President-Elect Obama Speaks on Gaza Crisis
I'm attaching an update from ynetnews reporting on President-Elect Obama's statement on the crisis in Gaza. Obama expressed his concern about the situation and he also stated that he did not want to interfere with ongoing negotiations. The full report from ynetnews follows:
"Obviously, international affairs are of deep concern. With the situation in Gaza, I've been getting briefed every day. I've had consistent conversations with members of the current administration about what's taking place. That will continue. I will continue to insist that when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time, because there are delicate negotiations taking place right now and we can't have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake," he said" (Yitzhak Benhorin, Washington and AFP)
This from AFP,
I don't claim to understand what sort of ceasefire negotiations could really be going on in this environment, but apparently, much like our very own Cafe, one cannot be unbiased without committing to one side in the conflict.
January 5, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
there are delicate negotiations taking place right now and we can't have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake
Right. Two voices. There are actually several thousand prominent voices coming out of the United States right now. Obama's is just not one of them. If Nancy Pelosi talks, will that disrupt Bush's delicate obstructionist tactics negotiations?
I don't know what I would rather believe: that Obama just prefers to pass the buck for political reasons; or that he actually believes this authoritarian crap about no one but the president speaking out.
January 5, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for commenting guys. Dan, I know you addressed this substantively. I was really posting this because I hadn't seen it anywhere else and was only offering as news without analysis. Might be a good idea to have that option so that stuff like this doesn't clutter up the reader blogs.
January 5, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for bringing Obama's statement to our attention, Bruce. I should have said as much at the outset. In fact, your post reminded me that Sarkozy was to have arrived in the region today, and sent me looking for news.
Thank you as well for providing a space to discuss this miserable chain of events clear from the sandbox that is the "front page."
January 5, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
My pleasure. Bar, have you checked out a blog called realisticdove.org? Dan, you would probably appreciate it as well. I've never seen such an eclectic bunch of people discuss the I-P conflict with the level of substance than I have on that site.
Meantime, our old buddy MJ never ceases to amaze me. He quotes Orwell the day after one of his own blogposts and all of the comments simply disappear from the front page. If that is not Orwellian, then what is???? :) You cannot make this stuff up.
Better days.
January 5, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I can use your introduction of the MJ behaviorial topic to add some more off-topic petty fun--it was so kewl how lally had archived the post and pasted it right on that thread after your query about it; I enjoyed that. I myself checked for it on google when I saw your query--google's spiders had caught the title and the url, but alas, not the text for a cache...he was pretty quick on that one. Orwellian, indeed-- sometimes it seems TPM should appoint someone to act as the grieving mother keeping alive the memory of Los Desaparecidos MJ posts. :-)
January 5, 2009 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
You and lally are such troublemakers! :) The odd thing is, the post MJ deleted didn't even seem that controversial. Perhaps it was something in the comments. Strange but at the same time, juxtaposing the deletion with a follow-up post quoting Orwell really and truly is delicious.
January 5, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
aa.
I just went to MJ's Blog and grabbed the post in question. Something is up methinks. Took a peek again and there were 3 posts there from 12/27,1/2 and the current one. My latest foray shows 2 posts and the page looks weird.
My abysmal skills are untrustworthy so I would appreciate it if you or anyone else would go take a looksee.
MJ is prone to disappear his stuff, but this is a comprehensive scrubbing to my paranoid eyes......
January 5, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just checked. Every single post MJ wrote between December 25 and January 2 is missing. The January 2 post which is present is, I believe, a copy of his Friday weekly post for the Israel Policy Forum. We all know MJ was posting regularly during this crisis.
January 5, 2009 11:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I noticed that a post disappeared too. I didn't realize it was more than one. MJ has done that it the past, so I don't know if it is something he didn't like about his own post, or if he didn't like where the comments were headed.
January 6, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ach, mho, not worthy of your concerned paranoia. Always seemed to me most of the disappeared were a case of him using this site to post knee-jerk reactions without thinking (his articles at venues with editors virtually always seem much much more thoughtful and reasoned,) and then somebody like wife or colleague says: "are you crazy? you can't leave that up in public, it's going to screw up this or that" OR he really despises the reaction he's getting in comments. Why? Because he leaves plenty of thoughtless knee-jerk posts up, like ones that directly contradict things he's said in previous posts, the kind of record that could hurt you if a job interviewer reviewed them or some such.
