Akiva Eldar / As Obama is sworn in, Israelis and Palestinians will be thinking 'no we can't'

[IndianaGreen]

Akiva Eldar / As Obama is sworn in, Israelis and Palestinians will be thinking 'no we can't'

Last update - 06:43 20/01/2009

The swearing-in of Barack Obama as 44th president of the United States takes me back to another presidential ceremony, one that moved millions of people, especially Israelis and Palestinians, whose war-torn hearts were filled with hope for better days. The ceremony on the lawn of the White House more than 15 years ago was my first assignment as Haaretz correspondent to Washington. The beads of perspiration mixed with tears when, with an embarrassed look, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, briefly hesitating, shook the hand of Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. President Bill Clinton, who had arrived at the White House less than nine months before the signing of the Oslo Accords, looked on with a face that glowed with joy and satisfaction.

Clinton shone onto the Middle Eastern skies at a time when the Israeli right, headed by Yitzhak Shamir, had sunk deep into the opposition, giving way to the "peace camp." Less than 16 years later, a leader of the same rightist camp is making a political comeback on the ruins of the homes of hundreds of dead Palestinian children. According to the polls, Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to be the first Israeli to meet Obama in the White House. During Netanyahu's first term in office, in 1996-99, his neo-conservative worldview led him to clash with the previous Democratic president. That occurred as Clinton's ambition to push forth the Oslo process met Netanyahu's ambition to bring it to an end.

Obama is surrounded by Jewish advisers who are very familiar with Israeli tricks and stalling tactics, especially when it comes to the settlements (have we mentioned "natural growth" yet?), but they would still want the new president to adopt the tradition of the "special relationship" with the Jewish state. Obama, however, has also been exposed to the school of thought, existing in both the administration and the American think tanks, that argues that the excessive closeness between the U.S. and Israel undermines America's strategic interests in the Arab world.

Brent Scowcroft, one of the shapers of foreign policy under President George H.W. Bush, and according to Time magazine, a strong influence on Obama, has called for a fundamental restructuring of American policy in the Middle East. Scowcroft, who was the boss of the current (and incoming) defense secretary Robert Gates, and a friend of the new national security adviser, James Jones, is proposing that the "special relationship" be adjusted to a "natural relationship." Perhaps such a change would be able to transform celebratory ceremonies into dry agreements.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056944.html

[Idealism]

1. Why does Israel get a pass for electing a war monger?

When Hamas was elected, the Israeli government said that it proved that the Palestinians don't want peace, yet when Israel elects a war-mongering neo-con nut job with a proven hawkish record- they get no such reprimand, no claims of them 'not wanting peace.' This isn't the first time this has happened, but no one will speak of this double standard. Just like how Israel has been offered long-term cease-fires and peace proposals during the past two decades (and even earlier than that) dozens of times by Palestinian groups/governments and they have refused, because their illegal settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights are too precious for the Israeli government to give up in the name of peace.

Why the double standard?

[IndianaGreen]

2. No one has clean hands! I hope Obama can break the enabling cycle.

We will soon know, won't we? I am a perennial optimist, a glass is half full type of gal, and I hope that we put the interests of the American people first, which happen to coincide with the interests of the peace advocates among Israelis and Palestinians. We should form coalitions with the peace forces, not with the many warmongers on both sides of this conflict.

Israel has the right to exist (and already does!), but Palestine has the right to exist as well, with its own sovereign and inviolate borders, and their own defense forces. Terrorism is a threat to all of us, but so is the Occupation of Palestine.