Barack Hussein Obama is Human
Barack Hussein Obama is human--he is also a young and ambitious politician that likely already has his eye on a second presidential term. This all may sound self-evident, but listening to the expectations Americans and much of the world have for him, makes one wonder.
Seeing what Israel did in Gaza over the past three weeks--as if in a rush to complete their crime against humanity before President-elect Obama is sworn into office--seems to indicate that Israel is fearful that its 60-year free ride with the US may be coming to an end. Thus, Israel decided to set the terms--in Palestinian blood and destruction of Gaza--of its relationship with the Obama administration. On the other hand, listening to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah building up hopes that this US president is going to come to its rescue makes one sick to the stomach yet again. For sure, President Obama is making history by being the first African-American president, but as far as the Palestinian issue is concerned all would be well advised to look deeper into how US government policy is formulated before expecting a superman-like US president to come to our salvation.
Compared with the past eight years of President Bush, I can understand the excitement that someone saner will now be at the world's helm. Likewise, having a new president who is young, articulate and able to connect with the masses is a feature long missing from US politics and is bound to create a buzz in America and abroad. However, in the excitement of the moment people are forgetting that US policy formulation has little to do with the likeability of the person sitting in the Oval Office. The US model of democracy has a deep separation of powers. The dynamics of each power are so complicated, and the divisions between the powers so distinct that influencing US policymaking has become a science--a science that Israel has mastered long ago and the Palestinians refuse to engage.
The Palestinian people have been on the receiving end of the US-armed and financed Israeli military machine for over 60 years. Yet ever since 1974, the Palestinian leadership has looked toward Washington for justice to be served. Instead of understanding and accepting that the US has long ago taken the Israeli side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many Palestinian leaders continue to reach out to every incoming US administration as if one day the US will wake up to be the neutral mediator we all desire. That day is not coming--it has not come with 11 US administrations since the creation of the state of Israel, nor will it come with the twelfth, President Obama's.
Since its first 11 minutes of existence, Israel has pulled off the largest heist in US politics to date; it was successful in converting what should have been a US foreign affairs issue--how to deal with Israel--into a largely domestic issue. This shift should never be underestimated and can be seen in all 50 states, whether you are running for mayor, congressperson or senator. In each such case, and in many more, candidates and appointees across the US are brought to task to register their blind and inviolable support for Israel and everything Israel does, or otherwise be forced to compete with the well-oiled, ruthless pro-Israel lobby.
Barack Obama becoming president does not change the basic political foundations of the institution called the United States of America. However, given the renewed political interest and involvement of millions of Americans due to Obama's march on the White House, time is ripe for Palestinians to finally play US politics. The US politics game requires real leadership, real resources and a sustained institutional effort to engage America from the grassroots--the only place where change can start to be made. Such an approach would require more than outsourcing narrow-focused, ego-driven, Palestinian-run non-governmental organizations in DC to fawn to US administration officials. Understanding and linking into the fabric of America, while working to bridge American citizens' interests into realizing a just approach to Palestine, is the most prudent way to support President Obama to lead America on the right (as in correct, not politically right) side of history on this seemingly intractable issue.
President-elect Obama's website opens with a quote of him saying, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington.... I'm asking you to believe in yours." Let's hope the Palestinian leadership understands that he is talking to them as much as to every American citizen.
- Published 19/1/2009 © bitterlemons.org
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman from Youngstown, Ohio who lives in the occupied West Bank and is co-editor of "Homeland: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians." He may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
Thank you sir
January 19, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Sam:
This observation really rings true for me:
"The Palestinian people have been on the receiving end of the US-armed and financed Israeli military machine for over 60 years. Yet ever since 1974, the Palestinian leadership has looked toward Washington for justice to be served. Instead of understanding and accepting that the US has long ago taken the Israeli side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many Palestinian leaders continue to reach out to every incoming US administration as if one day the US will wake up to be the neutral mediator we all desire. That day is not coming--it has not come with 11 US administrations since the creation of the state of Israel, nor will it come with the twelfth, President Obama's."
Ironically, that delusion leads to completely futile gestures like attending the Annapolis Conference.
January 19, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...but listening to the expectations Americans and much of the world have for him, makes one wonder."
Do people really have a lot of unrealistic expectations of him? Or is this just a media meme?
In my circle of lefties, I don't hear people talking about Obama like he's a "savior" who walks on water.
Mostly, I hear conservatives ASSUMING that lefties think this about Obama.
