Obama And Gaza (II)
Posted on January 8th, 2009
by Daniel Larison |
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Barack Obama, who takes over as U.S. president from George W. Bush on January 20, broke his silence about the violence in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, calling the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel a “source of deep concern for me.” ~Haaretz
Michael Crowley reports that Shibley Telhami told him that he believed this signalled that something significant was going to change under the new administration:
“Given how he’s tackled human rights, humanitarian issues and the kind of position he wants to take globally in terms of a signal of where we stand, it’s clear he’s going to be much more sensitive to civilian casualties,” Telhami told me. “You can say we’re going to go in and not repeat certain policies, do things like close Guantanamo, and not be sensistive to the kind of civilian casualties that have people demonstrate in the street around the world. That doesn’t tell you what policies he’s going to pursue, but in terms of how he projects himself, that tells you something.”
Of course, this is the same Obama who had essentially nothing to say about the even larger civilian death toll and massive displacement of refugees from the war two years ago, which he supported without reservation. It seems clear enough to me that voicing expressions of deep concern is the sort of minimal lip service that Obama feels compelled to give, perhaps because he is at least somewhat aware of the tremendous damage these casualties are causing Israel and, indirectly, the United States, but there is little or nothing in his record or public statements that should cause us to expect any departure from the sort of unflinching support the current administration has shown for any and every Israeli military operation for the last eight years. Politically, it is pretty close to unimaginable that Obama would start his term of office by making particularly bold or dramatic moves in this area.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Telhami’s statement that Obama’a rhetoric on Gaza “doesn’t tell you what policies he’s going to pursue, but in terms of how he projects himself, that tells you something,” is (accidentally?) insightful. I agree that there’s not necessarily a strong relationship between “what policies [Obama]’s going to pursue” and “how he projects himself.”
All this tea-leaf reading of tiny and insignificant comments by Obama is getting on my nerves. I don’t think we’re going to know for quite a while what Obama’s mideast policies will be. The first priorities are all domestic. I too would sincerely doubt Obama will voice any criticism of Israel. But there’s also little doubt that he will work to try to find some path towards peace without blaming either party for the lack thereof. Diplomacy requires the ability to overlook obvious sins.
Actually, we already know a lot about what his “Mideast” policies are going to be, because he has already made clear what they will be. I agree that the tea-leaf reading is silly and tells us nothing, especially when you have to read so closely to come up with an answer different from the one that his record and statements already give you.
If Netanyahu’s elected, it doesn’t much matter what Obama says or does. We’re not going to have a “Nixon goes to China”-type developments under Bibi.
Netanyahu will be elected. But don’t count him out just yet. He’s a rightwinger who desperately wants to be a moderate — see his unceremonious demotions of all the hardliners in his party who had come within striking distance of being seated in the Knesset after the primary. Netanyahu might be harder to work with than Barak or Livni, but I think he’ll play ball.
to Daniel at 4:13
Daniel, you keep coming back to this point. You may be entirely correct, but what sticks in my mind is something FDR is said to have said – “I already agree with you, now make me do it.” His point, as I take it, is that in the ebb and flow of what’s possible, sometimes you take one position, but other times you take different positions.
Politicians are not leaders. They are followers. What they follow is a perceived consensus. It is up to us to change that perceived consensus. I hope that the sea change in support for Israel shows up as a consensus for a change in the relationship between Israel and the US.
The US is already sick of it’s own warmongers. I don’t think Israeli warmongers are going to get any free passes from the American public. Our political “leaders” will continue to provide free passes until the change in public opinion is so clear as exact a price when it is ignored.
In short order we will see which way the Obama wind blows in the middle east. And then we will see if it’s needs modification.
I agree that Obama will not do much to address the conflict in the Middle East but that’s primarily because he has prioritized his efforts for remedying the fractured economy. This conflict will unfortunately persevere for many years to come, so saying that he’s pro Israel or Palestine wouldn’t make a difference. People are focused on the condition of the country right now.
Evan
http://www.beyondrace.com
Daniel,
I agree that we already know what Obama’s positions have been on the Mideast and Israel. But how that translates into actual policy is quite a different thing. When it comes to foreign policy, how a President actually engages others diplomatically is something that develops in office, and usually not from some preconceived plan, but according to the circumstances presented. It’s understandable that people would like to know ahead of time how Obama will deal with these things, but we really will just have to wait and see. He’s certainly not going to throw Israel under the bus, however, just because of a few war crimes.
Daniel- Curious if you saw Ron Paul this morning.
Ugh. Prematurely hit submit.
At any rate, regardless of what else Paul said, I am hard pressed to disagree with his closing assertion that our behavior right now in regards to the current crisis is bad for Israel.
I simply can not see how what is happening is good for any of the parties involved.
Poor Shibli Telhami is grasping at straws. Even if Obama will be less tone deaf and clumsy than Bush (not hard to pull off), he will toe a blandly, lockstep pro-Israel line – certainly all the people who will be implementing it for him that have been mentioned: Hillary, Steinberg, Dennis Ross, etc. are mainstream, blindly and predictably pro-Israel. Its not like he’s going to put Rashid Khalidi in charge.
And, as another poster noted, if Bibi Netanyahu gets back in (as is almost a certainty) as Israeli PM next month, we will see him pull a befuddled US Administration down the garden path of “peace for the sake of peace” and showing the Arabs and Muslims who is boss by further brutality and extremism. And then, before you know it, it will be election time in the US in 2012.
This is all speculation as stated above. Still, I’ll make a prognostication. The Israeli’s are overplaying their hand, And “polite society” is getting more and more uncomfortable with The Lobby’s dictated narrative. Given this and Obama’s prickliness to pressure, I predict a tougher line. Obama has too much on his plate and too little money to keep up the current policy toward this endless middle east nonsense. He will not publicly repudiate Israel by any means. But he will start to play tough behind the scenes and perhaps disengage a bit. At least that’s my guess.
I also think it’s worth remembering that Obama is a creature of both the American academy and Black identity politics. In those milieus Israel is not seen as a victim but as an illegitimate settler state. Obama is an opportunist like most politicians but gut reactions do count for something.