Israel is so powerful, the Palestinians have to "concede" their rights as human beings?
A good resource for an accounting of Israel's day-to-day atrocities in Palestine is the International Middle East Media Center, imemc.org .
Once again I have to agree with petrkrop that the highly unbalanced and coercive situation is not conducive to real dialogue, much as I would wish for dialogue.
I am sorry, but the terror that we feel in this country cannot compare with that of folks living in the places we are invading and bombing. Our terrors are economic, spiritual, moral. We sit here with many problems such as unemployment and being bled dry by our government and bankers, having some of our dear ones deployed as soldiers in harms way. But that does not compare with the death and destruction our country is causing to vast numbers of civilians in the Moslem world as they live in their ancestral homes, not having set out anywhere to kill anyone.
"Conversation" implies that one side is not holding a gun on the other. The shifts and "unwelcome, scary, painful concessions" are not likely to come from the gun-holder. The gun must be put down. The conversation is bizarre and has a Joker quality otherwise.
Joe
I completely agree that the gun must be put down.
What really chaps my hide is that indigenous Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews had been living in Palestine, quite harmoniously, until a bunch of European Zionists decided they would sell the idea of colonizing Palestine to the British government and did so nearly 100 years ago. They sold it as an exercise in imperialism. "Let us be your agents of empire to keep the Arabs in line" or words to that effect. The result was that not only the Palestinian Muslims and Christians were disposessed, but the indigenous Palestinian Jews became second class citizens, too uncouth for the incoming Europeans, and then, when they finally got organized by joining with the Sephardic Jews invited to leave their homes by Arab countries in retaliation for the disposession of Palestianians, they became more royalist than the king, more viciously anti-Arab than anyone. Israel is a relic, perhaps the last relic, of European colonialism.
Good points, we can blame Lord Balfour and the British Empire for this; The British Empire had no right to grant a 3rd party the land that did not belong to them in the first place. We can also blame them for installing the House of Saud, and the Hashemite Kingdon of Jordan, and by arbitrarily drawing the boundaries of the ME.
Of course the modern version of the english-speaking Empire is now largely to blame
Obama says, "...Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build...."
The Palestinians in Gaza, living in tents on the rubble of their homes that Israel destroyed in the recent Gaza Ghetto massacre, are trying to build homes out of home-made mud bricks; Israel won't allow them to have cement. Or supplies to repair the bombed-out water systems. Or the tons of humanitarian relief supplies that are rotting in the hot sun on the Egyptian side of the Gaza crossing.
Obama says: "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding.
I thought we had a long, bloody civil war to end slavery. I thought Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years by South Africa for leading violent resistance to apartheid. The civil rights struggle in the U.S. was nonviolent, but it succeeded because at that time the media actually reported what was happening, and Americans were shocked by what they saw on television.
This won't work for the Palestinians, because though they continue to hold non-violent protests constantly, the IDF continue to kidnap and murder them, with almost the total support of the Israelis, who REJOICE at the suffering of the Palestinians as they continue, non-stop, to steal Palestinian land and water resources. The media does not report on what is happening to the Palestinians, and there are no "ideals at the center of Israel's founding" that Palestinians can "insist" on, since Israel is an apartheid state
Obama says: It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed, that's how it is surrendered...." Oh, I get it now. Palestinian homemade rockets, bad. Israeli drones and bombers, good. U.S. drones blowing up wedding parties or sleeping children, excellent.
The lecturing of the Palestinians about addressing violence annoyed me too in it's black vs white simplistic notions of moral correctness, considering should the Palestinians lay down in front of the tanks, the tanks would roll right over them. The Zionists would claim the Palestinians were terrorists and Obama wouldn't even acknowledge it even occurred.
Petrkrop - good comment summarizing some of the severe distortions of history in Obama's statements. I believe Obama is too smart to believe what he is saying. It is sad that people who do not follow events may buy into his shoddy analysis of the Palestinians' plight.
Joe
"I believe Obama is too smart to believe what he is saying."
Then you must be saying that he is corrupt and immoral?