The decision to delete doesn't bug me--everyone makes mistakes--what bugs me is that a "gentleman and a scholar" would naturally leave an explanation for deleting something from a record that is seen by the public, or even just editing it. The Orwellian thing is a joke because it really looks more like something along the lines of a kid trying to hide Mom's broken vase.
January 6, 2009 1:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
aa.
This is a purge and earlier examples were more random & infrequent.
But I have to admit that it occured to me that MJ might be up for a new gig and wants to edit his resume....
;~{)
The least he could do is issue fair warning to the participants...
January 6, 2009 2:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well I think we can and should keep it in-house, and I certainly will because I am not out to discredit anyone who seeks to advance his career; it goes against my grain. But I have to tell you, MJ Rosenberg is a public figure. When he writes, people in government and elsewhere take note. MJ Rosenberg has chosen to post here, and he has been asked to post here based on who he is. He ain't chopped liver and he'll tell you that himself. I think it's strange, and I question the ethics of it all, for a public figure using this forum to express himself who then erases what he writes (along with all of the comments prepared--some even with care--by all of us), for whatever personal reasons he has. Beyond that, at best, for a public figure to erase what he has written, to have it disappear into the ether, detracts from his credibility, and I question why management would allow this to occur. It cheapens MJ, it cheapens us, and it cheapens the Cafe.
January 6, 2009 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair Guerilla has a couple of comments worth checking out under MJ's "Orwell" post.
January 6, 2009 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair links to the Greenwald post. Armchair is a heckuva lot more credible on matters concerning MJ than I am I guess, but he's apparently not gotten a response.
January 6, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
If he really wants to get somewhere as a public figure, I would suggest losing the moustache.
January 6, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ has deleted posts before, either because he thought better of what he had said, or because he didn't like the overall direction of the comments thread. But usually that happens on a one-off basis. I can't remember him ever deleting a whole lengthy series of posts.
Could it be that the site was hacked by someone who doesn't like what MJ writes?
January 6, 2009 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess it is possible.
January 6, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
He admitted doing it one time a year or two ago when challenged on a new thread--the thread he deleted had lots of comments on it so some people were irritated and he decided to comment. He said the software allowed him to do it and nobody here ever told him he couldn't do it, so he was going to exercise deletion whenever he saw fit until he was told otherwise.
January 6, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
First off, I am not trying to be antagonistic with this comment (I have not perfected the art of typing out the eye-roll). And I get his point about having a unitary voice during negotiations--but seriously, given the expiration date of Bush's term, he's effectively saying we don't have any voice for the next few weeks. And maybe this is a bit ethnocentric, but I can't see the rest of the world coming to any firm conclusions about the situation until the US has its 2 cents.
Maybe bush needs to come out and say Obama's team will represent the US position.
I like finding ways to blame bush.
January 5, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama speaks often about the stimulus package and other economy-related issues. Why can't he address the Gaza situation?
January 5, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
You do agree, however, that historically, president-elects haven't opined on matters concerning foreign affairs? I'm not saying it's the correct approach, but I think if that is the precedent then PE Obama has to be sensitive about ignoring such a tradition. In addition, I'm not sure what it would do, particularly because I don't believe that his message would be much different than Bush's is at the moment. Bush's just comes with a history that destroys all of his credibility. PE Obama has a clean slate on which he can demonstrate an even-handed and tough approach to the I-P conflict. I just think, realistically, we'll have to wait. The other thing is, public statements are one thing; it is very possible that he's playing a more active role behind the scenes. That, of course, is just speculation.
January 5, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
historically, president-elects haven't opined on matters concerning foreign affairs?
Forgive me for stating the obvious to some, but maybe not for all. That's because, historically, the idea was that our foreign policy would be seamlessly nonpartisan from one administration to the next...one United States we were s'posed to be, for foreign policy and related purposes, (strength in numbers in theory, 13 speaking as one, it was at the time...heh, founding fathers, guess how that worked out?....)
January 6, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Bruce. Good to know. It's as I thought.
January 5, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chicken, I just hope it's all over before he has to say something. Another two weeks of this is difficult to fathom.
January 5, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's hands-off position regarding foreign affairs is actually strongly consistent with the position I would expect from a "Constitutional scholar". A recurrent theme of the founders was that the Executive would serve as the instrument of foreign policy, with Congress' role held to the constitutional limits of ratifying treaties.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were on the eve of having a President who actually took the Constitution seriously? 'Course, he wouldn't have tapped Sen. Clinton as SOS.
