Oybama: the most promising candidate disappoints with pandering to hardliners
When Barack Obama, the most promising Presidential candidate in a generation, out-Bushes Bush in bellicose and Likudnik rhetoric on I-P and Iran, there is cause for concern. His turn-about and sharply escalated rhetoric was so striking even the WaPo could not fail to notice this pandering to the Likudnik AIPAC Lobby.
I was especially surprised and dismayed by Obama’s grave error and lack of judgment in calling for an “undivided” (which is to say, Israeli) Jerusalem. Jerusalem is international territory and East Jerusalem, currently militarily occupied, is slated to be the capital of a Palestinian state.
Not only does a single country not recognise the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, it also constitutes a departure from longstanding US policy on the issue, which, if not backed up by action, was at least enshrined in principle and has embodied a rare instance of neutrality and justice in policy. It is also worth remembering that most countries’ embassies, including that of the US, are located in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.
As Ian William writes (see selected article excerpts below), Obama “would be better off building up ties to J-street, the new Peace-Nowish lobby whose views seem to represent far more American Jews than AIPAC, which more and more looks like a Likudnik-Neocon lobby, prepared to fight to the last Israeli – and indeed the last GI – for their eschatological visions. Let us hope Obama’s speech was just a passing pander and that the peace drive he promised takes international law on occupied territories into account.”
Change and hope, Mr Obama?
***UPDATE: See Obama clarifies united J’lem comment ***
- The unpromised land – Ian Williams (Guardian, 5 June) Obama’s eagerness to placate America’s Israel lobby shows the Democratic party’s presidential nominee in a poor light. Imagine the shock-horror: Barack Obama attends the conference of an organisation whose former officials face trial for spying on the United States! Read the REST
- Arabs shocked by Obama speech (Al Jazeera, 5 June): Arab leaders have reacted with anger and disbelief to an intensely pro-Israeli speech delivered by Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee. …His comments appalled Palestinians who see occupied East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera on Thursday: “This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967 … he has given ammunition to extremists across the region.””What really disappoints me is that someone like Barack Obama, who runs a campaign on the theme of change – when it comes to Aipac and what’s needed to be said differently about the Palestinian state, he fails.””I say to Obama … please stop being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves, leave the Israelis and Palestinians alone to make decisions required for peace.” Read rest HERE
- Its a Mitzvah – Dana Milbank (Washington Post, 5 June 2008; thanks Ed): A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday — and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner. He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force has “rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.”He used terms such as “false prophets of extremism” and “corrupt” while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: “I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused.”How could they be confused? As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton’s left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd.Obama even outdid President Bush in his pro-Israel sentiments. On the very day that Obama vowed to protect Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — drawing a furious denunciation from the Palestinian Authority — Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Read rest HERE.
3 comments on “Oybama: the most promising candidate disappoints with pandering to hardliners”
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This entry was posted on 6 June, 2008 by peoplesgeography.com in Elections, Empire, War and Terror, Hegemon-watch, Israel, Lobby watch, Middle East, Palestine, US Foreign Policy, USA and tagged AIPAC, Barack Obama, East Jerusalem, George W. Bush, J-Street, Jerusalem, Saeb Erekat.Shortlink
https://wp.me/pUA3-1eA“Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.”
Edward Said (1994)
Timely Reminders
"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against
the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better,
but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse
than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking
primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions,
to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley
"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination.
All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.
"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
Thank you. It’s well they get this shit out of the way at the very beginning, no? Contemptible politics through and through. I just busted Mofaz on the great lie about the whole wiping Israel off the map vs. Israel disappearing from the map of history thing… which Obama perpetuated in this disgraceful display. I’m dirt certain I’m right about this, and it’s especially salient as it has come out the mouth of an Iranian Israeli.
You’re definitely right about the “wipe off the map” canard, 99. Ahmadinejad was mistranslated. Its still repeated and parroted of course.
The interesting thing about Obama’s calculated (some would say necessary) pandering is that some right wingers actually regard Obama with more suspicion and even contempt for his display at AIPAC, charging him with saying a markedly different thing to different audiences, if you read reader reactions in press like J-Post.
Yuh, well, I’m having a damn bipolar time of it myself! I’m finding it hard not to just give in to my urges to be hysterically euphoric over a black man winning the nomination and who cannot possibly lose in November unless there is serious, serious, serious foul play. But THAT is 100% love of Martin talking. If justice would be done, Cynthia McKinney would be elected. She is far and away the best one of this bunch for the job. She has more principles than the rest put together. I was whining about wanting to vote for her for president as they were ripping her Congressional seat from her in 2006… precisely because she is the most fundamentally American kind of principled.
Obama has disappointed me greatly a number of times since I was swooning right along with the rest of us over his brilliant performance at the 2004 convention. His kind of pragmatism is too removed for my blood, and his ONLY excuse for any of it is that is what it takes to get what he wants. In fairness, I don’t believe he wants to be president for himself alone, that he’d abandon us utterly for that “simple” achievement. I think he wants to and will do great things, but he has repeatedly dropped us in pursuit of this office. He dropped some great men whose whole hearts have gone into making him even greater than they. He’s dropped the integrity of the Constitution a few times. He’s caved in and told a bunch of maniacs with many decades of conditioning into the witless entitlement to gain that he would nuke Iran for them if it gets strong enough to deter them from continuing their six decade murdering spree.
I think he wants to be greater than JFK, and so I believe he will do everything he can, even risk his life, to prevent any more filthy American aggression under the guise of protecting Israel, but I am appalled that he would be so downright venal, or so downright ignorant, as to use that SHIT about map wiping. It’s practically my mantra that these people are beaten to pulps with the need for expediencies like this, and it is not necessarily the kind of meaningful that kills, but… it actually does kill… in the end. Everything they do and say costs lives! Everybody forgets that.