rssObama Inherits Bush Legacy in Israeli Elections
Monday, February 09, 2009 at 5:27 pm
- 12 Comments
President Barack Obama (WDCpix) and Benjamin Netanyahu (knesset.gov.il)
Among the many sorry gifts George W. Bush passed on to President Barack Obama, the next prime minister of Israel is among the most dubious. This particular present will be gift-wrapped by Israeli voters on Tuesday when they vote for a successor to the indicted and discredited Ehum Olmert whose tenure as chief of the Zionist state has seen two wars but no clear cut victories. The winner will either be Bibi Netanyahu, the former prime minister who is ahead in the polls, or Olmert’s underwhelming foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Neither choice is inspiring.
Illustration by: Matt Mahurin
With Palestinians, Netanyahu is reliably brutal. As prime minister in the 1990s, he did his best to undermine Israeli compliance with the Oslo accords which, with the help of a Hamas suicide bombing spree, set stage for the failure of President Clinton’s Camp David summit in 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada. As the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl notes, Netanyahu is known for treating U.S. officials as if they were junior partners in an alliance with the Israeli superpower. Netanyahu now says Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza in which 1,300 people were killed, including 450 women and children, should have gone on for longer. As the European judges debate whether Israeli actions constitute war crimes, Netanyahu promises more.
Livni is reliably vague. She defends Israeli military strategy and the 100-1 ratio of Palestinian to Israel casualties that it generates, while lacking the standing to sell any different policy to Jewish voters. She occasionally mouths the rhetoric of the “peace process” even as the Israeli daily Haaretz reports that her government persists in brazen plans to build 3,5000 housing units set aside for Jews (No Arabs need apply) on the soil of the so-far imaginary Palestinian state. As the Obama administration ponders how to restart serious peace negotiations, Israel pursues plans to make those negotiations impossible.
Tomorrow’s vote will answer one question facing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department: does the Israeli political leadership have ideas for dealing with the Palestinians in their midst other than the application of more violence? Livni offers trickery; Netanyahu is more straightfoward.
The Israeli elections illuminate how eight years of Bush policy has served to radicalize both Israeli and Arab public opinion. Just as the Israeli public has lost faith in the idea of a negotiated settlement, the Palestinian public has gravitated towards Hamas, not out of love for its authoritarian style—the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports 32 extrajudicial executions in Gaza since the Israeli siege began—but because the group’s armed attacks on Israeli civilians are accepted as legitimate by most Palestinian civilians whose communities have absorbed far worse from Israeli forces. Obama and Clinton cannot admit this reality publicly nor deny it privately.
Bush policy also discredited democratic forces in the region. After touting elections to the Palestinians as a path for peace in 2006, Hamas swept to a parliamentary majority and was immediately rewarded with a secret U.S. policy of undoing the election results. As Vanity Fair revealed last March, the Bush administration secretly armed Palestinian forces seeking to overthrow Hamas. That policy failed and the Arab world received an object lesson that American rhetoric about democracy was untrustworthy. Obama and Clinton can’t unring this bell. Now they have to do something about promoting democracy in the Arab world before they can actually talk about it.
Among Bush’s victims is Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Once upon a time, before 2006 Yasser Arafat’s colorless successor could be seen as a decent man holding out for the arrival of an Israeli partner willing to act on the recognition that Jewish security and Palestinian rights depend on each other. But Abbas’ approach had yielded few visible benefits aside from the sort of police training that impresses the likes of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman but fits into no larger policy of building Palestinian civil society. Abbas was all-but invisible during the Israeli siege, lest he be seen by the constituents as a collaborator in the Zionist incursion. Only a few in Washington can now say what Abbas is president of and fewer care. How the Clinton State Department rehabilitates him is far from clear.
Jimmy Carter has an idea. Stop obstructing Abbas from forming national unity government with Hamas. With characteristic bluntness, the former U.S. president told aljazeera.net that reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, the faction led by Abbas has been “objected to and obstructed by the [United States] and Israel. ” Leaving aside Carter’s political radioactivity in Washington, bolstering Abbas would require recognizing the reality of Hamas’ political role, so that’s probably a non-starter even if it might make a negotiated settlement more likely.