He speaks of peace, but sends contracts out for bidding regarding future needs in Guantanamo, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a successful politician and thus probably amoral, but perhaps telling himself he is serving a higher goal. I cannot know his motivations. I can only evaluate what he does and says. I do not think he is treating his foot soldier constituency with honesty and respect.
Joe
Yes, it's completely fallacious to compare the indigenous uprising to end slavery in the US and the movement of Palestinians to secure their own homeland. If there was a comparison to be made between Palestinians and US history one might need to think about the wars the US carried out to secure the West. But then that would bring up the sore subject of ethnic cleansing. And I don't think Obama has the backbone to draw a connection.
weddings and drones....
Call me a cynic, but I assume the wedding party attacks are by design intent ono sending the message, "the US will kill your entire family".... Over the decades, how many US trained Death Squads have carried out similar tactics of going into a village and killing everyone? Pogrom anyone?
Cynics are sometimes more in touch with truth than those who engage in wishful thinking and comforting mythologies.
Demoralizing a population is one of the tactics of conquest. Keep the people in mourning and tending the burns and amputations of the injured family members. Show them, as you say, that even their babies are fair game.
For that purpose we manufacture napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorous. Those weapons are designed only to savage human bodies. They have no other "legitimate" military purpose. There are no accidents either. We make long term decisions over courses of months and years to design, develop, order, pay for and deploy these weapons. The injuries they cause are by choice, not by chance.
Obama's speech said nothing about stopping our violence against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and by proxy Palestine and possibly Iran. Respecting Islam is a pretty hollow promise while we continue massive attacks on Muslims in their own lands. It makes Islam into some abstract concept divorced from those actual humans who were born to it.
Joe
You're a cynic.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obama said something? He made a speech?
I don't pay attention to any of that propaganda stuff anymore -- I'm too busy reading the news and learning of the degenerate things that Obama has done.
Zionist terrorists were in Palestine killing villagers and British soldiers before the Nazi party even existed.
On the other hand, I personally knew some Jews who settled in Palestine in the twenties and report they were treated very well by their Palestinian neighbors. Perhaps they were idealizing, but they report continual close and friendly relationships with the Palestinians. I wish the Jews involved were still alive so I could find out how more recent developments influenced these friendships.
Anyway the point is that there is nothing intrinsic in Palestinians and Jews that prevents them living peacefully side by side.
Joe
I'm not surprised. That region had a variety of ethnicities all working together to throw off the yoke of the Turks.
Don't let the lying Zionists tell you otherwise.
True, but the "movers and shakers" (read "rippers and runners") on the planet find historical fact to be an inconvenience.
excellent analysis from Ali Abunimah, especially ...
"It is also undeniable," the president said, "that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation."
Suffered in pursuit of a homeland? The pain of dislocation? They already had a homeland. They suffered from being ethnically cleansed and dispossessed of it and prevented from returning on the grounds that they are from the wrong ethno-national group. Why is that still so hard to say?"
i also found obama's remarks audacious - duplicitous, enveloped in the language of doublespeak.
if obama was sincere about US commitment to peace in the region, he would have made the comments in gaza and he would have promised suspension of military aid to israel - in addition to a full accounting by an international tribunal/court of the israeli war crimes that occurred in the palestinian occupied territories.
oh that's right, the US isn't a signatory to the ICC; and egypt, torturer - violator of human rights, is a recipient of US military aid.
i would have preferred to hear a strong US commitment to peace (joining the ICC, eliminating arms sales to nations that violate human rights, a detailed acknowledgment of zionist atrocities).
instead commentary about victims of the holocaust ?
if i was an iranian, i would not be reassured by obama's comments. it's true he noted the US sponsored coup of 1953, but he also said...