Anyway, the main point of your post is Israel/Palestine, but still this "impossible expectations" meme is everywhere right now, and it bugs me.
January 19, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The radical religious right has always been way ahead of the left in identifying and naming the issues in such a way that they gain a distinct advantage in any discussion about those issues.
January 19, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, stereotyping can be a powerful tool.
January 19, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel and Palestine are definitely a huge domestic issue in the US. There is only one solution. The US has to keep working for peace in the area, pressuring Israel to accept a viable Palestinian state but never abandoning Israel. That is the only way to address the issue from viewpoint of US domestic politics. Some might say such an approach is impossible. Israel has to be abandoned or Palestine has to be abandoned. I think the problem is that US administrations have given the green light to Israel against Israel's better interests for various wars. It is not that the solution is so difficult to see it is rather that there are various groups in the US, in Israel, in Palestine and in Iran that have an interest in war. These groups interests have to be ignored, those of the parties of war, if peace is to ever be brought to that area. What is required is time and steady pressure by the govenment of the US on all levels for at least the next 8 years and better yet for the next 16 years.
January 19, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks!
Recently I read a review of a book about the rise of belief in America, and the reviewer quoted the author as saying: "There's no point in arguing with believers, because they see the world through their belief systems."
I'm sorry I cannot recall the name of the book, but the observation struck me as a real time and energy saver.
We're stuck -- I hope temporarily -- with all these believers in Obama. As a friend of mine once reminded me, the root of the word "culture" is "cult" -- so let's hope some nice new culture comes of it -- instead of the historical norm.
January 19, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Next time Palestinians should fight better:
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5864January 19, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The United States of America does not live in a vacuum. Our patently unreasonable categorical support for everything Israel wants, does not resonate well with thoughtful people here at home or abroad. To the extent that it does not resonate in the greater “world arena", it does damage to United States Interests in the world.
Sam is gripped by an overly grim view of the situation. The reflexive genuflecting of our political class and our media when it comes to Israel is extremely damaging to our reputation in the world and so to our long-term national interests. It is not cost-free at all.
The Palestinian cause has long been a cause célèbre all over the world, and that will not change any time soon. To the extent that it leads to unrest all over the world it is a problem that Washington and Tel Aviv will eventually have to deal with.
So, sure, perhaps Fatah and Hamas need to play Washington Politics a little better. But the so-called omnipotence of Washington‘s ability to do what it wants without reaping consequences is a myth as we have witnessed with Bush who played that losing hand to the end. Time and Justice are on the Palestinian's side.
January 19, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew, your intentions are well-meaning, but I think it's safe to say that Sam's 'overly grim view' of the situation is well-earned, and perhaps a good question for you to consider is why and how was this extreme cynicism earned?
Also, regarding Fatah and Hamas, you need to check the history, because Fatah has played Washington quite well in the past--to the Palestinians' detriment.
January 19, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a reflection on the viewpoint that what the U.S. thinks is going to matter in the middle east in, say, 30 or 40 years.
I mean, it seems to me that the balance of power is shifting in Palestine's direction and there's precious little that the U.S. can do, given it's sagging economy, to change that. Are the Jews and Israelis going to get into bed with the Chinese like they did with the west? And if they do, will they be sharing that bed with the Arab nations?
Obama aside (and his predecessor as well) I'm not certain U.S. policy can influence the middle east that much longer. I think we've squandered our good will, and certainly Israel has squandered their.
January 19, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The balance of power ha been shifting in Palestine's direction for the last 60 years. Palestinians should just wait a little longer until this Zionist entity collapses.
January 19, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure that Israel pulled off anything. Most Americans have Jewish friends which automatically translates into a feeling that when Israel is attacked our friends are as well.(When the attacks began 20 days ago good friends were visiting Jerusalem).
Far fewer have Palestinian friends or even Muslim ones. So the deck was alreaady stacked against the Palestinians before AIPAC made its first campaign donation.
And the Hamas mantra , translated here perhaps incorrectly,as desiring the end of the Jewish state is assumed to be a call for mass murder which ain't doing much for the brand.
The fault is not in your stars but in yourselves.
Lose the threats, the suicide bombers and the missiles and the Israeli "heist" might look less impregnable.
January 19, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like your frankness here, flavius. And from a practical perspective, I also agree with it. I wonder what kind of Ohio businessman Mr. Bahour is that he doesn't know what kind of P.R. would work on the current U.S. population at large. He starts out very good, here:
but I don't buy the "ripe" part. It's not ripe until the bogeyman he is not mentioning is addressed, the death-cult nihilist brand that those he wishes to lobby for are stuck with in this country.