Another dismal legacy of the Bush policy lies outside of Israel’s borders, where Arab democratic forces yearn for real, not rhetorical support from Washington, and get unconvincing lectures about how Hamas’s war crimes justify Israeli war crimes. In democratizing Iraq, the daily Azzaman described Gaza as “the fourth devastating war waged by the U.S. or its ally Israel against Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks – Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.”
In Turkey, a country whose government is allied with the United States and where Israelis often vacation, President Raul Erdogan enjoyed a big boost in popularity at home and abroad by denouncing the Gaza war, according to the London pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsat. Beirut’s Daily Star, a democratic secular daily that speaks out against Syrian domination of Lebanon and the excesses of Hezbollah, calls Israeli policy “a big lie” based on hitting its foes “so hard and so fast that they will be irrecoverably crippled and will forever cringe in fear …. The strategy has been deployed in one form or another since even before 1948, but it has so far only won Israel stronger and more dangerous enemies. ”
And these are our friends talking. Obama’s appeal to the Muslim world in his inaugural address and his interview with Al-Arabiya were intended to signal a new U.S. policy is coming. Shorn of options and allies, the Obama administration has little choice but to pursue real change in U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But change is the one option that Israel’s voters and their new leader want to keep off the table. One question is how Obama and Clinton will try to escape the traps set by Bush policy. Another question is whether they want to.
12 Comments
Comment posted February 9, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
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Comment posted February 10, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
The Bush’s Foreign Policies are the source of the Economic Problem and President Obama want to continue on with it.
The new US Governments of President Obama are trying to adopt President Bush’s Foreign Policies with regards of wars, trade and human right. They are even worse than Mr. Bush starting with. Lessen are not learned from all of Mr. Bush’s mistakes.
There are many indications that Mr. Obama is going to follow wrong policy of the past. He is calling for the implementations of King Abdullah plan which is basically eliminating the existence of Israel peacefully. He is adding the Iranian PJAK to the terrorist list before starting the negotiations with Iran. He is trembling with his plan of Foreign Policy changes already. His teams are the old team without any new ideas.
The US Governments are in needs of new ideas for the survival economically, politically to sustain the US Military power around the world.
The US Governments are in need of people not dictators and corrupt politicians. The Islamic worlds are in transitions and wars against the interest of the USA. The no change or cosmetic changes are not enough to stop the Islamic extremist and terrorist movement in “Muslim World”.
Please read our articles and the Article below to see what we are saying for over one year now:
“Munich and the Continuity Between the Bush and Obama Foreign Policies
February 9, 2009 | 2004 GMT
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090209_munich_…
By George Friedman
While the Munich Security Conference brought together senior leaders from most major countries and many minor ones last weekend, none was more significant than U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. This is because Biden provided the first glimpse of U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama. Most conference attendees were looking forward to a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration. What was interesting about Biden’s speech was how little change there has been in the U.S. position and how much the attendees and the media were cheered by it.
After Biden’s speech, there was much talk about a change in the tone of U.S. policy. But it is not clear to us whether this was because the tone has changed, or because the attendees’ hearing has. They seemed delighted to be addressed by Biden rather than by former Vice President Dick Cheney — delighted to the extent that this itself represented a change in policy. Thus, in everything Biden said, the conference attendees saw rays of a new policy.
Policy Continuity: Iran and Russia
Consider Iran. The Obama administration’s position, as staked out by Biden, is that the United States is prepared to speak directly to Iran provided that the Iranians do two things. First, Tehran must end its nuclear weapons program. Second, Tehran must stop supporting terrorists, by which Biden meant Hamas and Hezbollah. Once the Iranians do that, the Americans will talk to them. The Bush administration was equally prepared to talk to Iran given those preconditions. The Iranians make the point that such concessions come after talks, not before, and that the United States must change its attitude toward Iran before there can be talks, something Iranian Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani emphasized after the meeting. Apart from the emphasis on a willingness to talk, the terms Biden laid out for such talks are identical to the terms under the Bush administration.”