"For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations."
no where in his comments did he address israel's nuclear arsenal, it's air strikes on it's neighbors - and the instability sustained by this nuclear armed client state of US empire.
in the past, israel has been shielded from the consequences of it's military aggression by US protection (bought and paid for by israeli/american sponsors) in the UN.
israel will strike iran. obama's comments today suggest that obama would support israel's actions as defensive, if israel struck iranian nuclear targets - the same rationale bush used when he invaded iraq. but, how will obama react to russian and chinese responses to their client state (iran) being bombed by the lunatic fringe in israel ?
nothing has changed, the US continues it's imperial ambitions - playing dice w/ all of our fates. yes, netanyahu and his merry band are crazy, paranoid, shortsighted and will blow up the world in a perverted act of desperation.
i'm betting some sunny morning in tel aviv, netanyahu/lieberman will throw a 7 or an 11 and decide to send the israeli air force on a mission.
it will be impossible at that point for america to disengage itself from it's client state, the sooner we disengage from israel - the safer americans/earthlings will be overall.
c'est la vie...
...peace...
Obama has shown that he has no intention of rectifying any injustice whatsoever committed by the US, its torture agencies, its armies & airplanes & drones, its outposts, or anything -- instead, there is the Serious Look with the pledge not to torture (but if we do, we won't let anyone prosecute us either) or to announce that the colonizers seizing land & destroying those who won't abandon it "must stop", but those who are already there, not so much.
socialist your so right. the jews claimed exclusive rights in the aftermath of ww2
as if the other mass murders were meaningless and israel has used this to perpetrate
the modern equivalent of what the nazi's did in ww2 ! israel is as scary as pakistan is
today with the fourth largest army 300 nuclear warheads and a fightwing crazy belligerent
government! and before you zionists land on me i'm non practising.
A few observations -
The likelihood of permanent war for at least the next decade in Israel/Palestine is high. The likelihood of concrete steps towards a viable, legitimate 2-state solution is low. The likelihood of a 1 - state solution with full sufferage, right of return, etc for Palestinians, is orders of magnitude lower than that of God lighting up another burning bush. The author is dreaming. The Israeli ruling elites already have a 1-state concept in the works. They call it "Eretz Israel" and it includes all of the occupied territories. Whatever they say to the world and to the US privately or publicly, this is their objective. If they are content to spend generations on this project, they are also unwilling to give it up, ever.
Various Israeli leaders have openly stated these things on many occasions, since before the founding of Israel. For the Zionist elite, nothing has changed.
If the Palestinians want peace, they will have to accept injustice. It's not fair and not right, but it is probably inevitable. It has been happening to indigenous people since the dawn of Empire. Suicide bombs and missile attacks will not change it. They'll only make it worse. Zionism isn't anti-Arab or anti-Muslim per se; the Arab, muslim Palestinians just happened to be unlucky enough to be in Palestine when the Zionists decided to "re-take" the place. Only US/European action can contain Israel and it doesn't seem likely to be forthcoming.
This is leaving aside the rather weighty question of whether there is any ancestral connection between the Zionists (mostly Ashkenazi Jews from Europe) and the original inhabitants of what is now Israel. Do the Ashkenazis have any special claim or title to the land, outside of the incomprehensible, scriptural "promises" of their totem, pagan god yahweh?
Peace will be a terribly painful pill to swallow. Will it be worse than 1400 dead in Gaza?
"If the Palestinians want peace, they will have to accept injustice. It's not fair and not right, but it is probably inevitable."
You may turn out to be right on this. I'm not so sure that the Palestinians have a choice though, between "eternal war for justice" and "peace with injustice"
I grant you that the Israelis are hell bent on expansion now, but even if today's Palestinian leaders agreed to whatever Israel wants, that would not, in my view, end the matter. Leaders cannot force their people to accept the unaceptable. Any temporary bargain based on injustice will be broken by those who are unhappy with it. Palestinians will have many unhappy people amongst them.
So in place of a square deal, it comes down to a war of attrition, and by my count, I see many more Palestinians and Muslims in that part of the world than Jews. I really don't understand how the Israelis think that US money and guns is going to change that, that is if they are even thinking that far ahead.
The way it is going, Israels may either run out of bullets, or be murdered in their sleep
The Zionists will never give them peace, no matter what concessions.
Why would you think otherwise?
Resistance is the only option for the Palestinians, and given that Israel is an illegal and immoral invasion, like the French in WWII, they have every right to resist.