It's unfair, it takes the minority and brands the majority. But screaming unfair gets you nowhere with advertising. Doesn't help when the brand exists in American minds. Americans don't like the "we love death," brand, they just aren't going to buy it, and far too many think the Palestinians are selling it. It's unfair, but it's there.
Seems to me that somehow the majority of Palestinians have to "reject and denounce" that brand enough for the majority of Americans to start to believe they have bought into an incorrect stereotype, before any of the lobbying steps Mr. Bahour wants to take can work.
It really doesn't have that much to do with Israel's brand, really it doesn't. A strong argument can be made that Israel is severely damaging it's brand in the U.S right now. But branding of Israel as good or bad doesn't depend on having an adversary.
Good or bad Israel, that doesn't erase the strong branding of Palestinians in American minds going all the way back at least to the Munich Olympics, or the Achille Lauro. Not so much as anti-Israel, but as anti-Western. And magnified by "Hollywood" for decades.
I see a lot of comparative arguments along the lines of spartheid South Africa. The more sophisticated among us know that the ANC were not 100% anti-violent angels. But they were branded as such in many U.S. minds, and that helped them a great deal. And they were never branded as anti-Western.
Palestinians have a long way to go on that front.
If poor powerless South African blacks could do it, I don't buy that Palestinians can't. Especially with the internet as a tool, something they didn't have. They do have a more difficult task in that they have a bad brand that has to be undone before that can happen. I think organizations like MEMRI could be their tool, not their enemy. Take every one of MEMRI's worst "finds" and have Palestinian groups "reject and denounce" them, take away their branding sting. Don't argue it's a lie and not representative, reject and denounce. Get smart on rebranding if you want U.S. sympathy. It's just the way it is, fair or unfair. 1,000 hours of work by lobbyists could be undone by one tape of a few Palestinians dancing over American civilian deaths, or just one more story of another suicidal jihadi teenager, until serious rebranding work occurs. Since Palestinians don't have the power and money of "Hollywood," they have to start with simpler, cheaper tools, like the internet.
On the other hand, if the majority of Palestinians actually want to continue to be branded as anti-Western, well, that's certainly their prerogative, but sheesh, but isn't it kind of unrealistic to expect the majority of Americans to support them?
January 21, 2009 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sam says:
-------------------------------------------------
Since its first 11 minutes of existence, Israel has pulled off the largest heist in US politics to date; it was successful in converting what should have been a US foreign affairs issue--how to deal with Israel--into a largely domestic issue.
------------------------------------------------
Now Sam is giving us the mythology, that the Jews have some sort of unfair advantage in getting political influence. Arab-Americans lobby politicians no less than Jews do. Arab money is pouring into the pockets of American politicians (e.g. former Presidents Carter, Bush I, Clinton, former Vice President Gore and no doubt many others).
The fact is that US support for political Zionism goes back at least to the 1840's (that's right, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED), long before there were many Jews in the US and long before they had any real political influence. The Bible was a major inspiration to the Founding Fathers, as well as to the Abolition Movement and other Civil Rights movement. On the other hand, the first war the United States faced as an independent country was against the Barbary Pirates, who , in the name of Islam were kidnapping Americans and others.
In modern times, both the Republicans and Democrats put pro-Zionist planks in their election platforms in 1944, 4 years BEFORE the "11 minutes" Sam is claiming the Jews "hijacked".
I suggest that if Sam wants the Palestinians to get sympathy from the majority of Americans, which they don't have today, they tell their own FATAH leaders (forget about HAMAS at the moment) to stop broadcasting on their official electronic media hatred of Jews and Israel and praise for suicide bombers, which they are doing TODAY, during the Annapolis process. Let them start telling their people that there is going to be peace and stop promising war to the death, as they are doing now. The only thing that will change American perceptions is changing the behavior of the Palestinian Authority and getting it into a "peace mode" INTERNALLY, and not merely in external propaganda that people like Sam are generating.
January 20, 2009 12:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sam here is an excerpt from the Jerusalem Post about what your fellow Palestinians are doing to each other in the wake of the war. Is it any wonder to you why your people have failed to set up an infrastructure for a state?
Do you remember after HAMAS took power in the Gaza Strip how they took FATAH prisoners in handcuffs up to the top of multi-story buildings and threw them off after which a mob below tore their bodies apart?