January 5, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, when I read that part about "delicate negotiations" - I thought it could mean so many things. I agree with your idea about his reverence for the Constitution. But it also occurred to me that some of the of the delicate negotiations could involve negotiating (or trying to) with bushco over the response. We simply don't know what hides behind his words. Actually when this blog went up, that's what I was thinking.
January 6, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just finished reading Team of Rivals, finally. Took me over a month. When Lincoln was elected he had to wait until March to be inaugurated. In the meantime the country was literally falling apart, and James Buchanon just wanted to get the heck out of town. By happenstance, the attorney general had resigned or had died or something, and Buchanon needed to repace him. He chose Edwin Stanton, who later served as Lincoln's Secretary of War. Stanton saw that there was seccessionists throughout the government and he opened up a secret line of communication with Seward, who of course had been Lincoln's chief rival, but who quickly became Lincoln's principal confidante and Secretary of State. I guess the point is that behind the scense there was then, and there could be now, quite a bit of activity going on behind the scenes (and it could even include highly sensitive contracts between Obama emissaries and representatives of the warring factions). I guess we'll have to wait to read the history books.
January 6, 2009 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
May I say bslev that I so appreciate your presence here. And you, just by being yourself, are certainly teaching me. By your presence. Your manner. I just wanted you to know that. (Now, sometimes when I read the psalms, which I love, I think of you. I think of how we're drinking from the same spiritual stream.)
Shalom.
January 6, 2009 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm touched Thera P, really, coming from you, the heartbeat of the Cafe. Thank you. I think of your post-Thanksgiving post and I hope things at home are better healthwise. Better days.
January 6, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for mentioning that. Tomorrow is his surgery. They're calling the surgery "curative" as it was caught in stage II and apparently is on "only one side" - the one with the "best prognosis." We live 5 minutes from the medical center, I actually volunteer there so I know it's a good place. The surgeon has an excellent reputation, doesn't always agree to "cut" and I am completely at peace about the process and the outcome.
If only the middle east situation were as simple as surgery. Sadly, too often military solutions would like to believe that's what they are - as if we could "know" who was a "cancer" and where "goodness" lies.
January 6, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish both of you well.
January 6, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm thanking you for that paper by Dawn Jensen - that's a wonderful gift! It gives me a lot to think about today at the hospital. Thanks so much for everything!
January 7, 2009 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hang in there Thera P. All the best.
January 7, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, someone actually referenced my comment. And Bruce apparently believes I have some credibility (unless of course he was being facetious).
I was really galled by the MJ bit. Greenwald writes a blog post criticizing liberals who support the Israeli operation as being influenced by a tribal bias. He sums up his post with a quote from Orwell. The next day (or maybe it's later that day), Rosenberg uses the exact same quote as his answer to liberals who support the Israeli operation, without a nod to Greenwald. In other words, he's taking someone else's idea and fobbing it off as his own. That may not constitute plagiarism, but it is at least intellectual sleaze-baggery of the highest order. I thought of making it into a separate entry, but thought it might seem a bit of overkill.
Bruce, your comments on the situation in Gaza have been welcome. Personally, I am anguished and having a hard time restraining myself from howling at the moon at the gross oversimplifications offered on both sides of the conflict. My in-laws live in Israel and I visit there every year, so it's impossible for me (or anyone for that matter) to view it objectively, but one can't help but be dismayed at the scale of the suffering on the Palestinian side. I'll check out the link you provided as I simply can't stand the tripe dished out over at the MJ rant fest. Avishai's post today was refreshingly sane. Yet even as I recognize the colossal moral and political blunder of the settlements and their deleterious effect on the prospects for a settlement, I have yet to hear any good options for dealing with Hamas (and the broader Palestinian rejectionism of which it is but a more militant manifestation). These are depressing times indeed.
January 6, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, someone actually referenced my comment
Oh go on, you and bslev are two of the best commenters here and every regular knows you put most other commenters to shame! It that has nothing to do with your P.O.V., it's all process, you guys have some magic mojo talent of raising the level of conversation and wiping out all the flying shit instead of riling it up further. Really wrecks the classic presumption that legal training is worthless and lawyers a joke, your experience at plea bargains/negotiations really shows through on this forum.
January 6, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
AA,
You have no legal training and you, by far, are one of the finest posters to grace these pages. Thanks for your kind words.
January 6, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I blush. Thanks.
Back-atcha AA.
January 6, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
AG,
Thank you for your kind words and it is so refreshing to see you here again. Of course, you have credibility, with me and, as AA posts below, with the general readership. Welcome back.
Posting on Israel is a painful chore on left-leaning websites, but it does force us to keep rethinking our biases which you and I are honest enough to accept as givens. The thing is, and I'm sure you would agree (and Bar K alluded to this in another thread earlier), it is probably equally painful to post on a Israel right or wrong website (they must exist). But you know what I mean: the Israel right or wrongers give folks like us just as much grief as the anti-Israel folks do on the left. It's tough taking a non-linear position, particularly when you have mishpucha and others on one side, and your natural political allies on the other, both tugging, both persuasive, and both causing pain.
Happy New Year and keep posting, please.
Bruce
January 6, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the meantime, here's a follow-up report on a statement by President-Elect Obama, in which he exprsses deep concern about the loss of civilian lives and promises to have much more to say after January 20:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3651739,00.html
"US president-elect Barack Obama, breaking his silence about the Gaza war, expressed deep concern on Tuesday about the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel".
"Obama told reporters "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me." But otherwise he said he would adhere to his principle that only US President George W. Bush would speak for American foreign policy at this time, but said he would have plenty more to say after his Jan. 20 inauguration". (Reuters)
January 6, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspected Obama's relative silence about Gaza was because of his differing view from the Bush administration's. I see now that was correct.
January 6, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
rtbg:
Let's hope you're correct. What a waste the last eight years have been on so many fronts, and most particularly with respect to Israel and Palestine. Nice to see you, even though I know from what I've read from you on this topic that it might be one of those rare occasions where we are not in lock-step agreement. Regards.
Bruce
January 6, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to see you, too, Bruce.
It's difficult to discuss this topic without being branded a bloodthirsty radical for one side or the other. Me? I have no appetite for blood. In fact, I simply can't stand the carnage and want the utter insanity of it all to stop. The terms of carnage and retribution laid out by either side are unacceptable.
But as with warring siblings, there comes a time when an authority must step in, separate the fighters, and lay down the law. I would like to see the world community do that just once in my lifetime. And following that intervention, I would like to see a return to observing the Geneva Conventions.
I try to learn/read as much as I can about both sides (well, all sides, really, including the meddlers'), but my sympathies lie most urgently with civilians right now, both in Israel and Gaza. I have no sympathy for any current government players involved; for them I have nothing but contempt.
Obama's statement today, however, gives me some hope. For me, it's the first time. ;-)
Shalom.
January 6, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know you all think Bush is incompetent and that you can't wait for Obama to be sworn in, but it is completely ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Obama should jump in front of Bush on this war in Gaza. They obviously have different approaches and beliefs about it. I can imagine the reaction from the Left if the situations were reversed and Bush was the incoming President and did what is being suggested. And what if Obama said more about the Gaza War, then what? A statement is not going to stop the killing. Sometimes I think that some of you are more concerned with seeing Bush taken down a peg rather than deal with the crisis effectively.
January 6, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, I'd like to see both, actually.
January 6, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dennis Ross to be Secretary Clinton's ambassador-at-large on Mideast issues (and not the special envoy on I-P,) according to a WINEP memo leaked to yesterday's by-subscription-only Nelson Report. Via Jim Lobe's blog:
January 8, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also Huffpo put up this headline:
Dennis Ross Will Be Obama's 'Ambassador-at-Large' For The Middle East
which then takes you to this Financial Times piece from this afternoon when you hit "read the full story here":
Obama picks Ross as Mideast envoy. Looks like that story is using the exact same memo as the source.
Recent background, from Haaretz, Oct. 28, 2008:
Dennis Ross on why he's working for Obama and how he'd talk to Iran, By Natasha Mozgovaya
January 8, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks AA, your Lobe link wasn't working but I did find it through Google. Interesting stuff. Check this out from Haaretz, speculation that there will be contacts between Hamas and the Obama Administration.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054008.html
Of course, there are contacts and there are contacts, and I would be suprised that, in the real world, there would be no communication, at least indirectly, with at least some elements of the Hamas hierarchy.
January 9, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Take a look at the Guardian article that that Ha'aretz piece is basically re-reporting; it's more blatant than Ha'aretz's interpretation of it:
BTW, you coin a good phrase,
there are contacts and there are contacts, I would like to use it out of your context in your comment and apply it to your entire post topic. That is the way the whole diplomatic thingie always works, wouldn't ya say? In a way, it is ridiculous to expect official statements from someone who is not yet an official. You have everyone involved in a field of foreign policy constantly yakking to each other via phone, email, etc., like a giant web, what they are doing is unofficial. If they see an opportunity, of course they try to work it into something "official" by contacting officials. But you can't expect official statements from non-official people, it just doesn't work that way. Bush still is in control of the whole bureaucratic apparatus, both his own set of neo-cons and the regular nonpartisan State Dept. and intel dept. civil service, all those in our government who have contacts with the other governments.
Also, it's kind of odd to expect that Obama would at this point put out anything different publicly than all of his Senate colleagues have done.
Methinks it wouldn't be surprising if two of those three Guardian sources have to do with Dennis Ross and Hillary Clinton.
To give an example of how everybody in a field is talking to everybody when a crisis is going on, me also thinks that when a certain President Bill Clinton and a certain President Jimmy Carter who just finished writing an op-ed on Israel in WaPo, get together in the White House to take a photo with two George Bushes and a President-elect Obama, all of them don't just chat about golf afterwards. That mebbe Clinton and Carter pull aside for a bit and make plans to talk a bit on the phone afterwards, and that mebbe Bill calls Hillary, and after that, maybe calls some contacts...but all of them don't call a press conference, that's for sure. Mebbe someone decides to talk a bit to that Guardian reporter when she happens to call, though....call it "delicate"?
January 9, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, the Lobe link:
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=215
Also, after I posted last night, on the front page of TPM, I noticed a link to an A.P. article saying the same thing. (It was a link in the column of news with pictures down the center of the page, under a picture related to something else, and it's gone now.)
January 9, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just a little odd we haven't heard from the Rosenberg on this, no? Or maybe not.
In bouncing around links on the Dennis Ross topic, I did run across a lot of Daily Kos type sturm and drang about him being an evil neo-con, founder of AIPAC type stuff, yadda, yadda. I went to the wikipedia entry on Dennis Ross and I found where that comes from:
While not listed in his official biography, according to the "The Truth about Camp David" by Clayton Swisher, Ross co-founded the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 1980s. [1]
So um, basically AIPAC "sponsored" or gave some money to WINEP's startup somehow and only Clayon Swisher knows about that supposed horror? Do we know if anyone else "sponsored" the startup? Was it a $100 check or a million?
I know that some folks naturally distrust anyone who worked for presidents of both political persuasions in foreign policy. I find I naturally bend in the opposite direction, I tend to start out by giving them the benefit that they know more and can do more, were valuable enough to be retained by presidents of both parties, and hopefully are not ideologues but actual doers.
January 9, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Easy on MJ today AA; it's Friday so today he puts on his normal guy hat and posts his IPF column, which I recommended because it's quite good.
And speaking of MJ, remember back when I was a disciple of his? He convinced me to buy Mr. Swisher's book, and then Swisher came to the Cafe--a forum that his buddy used on his behalf to sell his wares--and he an absolute fool of himself for refusing to answer questions about his book, in which his principal goal seemed to me to be to destroy Dennis Ross. Poor Zionista, he kept asking Swisher about things that occurred in Taba in January of 2001 that Swisher had omitted from his book (which was supposed to set the record straight (hee)), and Swisher went nuts with the old trolling system, pounding ole' Zionista with zeros and ones! He stonewalled and absolutely refused to answer Zionista's simple questions (basically because Zionista had established like a champ that Swisher's work had omitted material information and was, therefore, fatally and indisputably flawed). It was actually quite comical but, alas, I lost 15 bucks on that monograph.
All this stuff about clandestine neo-cons or reasonable facsimiles thereof working with Obama, even if true, at some point becomes moot. If PE Obama is half the guy even an old cynic like me thinks he is, he's going to have a team that works for him. He's not a delegator like George Bush. I believe he will set the policy and folks will dance to the tunes he plays. And, yes, there will be sidebars, because that's the nature of reality, and Tom will talk with Sally, and she'll refer it to Jane, and the Guardian will report on it, and there will be official denials that direct talks are taking place. And that's the way the process works.
January 9, 2009 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alas, another exchange that seems to have been tossed down the memory hole. (And thank you Bruce).
January 10, 2009 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink