Obama Addresses Gaza: He's Fired Up, Ready to Go
Just as I thought, the President-Elect was holding back so he could fully address the issue after Jan. 20.
"The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me, and after January 20th I'll have plenty to say about the issue."
Obama said he was "not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign" and that "starting at the beginning of our administration, we're going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East."
Read between the lines. He is going to engage big-time, and not piece meal either. This is good news. (Note, he addresses the the loss of life in Gaza first, before mentioning Israel. That is how it should be considering that 98% of the deaths are Palestinians but, nonetheless, this is not how the issue is usually addressed in Washington, neither by Bush or by the Democratic Congress.

















MJ: Do we dare believe that a real human being will be president in two weeks? (Tears falling down face....)
January 6, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bet an egg cream that O!'s going with his pal SarkO!
January 6, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only if Carla is coming too.
January 6, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, finally a step in the right direction. A very small step, but a step.
January 6, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
encouraging news, especially when I had been letting the pessimism I have learned over too many years control my expectations for the next administration
January 6, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
January 6, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Call me old-fashioned but "bais"--as in not objective, has an agenda, etc--matters. Please note the background on SholomA's source, Mr. Jeffrey Goldberg. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg
He served in the IDF. And another journalist described Goldberg's reporting thusly:
"Goldberg's article has been criticized, however, as "a J-school nightmare: bad sources, compromised sources, unacknowledged uncertainties, and the whole text spun through with an alarmist rhetoric that is now either laughable or nauseating, depending on your mood."
Footnote 11 from source above.
Finally, is Jeffrey Goldberg in Gaza? I thought the IDF was keeping journalists out? This is really like Donald Rumsfeld quoting Donald Rumsfeld as justification for Donald Rumsfeld's actions.
January 6, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, the word is "bias."
January 6, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mythbuster, can you read? There is a link in the post you pontificate about, you know... Here's a quote for those too lazy to click on a link:
Khan Younis is in Gaza, so Goldberg was there before. And he doesn't like the closure of Gaza for journalists too, so at least you two agree on something.
January 6, 2009 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will be too late to save Hamas.
January 6, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
you, sir, are a moral coward that would sign away your dignity and self-determination for any crappy deal offered you by your oppressors.
January 6, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. I would. Jews have lived under oppression for 2000 years without ant deal and have survived. They took a crappy deal in 1948, Palestinians didn't. Who is better off today?
January 6, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's truly rich...
me: you would sign away your dignity and self-determination
you: yes I would
January 6, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That "crappy" deal in 1948 gave most of the viable land of Palestine to foreign immigrants who were a minority, and even then the Israelis accepted the deal only as a stepping stone to greater expansionism.
January 20, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't thinks so, sorry. Obama will be Clinton all over again. His picks are thus far nothing more than slightly more moderate Zionists like Dennis Ross.
January 6, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but the position of the US in the ME is much more precarious now than in 1993-2000. America is a nation state that practices realpolitique. We will bend to meet the times.
January 6, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we practiced realpolitique, we would have stopped backing Israel long ago. The whole thesis of Walt-Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" is that when it comes to Israel, our own interests have taken a back seat.
January 20, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh my, the unbridled optimism. Engagement is needed now. Now. Evil does not wait for political opportunism... or it shouldn't.
Anybody see that pic in Time magazine of the soldier lighting Hanukkah candles while his tank awaits? Just a bunch of bitter dessert-dwellers clinging to their guns and religion, eh??
January 6, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tea leaf reading is fun and we must agree that these are an optimistic pattern. I eagerly wait for Jan 20.
But if Obama really tries to affect a cease fire before Israel is ready, he will face an incredible firestorm. The republicans for sure and Aipac will be working its thousand lobbyists to turn Democrats in Congress against Obama. Let us not expect too much.
January 6, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry. Israel needs less than two weeks.
January 6, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
two weeks to remind the world what a merciless bully it is
and then it will be in the exact same position it was before, with millions of Palestinians demanding their basic human rights from within their apartheid cage, some violently resisting
remember, not everyone is the moral coward you are
January 6, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interest in real news?