------------------------------------------------
'Hamas torturing Fatah members in Gaza'
Jan. 19, 2009
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
Hamas militiamen have rounded up hundreds of Fatah activists on suspicion of "collaboration" with Israel during Operation Cast Lead, Fatah members in the Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
They said the Hamas crackdown on Fatah intensified after the cease-fire went into effect early Sunday morning.
The Fatah members and eyewitnesses said the detainees were being held in school buildings and hospitals that Hamas had turned into make-shift interrogation centers.
Hamas has also renewed house arrest orders that were issued against thousands of Fatah officials and activists in the Gaza Strip shortly after the military operation started.
A Fatah official in Ramallah told the Post that at least 100 of his men had been killed or wounded as a result of the massive Hamas crackdown. Some had been brutally tortured, he added.
The official said that the perpetrators belonged to Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, and to the movement's Internal Security Force.
According to the official, at least three of the detainees had their eyes put out by their interrogators, who accused them of providing Israel with wartime information about the location of Hamas militiamen and officials.
A number of Hamas leaders and spokesmen have claimed in the past few days that Fatah members in the Gaza Strip had been spying on their movement and passing the information to Israel.
Two Hamas officials, Salah Bardaweel and Fawzi Barhoum, accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his "spies" in the Gaza Strip of tipping off the Israelis about the movements of slain Hamas interior minister Said Siam, who was killed in an IAF strike on his brother's home in Gaza City last week.
The Fatah official in Ramallah said that, apart from being baseless, the allegations were aimed at paving the way for a ruthless Hamas attack on Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip.
"They were afraid to confront the Israeli army and many Hamas militiamen even ran away during the fighting," he said. "Hamas is now venting its anger and frustration against our Fatah members there."
Eyewitnesses said that Hamas militiamen had turned a number of hospitals and schools into temporary detention centers where dozens of Fatah members and supporters were being held on suspicion of helping Israel during the war.
The eyewitnesses said that a children's hospital and a mental health center in Gaza City, as well as a number of school buildings in Khan Yunis and Rafah, were among the places that Hamas had turned into "torture centers."
A Fatah activist in Gaza City claimed that as many as 80 members of his faction were either shot in the legs or had their hands broken for allegedly defying Hamas's house-arrest orders.
"What's happening in the Gaza Strip is a new massacre that is being carried out by Hamas against Fatah," he said. "Where were these [Hamas] cowards when the Israeli army was here?"
The activist said that Hamas's security forces had also confiscated cellular phones and computers belonging to thousands of local Fatah members and supporters.
Relatives of Abed al-Gharabli, a former Fatah security officer who spent 12 years in Israeli prisons, said he was kidnapped by a group of Hamas militiamen who shot him in both legs after severely torturing him.
Ziad Abu Hayeh, one of the commanders of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, is reported to have lost his sight after Hamas gunmen put out his eyes. According to Fatah activists, Abu Hayeh was kidnapped from his home in Khan Yunis by Hamas militiamen.
The Fatah men said that in a number of incidents, Hamas militiamen had kidnapped Fatah activists while they were attending the funerals of people killed during the war. In other cases, activists were detained and shot in the legs after they were spotted smiling in public - an act interpreted by Hamas as an expression of joy over Israel's military offensive.
On Saturday night, three brothers from the Subuh family were abducted by Hamas militiamen and taken to the Abdel Aziz Rantisi Mosque in Khan Yunis, where they were shot in the legs, a local journalist told the Post.
----- cut rest of article
January 20, 2009 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes and the IRA killed a Northern Ireland Catholic woman who was guilty of nothing other than showing charity towards wounded British soldiers.
And in Gaza
Catholics, Jews and Muslims are capable of doing terrible things during wars. That's all any to these events mean. The Israelis are not better than Hamas. Or worse.
I think it's quite possible that the Israeli army
is the most moral army in the world and that it still does terrible things.
I know it is probably asking too much of you to not let the terrible suicide bombings prevent you from remembering that the Gazan woman who gets up in the morning and struggles to care for her children in a devestated house is a human being like you. But try.
January 20, 2009 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I think it's quite possible that the Israeli army
is the most moral army in the world....."
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "moral". Does it include shooting children in the head?
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Egypt/10276545.html
The following article was translated from Maariv's respected military reporter and it concerns the imakeup of the IDF's officer corps. They are from the ranks of the "nationlist religious" ie settlers:
"Half of the IDF's young combat officers are religious Jews, according to statistics published as the lead story Sunday in Maariv, Israel's second largest daily newspaper. The report also says that about 40% of the cadets of the most recent Officer Course in Bahad-1, the IDF's officer training school, were religious; this number refers to all officers, as opposed to just combat officers.