They won't run out of bullets for awhile. Then there are the 200 nuclear weapons at various stages of deliverability. A Palestinian demographic explosion seems likely as you point out, but it will be no benefit to the Palestinians. Even if they somehow prevent a regional nuclear holocaust and somehow ascend to majority status and political rule the only way they can do this demographically is by overpopulating to the point where Israel/Palestine is ecologically destroyed and far worse than unsustainable.
Maybe "God" will intervene in the end, in the form of the collapse of nature in the region, followed by de-populating resource wars, famine and drought. Then Eretz Israel won't be worth fighting over.
_“I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims”_
Did I tell you, my Dad’s family were/are Muslims?
_“Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president. But my personal story is not so unique.”_
Oh, my God, can you beat a dead horse?
_“…that is why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August.”_
Oh, really? I think there's some conflicting info out there.
_“…Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful….”_
But denying the Armenian Genocide after Obama pledged to the ANCA he would acknowledge the Genocide, what do we call that decision? Dishonest, cowardly, callous? Pragmatic?
_"...Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build...."_
Uh, right now they are just trying to survive. This isn't an example of the Israeli July War 2006 that you supported against Lebanon, where the US comes in afterward and waves "reconstruction" dollars in an attempt to shape Lebanese politics. oh, wait....hmm.
_“…I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons….”_
Ronald Reagan said the same thing. Is this Lee Hamilton and Brzezinski
_“…we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's Interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations…”_
Liaison’s to clear street for American boot/policy …
_“…too many Muslim communities there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasising such investments within my country…. a new corps of business volunteers….Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organisations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life….”_
Help the world pursue a better life: institutional, technocratic democratization programs based on the US dollar
_“…It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share…”_
Ironically, it is easier to project our image of what would be a better engagement while insisting we can’t do it allow. Therefore, it is up to you, and if you don’t engage with Obama and follow his Voice Corps movement, you are said to be blaming others when you refuse to accept the role of the benevolent liberator and peacemaker.
Remember, “you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world….” and by the way, if you forgot, “we now seek a broader engagement”, it isn’t just about “oil and gas in this part of the world”… but it’s up to you to follow America’s lead! Because “the people of the world can live together in peace.”
a new corps of business volunteers . . .
Start running.
Good points, another point to contextualize WWII. The Holocaust was not the only atrocity committed during the war years. It was a uniquely systematic and industrial killing. As Americans, we are reminded of the Holocaust quite often and for good reasons and bad. However, as Americans we are not supposed to acknowledge the suffering of the Soviet Union (evil commies). Estimates of well over 25 million Soviet people died as a result of the Nazi invasion. Well over half were civilians. More people died in the battle of Stalingrad, than the US lost in the entire war.
To be fair to both sides, the Red Army committed many atrocities in conquering Eastern Europe. Thousands of German, Polish, Hungarian etc. women were brutally raped, civilians were tortured and killed by the Red Army. The largely British effort of firebombing Dresden in the last months of the war was pure revenge on civiians where well over 100,000 died in the inferno.
I think it is time to set the record straight about WWII
Historians have explained the anger that lay at the source of the horrible treatment of German civilians as the Red Army entered German territories and of the way so many demobilized German soldiers ended up taken away to Siberia from Germany. The advancing Red Army troops had been pursuing the Germans who had blitzkrieged their homeland: the Soviet fighters encountered village after village, farm after farm, that the retreating Germans had laid waste, taking out their vindictive rage on the civilians in their path--raping and murdering and burning their homes and livestock. There are testimonies of the frustration and sorrow of the Soviet soldiers as they found further victims of the fleeing German armies and carried within them the live memories of the horrors of Stalingrad and other cities.
Of course I am not justifying any of it, but it has become the favourite fall-back of neofascists and good liberals in the west to repeat only the stories of Red Army violations of innocent Germans (who at the time were not considered innocent by Soviets or many allies) mainly to prove how barbaric the Communists were. Meanwhile, we were conveniently taught to forget Dresden, Hamburg, and other fire-bombed cities --the German Guernicas-- wantonly destroyed by our British, Canadian and U.S. "war heroes" from the air, and the Eisenhower directive that let hundreds if not thousands of captured German soldiers starve and rot in POW camps.
