Netanyahu's Victory: For all of Obama's pandering, the White House could have flown the white flag of surrender. I translated the above verbatim from the introduction of an article in the Washington Post written by Dana Milbank, and entitled “Netanyahu hears no discouraging words from Obama”. What did Benjamin Netanyahu hear? He heard Obama talk about an “extraordinary friendship between our two countries”, about the “unbreakable bond between the two countries”, that “we [the United States] are unwavering in our commitments [to Israel] and that “we [the United States] are working cooperatively”. The above is completely inconsistent with what we heard the U.S administration say since last March, when, upon Vice President Joe Biden's arrival in Israel, the latter's fascist government received him by giving the go-ahead for the construction of 1600 housing units in Arab Jerusalem. In addition, we heard Obama say that the Palestinian-Israel conflict was “a vital national security interest of the United States”. Biden told the Israeli Prime Minister that his policies are endangering U.S troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Gen. David Petraeus said that Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian land is an obstacle to resolving the conflict, while the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that settlement building is an insult. We heard all the above and then in May, we saw the meeting of 189 countries to review the NPT. The conference adopted a 40-page resolution which mentioned Israel for the first time, calling on it to join the treaty. This was considered by the Netanyahu government and the Israel lobby to be a betrayal by the administration, given the fact that there is an unwritten agreement to punish Iran for weapons that do not exist, and to turn a blind eye to Israel which has a proven nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver them unto their targets. Now, this has turned upside down, and we are back to March with an atmosphere reminiscent of that seen during the AIPAC conference, when Netanyahu announced that Israel will help the United States curb the spread of radical Islam and to save American lives. This is not political rhetoric, but an affront to mind and logic, and even a bigger one to the Americans killed in every country. This is because the unwavering American commitment to the neo-Nazi state that murders women and children, destroys, and seizes homes from their rightful owners is what spawned terrorism in response, and is what justifies this terrorism's continuation. The discourse in Washington is reprehensible, as it endorsed an absolute commitment to Israel, i.e. to crime, and as it came devoid of the two most important points, namely, the settlements and the nuclear weapons in Israel. The settlement freeze announced by the Netanyahu government is supposed to expire in September, and the Israeli government insists on not announcing a renewal of this freeze. Also, senior officials from AIPAC visited Israel to coordinate over continuing settlement construction, while the Obama administration did not demand for an end to the theft of Palestinian homes. I will stop here because I am almost using the same talking points of the Americans and Israelis, when in truth, settlement construction never truly stopped in spite of the official announcement. The Obama administration knows this just like every Palestinian whose land was confiscated, was displaced from his house, or had his residence card in Jerusalem revoked to make way for strangers, knows it. Personally, I did not expect anything positive or bold from the meeting in Washington. Netanyahu went there to remind Obama of the difficulty of his position in the midterm elections in November, and of the role of Israel lobby and of the Jewish Americans' financing in shaping the election results. Furthermore, Obama does not need anyone to remind him of the audacity of the American right which lost the wars it waged with Israeli incitement, and bankrupted the U.S Treasury, and yet, it holds an 18-month old administration responsible for what the Bush/Cheney administration perpetrated over eight bleak years. Is there any better time for Obama to return to putting pressure, ineffective as it may be, on Israel? The midterm elections will be hardly over when preparations for the presidential elections will begin along with the elections for the House and a third of the Senate two years later, a time when the role of the lobby and Jewish financing will increase exponentially. Apart from all of the above, I want to reiterate that no peace is possible with the Netanyahu government, as it brings together the most despicable forms of political and religious extremism possible. Although Obama is well-intentioned, good intentions are one thing, and turning them into actions is something completely different. He will either continue to fly the white flag over the White House in surrender with each official Israeli visit, or risk joining George Bush Sr. and Jimmy Carter before him as a President for one term. There will be no Palestinian state in two, ten or even twenty years, so long as the American political decision lies with the advocates of Israel in the United States, and so long as the Arabs have handed over their reins to their enemies, and chosen to be the orphan at the banquet of villains, awaiting their God's mercy. [email protected]