We at the “Jaff Sassani Organizations” from Iran and Iraq have been writing about the Wrong policy of the US Government around the World and Especially about Russian, Iran and “Muslim World”.
Please read our articles in the addresses below:
http://www.opednews.com/author/author26258.html
http://www.buzzle.com/authors.asp?author=22116
http://www.jaff-sassanie.com/Default.aspx
Dear American people please take your time to fix the wrong doing of your Government around the World. Stop your Government wrong policy in favor of the right policy. By helping other nations just like what you did after the World War II.
You country are suffering “Morally and economically” because of the special interest, lobbyist and the wrong policy of the US Government for the last fifty years.
The World people are more educated and much smarter people than before. They see your country as an Imperialist; change those perceptions now before it is too late. Do not let the special interest and lobbyist run the US Government again.
The old Ideas of People like former President Clinton, Dr. Zbigniew Bzrezinski, Dr. Hennery Kissinger are outdated and dead wrong.
We are loyal friend of the US people and want to warn you about the wrong policy of your Government in the past. And hope that your new Governments are smarter and have some humanity toward other nations around the World. That is the way to make ally and friends not sale others for small gains. They are putting up Kurds for sale; the Kurdish people are the only nation want to be your friend but your Governments are always disappointing them over and over.
The unjust policies of the US Government are measured by the sale of poor and hopeless nations like Kurds.
Sincerely,
Jaff Sassani
From the SKDC
Comment posted March 8, 2009 @ 11:20 am
It could be worse. It could be a case of OLDE ENGLISH 800 40 ouncers! (malt liq.) Yes, it was Barry Soetoro aka Hussein Barrack Obama's final say on what went out. Pretty outlandishly petty of him. Plus sending back Winston Churchhill's bust. Extremely rude. What an honor to have been given it. In addition that belonged to the people of America not the crook in our White House. I loved Winston Churchhill and always wanted to try his favorite dessert, Dundee cake. There is an Office of Protocol who would have directed Barry to the proper presidential etiquette required in the international state of affairs. I guess that was not in the Saul Alinsky book on how to overthrow a gov't from with in. My apologies Brits. We love you. Both our countries need to unite to fight the forces trying to destroy our white European heritage and our traditions. Plus the DVD set goes into a historical museum at 10 Downing St. Oh boy is it going to stand out like a sore thumb.
Comment posted March 25, 2009 @ 7:27 am
It goes on by the decade….
On and on and on….
I'm 68 on my next birthday… I have always been aware of this fight
my whole life. I am not Jewish. I have seen the home movies and
the photoes of the holocaust. Everyone should be made aware
of this. My family members fought in the war. Saw things that made
them cry.
Some effected mentally that they never forgot; never where the same.
US politicians have trod carefully. Always will. “Don't want to give up
that Jewish money..No, no, no, no.”
“Watch out guys! Don't want to lose that Jewish vote”.
Comment posted April 10, 2009 @ 8:36 am
It is NOT the Israeli or Palestinian or Syrian people…IT IS THE LEADERS AND THEIR RADICAL POLICIES THAT CAUSE THE DIVISIONS> BIbi is an old hawk, who is there after failing 10 years ago but PERES is to blame..He was aftraid of a centrist woman…
Obama is progressing with thoughtful sceptisium and will be hit with snipes and swipes from all sides but will prevail…
Comment posted May 5, 2009 @ 8:29 pm
George Washington on Israel
“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington Farewell Address
“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests.” ~ George Washington
“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Comment posted May 3, 2010 @ 9:36 pm
The traps have been laid by the Palestinian Arab…showing how off base this analyis was. The Palestinians have broken EVERY agreement they had signed. That, is the trap and the folly of even those who think that one can make a deal.
Arafat HAD THE DEAL. 9&% of what he had asked for.
Guess what happened after that.
GAZA had the deal when Israel evacuated. Land for Peace.
Guess what happened after that?
Lebanon had the deal after Israel evacuated.
Guess what happened after that?
America and Israel have common interests. Too many to mention here, but you can Google The Tel Aviv Cluster and NY Post The Israel Test.
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