Download Livestation
Al Jazeera English actually has reporters on both sides of the border and experts who know what they are talking about
http://www.livestation.com/aje
Funny how Al Jazeera's correspondents and commentators speak flawless English with upper class Brit accents while on CNN, the Arabs all seem to have thick accents..some you can scarcely understand..
January 6, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you ever see that video "Outfoxed" about how Fox Noise manipulates the news? They find the most annoying and squirrelly liberal guest they can and pit him/her against some all-American dude or attractive female. Going by images alone, you want to agree with the "conservative." CNN is playing the same game with Arabs.
January 6, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ: I am still waiting for an answer as to whether the George Orwell quote on your blog (which Andrew Sullivan annointed the quote of the day, linking to your piece) was lifted from Glenn Greenwald's piece - which, not incidentally, sought to make the same point you referred to in your title. Lifting a quote someone else uses in order to make the exact same point without attribution, while not outright plagiarism, is at the least intellectually sleazy.
If I am wrong about this, I apologize. But I would appreciate an answer.
January 6, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope for a change in American policy, and, like Mythbuster, believe that the U.S. will play "realpolitic" and stop it's wildly irrational support of Israel in the face of that nation's behavior and the impending shift of power in the middle east from western-controlled nations to middle eastern soverign nations.
Sadly, at times I fail to see much difference between the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the creation of the Gaza Ghetto -- (perhaps the difference is that the Israeli's have not yet created concentration camps).
A sad turn of events for a people's history.
January 6, 2009 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
If engaging "big-time" means Obama will push for two-states, he will be washing his hands of the whole affair 8 years from now. Sorry to say, but two-states ranks right up there with the best of mythology.
January 6, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
but you're all missing the funniest line! "just as I thought, the president-elect is holding back..."
MJ and his ilk have ALWAYS thought they knew exactly what progressive leftist best-thing-since-sliced-bread Barack Obama was going to do. I think Obama's proven that MJ knows nothing. so far the PE has been a complete centrist who voted for FISA, kept Robert Gates as SecDef, and hired the entire Clinton White House back. that's change I can believe in!
you people just really don't get it. these people, these Palestinians that you care for so much: they hate you. yes, you! not just me, or Sarah Palin, or George Bush: YOU. yes, even you there, wearing your cafepress "Zionism is Racism" t-shirt...and you, chanting "Death to Israel!" at your little protest march in Berkeley...you are infidels and therefore you must die.
read the freaking Hamas charter, and tell me if you really want to be on their side. I sure don't, and thank God our government doesn't either. sorry to disappoint.
January 6, 2009 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're quite correct. Apparently none of those who criticize Israel have read the Hamas' charter, or don't respect the Palestinians enough to believe what they say. Congratulations for stating the truth.
January 7, 2009 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I sure don't want to be on your side. You and your ilk have destroyed my country. Why would I care would any Bush voting rightwing neocon Palin-Giuliani type has to say about anything? I don't. And the next 8 years will be your worst nightmare. Just watch.
January 7, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure you intend no intellectual dishonesty by suggesting that all Palestinians are Hamas, and that Israel is currently assaulting only Hamas.
January 7, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"98% of the deaths are Palestinians"
Uh, that's not true at all. Going back over the full history of the conflict you'll find that the deaths on both sides are about equal, with a bit more on the Israeli side. Remember that 6,000 Israelis were killed in the 1948 war, and there have been many more since. Thank God Israel has a strong military, or the Israeli deaths would have been in the tens of thousands. And don't forget that if Hamas wins, millions of Jews will die. While if Israel wins, then it's just a few Palestinians.
January 7, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a link to a good article by Khaled Abu-Toameh in the Jerusalem Post which pretty much illustrates how the idea of a unique "Palestinian" national identity is myth. Yes, all the people that people call "Palestinian" hate Israel, but hatred of some group or nation is not enough to create a sense of national identity. For example, both Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq hate Israel but that doesn't prevent them from going at each other. Europeans also share an antisemitic tradition but they fought some really bloody wars among themselves as well.
This also shows the line that MJ is always pushing which says that the number one obsession of the entire Arab and even Muslim world are the problems of the Palestinians is also a myth.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167283398&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
January 7, 2009 5:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
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