The foreign policy features of the administration of the new American president have begun to take shape gradually. He has closed the black files on the War on Terror which his predecessor George W. Bush announced, such as the Guantanamo prison and the secret torture centers scattered in several spots in the world, most of them in Arab countries unfortunately, ending the worst transgressions and violations of human rights in modern American history. But the aspect related to the Middle East and the Israeli-Arab struggle has become muddled and intricate and full of many worrying cracks and crevices.
It is true that Obama has requested the opening of the crossings to allow humanitarian assistance to be brought in as well as business dealings for the people of the Gaza Strip. And he has shown empathy toward the suffering of the sons and daughters of Gaza but he has never once broached the subject of the Israeli massacres, the killing of children, the use of internationally prohibited phosphorus bombs, the destruction of more than 6,000 homes and the displacement of 4,000 people.
We expected from the new American president a strong stance against these Israeli crimes, especially after assuming the duties of his office. He, the one, who has come from the womb of suffering, poverty, deprivation, and racial segregation, when his parents were forbidden 50 years ago to patronize most of the restaurants and clubs because of their color or African background. We expected him to condemn this Israeli brutality with clear, unadulterated words, indicating the beginning of a phase of change which he promised us, and translating his words about dealing with Muslims on the basis of respect and common interests.
It appears that President Obama has forgotten that the Palestinians, whose bones were disintegrated by tanks and their children, whose tender bodies were burned by phosphorus, are Muslims but human beings as well. In the speech he gave during the appointment of his envoy to the region he equated the Israeli and Palestinian victims saying, "I was extremely worried about the losses of Israeli and Palestinian lives over the last few days."
We could understand this type of language if the new American president had used it during his presidential campaign or even before taking up the duties of his post in the White House. But he has grabbed the stick from the wrong end, and making no difference between the executioner and the victim is an unacceptable and reprehensible matter and reveals a bad beginning.
The Israeli victims in this war did not exceed 3 civilians and 10 military personnel, whereas more than 1350 Palestinians were martyred in the savage Israeli bombing of the Strip, most of them children and civilians. So how is it possible for an American president who knows well the root causes of the struggle, just as all of his advisers and his Secretary of State who know the scope of the Israeli preoccupation with shedding of Palestinian blood in a way never before seen in modern history to deal equally with the losses on both sides and the worry and pain?
It is nice that the new president has ended his country's war on terror and has acknowledged the transformation of victory in it, and the amount of the destruction which it has left behind on the visage of his country and the financial bleeding of its economy and money. But the most beautiful thing would be to turn his attention to the Israeli terror as well. He has witness the atrocities with his own eyes on the TV screen, with the smoldering pictures of children, the father who lost his wife and 5 children, or the families who have been completely obliterated. A picture doesn't lie, as the first lesson in journalism and the war science states.
If Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, was able to admit that he was on the verge of breaking into tears at witnessing on TV the aid to a Palestinian doctor who had lost his 3 kids, one would expect the American president to be more affected by these massacres and more sympathetic with its victims and with our assent to Olmert's lie and all the other Israeli officials like him, who take pleasure in lapping up the blood of the Palestinians until their thirst is slaked.
We don't want laws to be issued hurriedly before this administration has had a chance to settle in, but a bad start can only lead to worse results. So here we feel it's our duty to raise our voice in warning and caution, before a catastrophe occurs and making coming back from these mistakes difficult.
Asking Hamas to ackowledge Israel in his first speech as president while explaining his foreign policies is one of the best examples of this flubbed start, especially since this request coincided with the complete commitment to Israel's security and without directing any blame to Israel for the failures of the peace process, the continuation of setting up settlements, choking Palestine's economy, building a sectarian isolating wall, killing thousands of cut off Palestinians, and taking more than 10,000 of its good people prisoner.
So why is there no difference in the sympathy with the victims of both sides but no evenness in handing out blame and calling things as they are without hemming or hawing? The Palestinians do not occupy Israel's land and do not send American made F-16's and Apache helicopters to bomb innocent people in a war with only one direction.
Ending the war on "terror" without ending the continuing Israeli terror which has lasted 60 years and with American support and protection will lead to the appearance of a new more dangerous and malicious Arab Islamic "terror", because those children who lost their siblings, mothers and fathers, and witnessed the Israeli airplanes firing their embers above their heads, will be more malicious in their revenge, which is justified and legitimate according to all divine laws which have been passed down, if they continue to be without a home and without hope and without a future.
The slaughter of Gaza did not just destroy the culture of peace and moderation; it has forcefully revived the culture of resistance across the Islamic world. It has revealed the general downfall of Western and American morality in its ugliest forms and shapes. If the new American president and his crew do not realize this evident truth, then all of his proclaimed intentions to repair the very ugly image of his country in the Islamic world will be to no avail.
We still hold onto a straw of hope that the new American president will be able to make this desired change happen in the foreign policy of his country, not because the name of his parents is "Husayn" and not because of his African heritage and features. But because continuing the policies of the previous administration of pressuring the victim, fleecing him, and making him give up concession after concession under the pretense of promoting a speedy peace will reverse and turn out to be ruin for the United States and its interests, at a time when it greatly needs peace and stability to rescue its collapsed economy and to regain its position of leadership in the world.
The Palestinian people do not need a conference of donor countries to allocate money for the purpose of rebuilding and to finance a failed corrupt authority which no longer represents anyone. It needs a peace conference supported by international and legitimate resolutions telling the Israelis that, "You all have become a moral, political and security burden on the shoulders of the West and all of its people, by being the source of threat to the safety and stability of the world and its terror crimes against a isolated people. These crimes feed radicalism and extremism and makes Al-Qa'ida, as an organization, pale in comparison to the organizations that could appear in the future.
By 'Abd Al-Bari Al-Atwan
http://www.bariatwan.com/index.asp?fname=2009\01\01-24\23z50.htm&storytitle=ff%C8%CF%C7%ED%C9%20%E3%DE%E1%DE%C9%20%E1%E1%D1%C6%ED%D3%20%C7%E6%C8%C7%E3%C7fff
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