"This says something very good about the sons of the religious Zionist movement," opines the writer of the piece, senior correspondent Ben Caspit. "They are becoming the IDF's backbone. Their presence in the army is several times larger than it is in the general population."
"They give their entire soul"
"Any way we look at it," he says, "it's about education." It is clear, Caspit states, that "the religious Zionist movement's educational institutions continue to disseminate values, Zionism, Judaism and mission orientation. The religious youth is mission-oriented. [It sets out to] conquer the hilltops and then to conquer the military service and the officership."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123492
Perhaps you are unaware that the settlers are the most racist of all Israelis and consider Palestinians, even children, as vermin and treat them accordingly.
That the IDF has a hugely disproportionate number of these types represented in the officers' corps, one can understand why the concept of "morality" is, as is so common in these discussions, fungible and circumstantial.
In other words, these officers would not discipline their soldiers for acting in ways that they don't see as problematic.
This is an institutional problem for the IDF and bodes ill for any chances of forcing withdrawls from the WB. None of Israel's current aspirants for leadership have the iron will to enforce such orders. Even Arik Sharon was targeted for asassination by elements of the "nationalist religious" he described as "Jewish terrorists" over the withdrawl from Gaza.
It's from this segment of Israeli society that increasing numbers of IDF officers are drawn.
Their "morals" most closely resemble those of the Russian military's actions in Chechnya.
As Col Pat Lang says: "Real soldiers don't target children".
January 20, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. But, I've written enough. Over to Auden
THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
Herod
Today has been one of those perfect winter days, cold brilliant,and utterly still, when the bark of a shepherd's dog carries for miles, and the great wild mountains come up quite close to the city walls.......
Barges are unloading soil fertilizer at the river wharfs..Allotment gardening has become popular..
The highway to the coast goes straight over the mountains and the truck drivers no longer carry guns...
Yet even inside of this little civilized patch......Legislation is helpless...Reason is helpless...
Civilization must be saved even if this means sending for the military as I suppose it does. How dreary. Why is that in the end civilization always has to call in these professional tidiers to whom it is all one whether it be Pythagoros or a homicidal lunatic that they are instructed to exterminate.....*
* from FOR THE TIME BEING.
A Christmas Oratorio
January 20, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"A real soldier doesn't target children" when he doesn't have to...and those who count coup on their heads are less than men.
January 20, 2009 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boo hoo. The Vichy collaborators are being rounded up. I hope Hamas asks them if they are Jeffrey Goldberg's sources and if they are proud they provided the Zionists with targeting information. Targeting information that permitted the IDF to murder more than 400 Palestinian children.
These collaborators deserve whatever they get. And I hope they get it good and hard.
January 20, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are Palestinians going to accept Israel's existence or are they going to press on with its desire for their elimination?
January 20, 2009 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ja, Ja, those who oppose the Reich do face elimination.
January 20, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whatever the Palestinians are doing is merely an extension of what they have always done down threw the years; Palestinians are part of the indigenous peoples of the Middle East. It's the state of Israel that came last to the neighborhood. I think that the historical reactions of the various Arab states in the area are understandable when considering the true history. And the ongoing historical responses and politics of Israel make sense when considering that it's the "country" in the Middle East with the most real illegitimacy. Israel’s argument for legitimacy as always been historically unsubstantiated. When you add in the effect of Zionism , and Americas unquestioned support of it since the beginning of things , I can at least understand the problem and why it will never go away. Israel’s politics in dealing with the indigenous Arab peoples of the Middle East is unfair and wrongly based
Does anyone really expect that Israel would have received the "welcome wagon" when considering the way they just were "given land" or "took land" or "excepted land" or whatever term you choose to describe how the current state of Israel was created? The fact is it's not hard to except the problem of Israel being perceived as the historical interloper in the Middle East; and they are.
The state of Israel and it's main supporter , my country the United States , as to admit the wrongness and the problem of Israel. It's the fundamental problem in the mix. And they must realize that force alone will not ever be a remedy , in any way , to this problem. Any chance at effective negotiation must stem from this type of platform. The government of Israel is as wrong in this matter as the government of the United States was wrong in the matter of Iraq.When your wrong even military advantage cannot make you right. I'd rather be right and without Israel then be wrong and with them.
The United States and it's unquestioned support of Israel as always made me ask this question; Is Israel our 51st American state or is America Israel’s 2nd state?
January 20, 2009 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink