December 16, 2010
Obama to Netanyahu - "You win"
Those of us who are associated with the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, and who call for justice for the Palestinians, now have reason to say "Thank you" to President Obama.
With his decision to abandon efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on illegal settlement building on the occupied West Bank, he has proved that the makers of American policy for resolving the conflict are Israel’s leaders and their lobby in the U.S. (including its many stooges in Congress and the mainstream media), not the man who occupies the Oval Office in the White House.
Of course I know this has always been the case (actually since the departure from the Oval Office of General Eisenhower who was the first and the last American President to oblige Israel to act in accordance with international law), but for a sitting president to provide by default the absolute proof is quite something.
The implications are truly terrifying, obviously for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians but also for Americans; and why is not difficult to explain.
As all seriously well informed people know (sadly the very few, not the very many), unconditional American support for the criminal state of Israel is not in America’s own interests. It is the best recruiting sergeant for violent Arab and other Muslim extremism and the prime cause of the gathering, global storm of anti-Americanism at street if not yet government level.
The first responsibility of any American president is to protect the security of his own people. With his latest surrender to Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby, Obama is effectively saying to his fellow Americans, “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to do that.”
As things are, the name of the game from here on in my view is not the pursuit of peace, that’s a mission impossible.
Priority number one is preventing the final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Priority number two is preventing the rising tide of anti-Israelism from being transformed into violent anti-Semitism.
