Israel, Gaza and the US: what will Obama do?

Israel’s current crop of leaders are second-raters, and conditions ripe for a forceful push from the US

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 2, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama is getting whacked by the left for declining to comment on Israel's onslaught on Gaza, but his prudent silence is just as discomfiting to the Israeli government and its allies here in the United States. They wanted a ringing endorsement of their bombardment.

There were also hints in their demeanour on television that Obama's senior aides like David Axelrod were not overly delighted with Israel's state propagandists for headlining Obama's remarks on a visit to Israel in the summer that "If somebody shot rockets at my house where my two daughters were sleeping at night, I'd do everything in my power to stop them."

On the campaign trail and, indeed, since he reached the Senate in 2005, no politician was more sedulous that Obama in ensuring that the Israel lobby here had no cause for disquiet. On arrival in Washington, he instantly selected Joe Lieberman, known informally as the Senator from Israel, as his mentor. At the annual conference this last summer of the very powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama drew criticism from across a broad political spectrum for his grovelling.

"Israel should get whatever it wants and an undivided Jerusalem should be its capital," Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee

"Israel should get whatever it wants and an undivided Jerusalem should be its capital," Obama assured the American Jewish delegates, many of them influential Democrats from across the US. The next day, one of his foreign policy advisors hastily issued a clarification to the effect that Obama believes "Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties" as part of "an agreement that they both can live with". The aide refused to rule out such possibilities as Jerusalem also serving as the capital of a Palestinian state or Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods.

So, is there any evidence that when he sits down in the Oval Office in three weeks' time, Obama will try to set a new course?

The minute Obama makes any move deemed ‘anti-Israel’ he will see his economic recovery plan held hostage

It's certainly true that the minute the new Obama administration makes any move, however tentative, deemed 'anti-Israel' by the massed legions of the Israel lobby - stretching from Vice President Joe Biden's office, through Obama's own Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to about 98 per cent of the US Congress, the major newspapers and TV networks, the think tanks in Washington, the big Democratic Party funders - political mayhem will break loose. The White House will see its prime political enterprise, the economic recovery programme, immediately held hostage.

It's also true that both Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have in the past evinced sympathy for Palestinian aspirations: the former photographed with his wife Michelle in what was obviously an amiable meeting with the late Edward Said, America's best-known Palestinian, and Hillary Clinton publicly embracing Yasser Arafat. It seems safe to say that, unlike Bush Jnr, neither Obama nor Mrs Clinton have any rooted ideological or religious commitment to the Zionist cause. Political self-preservation and advancement form the leaven in their loyalty and will remain predominant.

But if the power of the Israel lobby is as obstructive as ever to the formation of

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I'd be surprised if there is any shift in the Israel lobby's stranglehold on American power. Money doesn't talk, it swears. This current situation was engineered by Israel; pushing Palestinians to the limit so that Hamas reacted and dropped the ceasefire it had held for six months of Israeli blockade when Israel gave back nothing in return. Then they could 'respond' to the largely ineffective rockets with aerial bombing. They don't want to live with Palestinians, they want them to disappear so they can take their land.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 12:26pm on January 2, 2009

Obama is a politician. I cannot imagine him having the vision to push for any attitude changes for Israel. I think the only hope for the Palestinians lies in Hillary Clinton.

Posted by BILL MUNTZ at 1:25pm on January 2, 2009

There may actually be a greater truth behind Tzivi Lipni's Gaza holocaust. If the favourable polls then keep out the arch devil Bibi Netenhayu from the Israeli leadership we may well have been saved from a major war in the Middle East over the coming decade. Ironically, Obama who was elected with the aid of the timely providential 2-3% 'financial meltdown' swing vote in the crucial states, may actually be having another push from Providence in the 'right' direction !!

Posted by Iqbal Halani at 2:33pm on January 2, 2009

The answer to this question is quite clear, that is if he has the brains to learn from the 20th century of failed European colonialism that created artificial countries and borders supported freedom fighters that eventually landed on Europe's doorstep? isn't that silly to hate someone for having the light while you know your living a lie?

Posted by Avi-Hecht at 3:39pm on January 2, 2009

This is a very good and interesting article and I would to know some of the answers to the big questions that it poses.Only time will tell I guess.It does pose a big question about the active Jewish lobby in washington,98 % is the figure given but can this be true about pro Iraeli representation in the USA Congress? If so then this is truly disturbing on many levels, political and economic as the artilce points out. I just hope that Obama / Clinton can bring a differenet persectrive to US foreign policy and the Middle East in particular.We can but live in Hope. Bill Beeby England.

Posted by william beeby at 6:37pm on January 2, 2009

The article quotes Obama as saying: 'Israel should get whatever it wants and an undivided Jerusalem should be its capital.' Um, where did Obama actually say this? It does not appear to be a direct quote from his speech to AIPAC: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432. True, Obama does say that Jerusalem 'must remain undivided', and it is possible to interpret his speech as saying that Israel should get whatever it wants. However, should this be presented as a direct quote?

Posted by John Smith at 6:41pm on January 8, 2009

The most depressing situation in the world today covered with insight by Alexander Cockburn. I did not get any sense from Hillary Clinton's address at her senate hearing that it will be anything but business as usual where the Middle East is concerned. One does not have to be Arab or Muslim to feel deep pain for people like the mother who lost her 5 daughters, and the hundreds of others maimed or killed by this brutal assault. If the pro Israeli/ Jewish lobby in the US administration is as strong and influential as Cockburn claims, then there is no hope, I fear

Posted by Yolande Agble at 8:06am on January 17, 2009