Meanwhile, the Austrians have never been really held accountable for their role in the Nazi horror, nor have they had to pay reparations to the Jews or anyone else. Western history has cast them as "unwilling collaborators of Hitler" probably because after the war parts of a partitioned Austria were occupied by the Red Army and they wanted to court them away from Communism. We are conveniently taught to forget that Hitler and many leading Nazis were Austrian and that a majority of Austrians welcomed the Germans with open arms in 1938. Documentary films don't lie - there was just too much enthusiasm on the faces of those people massed along the avenues when German tanks moved in at the Anschluss.
--Sorry about going of on this tangent. It is relevant in that it illustrates the ways in which history is distorted and manipulated, just as the destruction of the European Jews has been manipulated by the Zionists and for the convenience of the western countries that refused to lift a finger to save the Jews, happy as they were that Hitler's people were finally going to wipe out communism for the good of the west. Israel, a project dominated or at least hijacked by the right-wing Zionists, is a historical problem. Several courageous Israeli revisionist historians have deconstructed the mythology and are calling for a radical re-examination of the right of the Zionist state to continue to exist under the present conditions and in its present (distorted) form.
This is a great comment hoodeet, rich in detail and containing a much-needed warning. Fact is that wars spawn all kinds of atrocities from all sides. Certain atrocities are selected, memorialized and used. Others are forgotten. It is fertile ground for manipulation and for keeping emotional pots boiling to achieve purposes unrelated to the original situation.
The latest example is the World Trade Center.
Joe
I hear you, we could go on and on on this tangent. The Israeli scholars who have addressed these issues include Ilan Pappe and Schlomo Sand and a few others.
Speaking of Austrians who have not been held accountable: Da Governator of Kah-Lee-Foh-Nee-Yah is a good sart.
Actually, it's pronounced: Kolly-forn-ya. Und Gauleiter Schwarzenegger und Kollyfornya haben kein Geld.
Hoodeet--
As a historian, I second that. Excellent post.
Did Ben Rhodes (MFA in Fiction Writing, NYU'02) write Obama's speech?
older link showing the Lee Hamilton connections to Obama:
"A source close to Hamilton explained that he had a long relationship with Obama, and noted that many former Hamilton staffers had gone on to be key staffers and foreign policy advisors to Obama.
...Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes, who wrote speeches... policy advisor for Hamilton., ...Obama's top foreign-policy advisor Denis McDonough; who worked for Hamilton on the staff of the House International Relations Committee, Obama Mideast advisor Daniel Shapiro, who worked for Hamilton as his professional staff member on the Middle East., Dan Restrepo, ..Center for American Progress who worked for Hamilton on the Hill; and Mara Rudman, who worked for Hamilton...."
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/15/the_secret_dinner_with_obama_you_haven_t_heard_abou...
Heard of the Partnership to Secure America? Look at their Advisory Board.
Here's Rhodes old resume, early 2007 before he began writing FT for Obama:
http://blog.psaonline.org/author/benjamin/
Mr. Abunimah pretty much nails it. As predicted, the discourse from Emperor O'bomber is more sophisticated, articulate and has more of a smiley face on it, than the previous idiot emperor. However, it rings hollow, only the most naive or uninformed will take it at face value.
Besides, Obama cannot do much, as Congress is bought and paid for by Israel and its allies (AIPAC, AEI, JINSA et al.) and everyone but the American people know it.
"only the most naive or uninformed will take it at face value"
That's what they count on, and it works every time.
"only the most naive or uninformed will take it at face value"
***
ie, the U.S. electorate, which is the actual target audience for this speech.
Uninformed = conservatives.
Naive = liberals.
Which are more dangerous? You can educate a conservative.
Nixon = Reagan = Bush 1 = Clinton = Bush 2 = Obama
...and Chomsky recently took the lineage back to the turn to the twentieth century, so in answer to MA G at 12:37:
"now, in 2009, we get to endlessly parse obama double speak like we used to do with bush baby's" ...
Yes: until what, 25%? of the population of each city, with 50%? of the other citizens sitting behind them in solidarity at council, can articulate the argument as well as Abunimah does here, along with unflinching composure - then we will practice the argument.
The most poignant "factual" here for me being:
" "resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed". He warned them that "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered." (Note: the last suicide attack targeting civilians by a Palestinian occurred in 2004)" '- "I'll Bombya Too", 6/4/09
Last USA bombing of civilians: 5/20/09, or was that 5/4/09, or both?
Another theme I'm emphasizing is the one of "lecturing" and "giving lessons". For me it was at the town hall style debates that the School Teacher character came out in it's full force: demeaning the audience with elitist "this is what you're thinking", "this is what you're feeling" statements. Regardless if one considers some of Bombya's statements demeaning, the recasting him as a Lecturer will help wake some people up from their messianic Obamaphoria and get with the reality of the argument.
It is not necessary to divine Obama's intentions - he may be utterly sincere and I believe he is.
No, he's not. He's Maximus in the film "Gladiator", telling Marcus Aurelius that Rome is the light of the world, bringing civilization to the savages. He is the "enlightened conqueror" killing you for your own good and taking your possessions because what's the point of just leaving them lying around?
Talk is cheap.
Predictable moral posturing blather for the clueless and stern scolding lecture for the victim from the hollow vessel.
huh
huh, what?
I was talking about Obama, the yawn.
ok vern - got it now
I just made the mistake of reading comments on Huffington Post and the fawning over Obama's speech is enough to make you nauseous. This rebuttal by Abuminah is outstanding in it's concision and clarity. While I Obama probably has more empathy for Palestinians than any president since Carter, there isn't much he can do to change US policy with the likes of Emmanuel and Biden close at hand.
Obama chose Rahm, what does that say about your messiah? Couldn't Obama just fire Rham and the rest of his inner circle (if they are controlling him). Looks like your messiah is very weak willed.
I'm sick of Obama being desecrated.
Only after intense vetting was BO selected to be part of Rahm's team.
Hilarious.
Say anything bad about Israel or the scum-bag zionists on the Huffington Post, and you are history.
Been there. Most of the liberal sites are exactly like that. Expected from the conservative sites, of course. One of the reasons I despise liberals, like Clinton and Obama. I can't stand listening to them any more than I could stand listening to Bush.
Yep, the only difference is the cheap hollow rhetoric. R= neo=fascist imperialism; D= neo-fascist imperialism Lite (TM).
But he's the one who picked Biden and Emanuel. If I hadn't known he was a disaster before that, I'd certainly have realized it then.
Abunimah is spot on as always. Its amazing that Obama managed to trash Hamas and its use of 'violence' while blithely side-stepping Israeli violence completely. Israeli violence against the Palestinians doesnt not need to be overstated. Its an order of magnitude higher than what Hamas is capable of. So much for his speech. Empty rhetoric is an art form in Washington.
oh boy
now, in 2009, we get to endlessly parse obama double speak like we used to do with bush baby's
as noted in the article, the bullshit now is delivered with more aplomb, but the hate and death still rise off it like the dew on the morning grass
the turncoat vassal state of egypt - hanging on to power as they do with their torture and mass murder of civilians is an apropriate stage for the nwo shill obama to do his magic
he has reaffirmed the war against islam with his meaningless rhetoric about violence and blah blah blah
the united states is the most violent state in the world followed by its mini-me zion
for obama to be lecturing on violence is insanely funny in a cruel and bizare way
they should have booed him off the stage when he did the poor little isreal history lesson
talk about chutzpah
obama is a shill for nwo and as such he is a bought and paid for talking head
same as bill o'fuckball or sean hannity
his client solely are the corporations who own his sorry ass
ps. i find it odd that he still can't produce his birth certificate
they are probably in the same box as bushbasby's service records
all in all another bad day for the arabs and islam
He is a shill...a shill exactly. Now off to france where style preempts all. can hardly wait. yea ra ra
"for obama to be lecturing on violence is insanely funny in a cruel and bizare way" The professorial pomposity from someone orchestrating war crimes gets close to the Kissinger level of pure nerve.
Joe
His birth certificate was posted on his website last year. I saw it. I don't understand the fuss being made about it, though. One of his parents was American, therefore he's American no matter where he was born.
Rainborowe
well said, I agree