Appointing Emanuel, Obama Slams Door on 2-State Solution

by on November 7, 2008 7

Former Palestinian advocate John Whitbeck argues that Obama's apparent obeisance to the Israel lobby–appointing Emanuel– means that he will put off the "core" issue of American foreign policy till the second term. By then it will be too late to get the 2-state solution, Netanyahu will have seen to that, and the apartheid-struggle that Olmert has warned us about will be in full pitch, hopefully nonviolent, and Obama will lead the way to one state.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine, Neocons, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 7 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Richard Witty says:
    November 8, 2008 at 1:31 am

    Too early to judge.

  2. Lysander says:
    November 8, 2008 at 1:35 am

    Philip, I admire your work and what you are trying to accomplish. But the heart of the matter is, as I've said many times, is regional balance of power. So long as it so onesidedly favors Israel, Israel has no incentive to compromise.

    I believe that balance **might** change. Iran getting nukes, Hizbollah getting more heavily armed, a resurgent Russia may make war a less pleasant option in the future. Global economic depression, if there will be one, will rearrange priorities in this country quite quickly. Oil has fallen dramatically in price, but will eventually rebound.

    This may happen no matter what Obama does. It would happen even if McCain had won. Not everything is centered around the U.S. and Israel. And while there are many voices for justice in the Jewish community, they, through no fault of their own, will not be heard. But the re-balancing of the scale will be.

    P.S. You all can safely forget about war with Iran. Obama may be beholden to AIPAC, but he isn't stupid. He isn't about to take the fall for a war gone wrong just to make Rahm and company happy.

  3. Richard Silverstein says:
    November 8, 2008 at 2:43 am

    Hogwash. The whole Emanuel as Aipac plant is ridiculous & completely misunderstands what it is that chiefs of staff really do & what Emanuel is capable of doing in this administration to advance a pro Israel agenda if he wanted to do so.

  4. otto says:
    November 8, 2008 at 3:32 am

    Chiefs of staff/ private secretaries to leaders have frequently been seen as the most powerful member of many governments, in the US and abroad both.

    The bigger problem is that the Obama administration is likely to be festooned with Israeli lobby types, including many who think they're 'liberal' and want to be 'generous' to the Palestinians. There will be precious little counterweight to those bigots.

  5. Eva Smagacz says:
    November 8, 2008 at 5:15 am

    I am concerned that the full blown anti-apartheid struggle throughout the world would be what Richard Witty calls "shouting fire in the theatre" which means wave of justified anti-Israeli feelings in the West turning to ugly anti-Semitic feelings of those who are looking for a scapegoat in these uncertain times.

    In times of economic upheaval (and european pre-war history really is educational on this point) , it is easier to feel resentment towards foreigners who have money and power, like Jews, than foreigners who have not, like Muslims.

    Olmert has seen the future, and he is concerned.

  6. The Other Alan says:
    November 8, 2008 at 8:44 am

    The endgame will either be two failed states, or an Israel more akin to the United States, unpartitioned, and on the road to its own Barack Hussein Obama moment.

  7. JOHN DICKERSON says:
    November 8, 2008 at 9:54 am

    For Eva Smagacz

    Jews protect Palestinians in harvest of hate

    Israelis cross religious divide to shelter olive farmers from settlers' attacks

    By Donald Macintyre in Awarta, West Bank
    Friday, 10 October 2008

    In the shade of the trees where they have been picking olives all morning, in this wadi, south-east of Nablus, a Palestinian farmer, Jamal Otman Koarik, and two of his daughters share a lunch of home-baked bread, zatar, oil, courgettes and salad with three visitors. It's a bucolic scene that could have happened any time in the past century. But what makes it notable in 2008 is that the guests who have been helping Mr Koarik pick the olives are Israeli Jews: a rabbi, an anthropologist and a youth worker, Hellela Siew.

    Born in Tel Aviv, Ms Siew served in the army, took a university degree, then a teacher's diploma. Thirty-six years ago, she took the tough decision to emigrate to London, telling her parents: "I won't come back until there's peace." Ms Siew, who is now 64, remains an Israeli citizen but now lives with her British husband in Hebden Bridge. She has kept to her word, except that each autumn she comes back to stay in her hometown with her relatives and spends each day of the two-month harvest season picking olives on Palestinian farmland in the West Bank.

    And Ms Siew does that for a purpose. Up on the ridge above us, you can see the red roofs of Itamar, a notably hard-line Jewish settlement, and she is here to help protect the Palestinian farmers from the threat of settler violence which has so often scarred the olive harvests.

    Last year, she was in a group in the South Hebron Hills confronted by settlers who fired shots from a pistol and an M16 assault rifle, despite the presence of the army and police. "Then one of the soldiers said, 'Look, one of them is coming down with a jug of water for you'. The settler emptied the jug over me. It was full of human shit."

    Mr Koarik, the olive farmer, says he has no difficulty distinguishing between the settlers who fired on and burnt out his tractor during the harvest six years ago and the Jews who come to help him. "I welcome them here like they are my family," the 40-year-old says. Looking up at the settlement, Ms Siew tries to explain, as a lifelong opponent of the occupation, why she comes each year. "When there was the big demonstration against the Iraq war in England people carried banners saying 'Not in my name'. I'm trying to do something against what is being done in my name."

    Ms Siew was brought here by the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights, led by Rabbi Arik Ascherman who has led a never-ending campaign to persuade the army and police to enforce the Palestinian olive growers' right to farm their land despite the settlers' attempts to stop them. RHR has made a special effort this year to maximise its volunteer numbers because of the growing incidence of settler violence against Palestinians in the past few months.

    Rabbi Ascherman says that apart from one notably ugly and violent confrontation with aggressive settlers in Hebron last week, the harvest has been relatively quiet. But it has only just begun. And while the army insists that it will "strive" to ensure as normal a harvest as possible, Rabbi Ascherman is considering returning to the Supreme Court because of restrictions he says the military is still imposing on the farmers even in areas opened up under a 2006 order made by the Court.

    Asked why he and his volunteers make this often risky mission each year, the US-born rabbi says "if we really believe" the Biblical text that all human beings are made in God's image, "we have got to put our money where our mouth is and be here in an active way to defend human rights". And he also cites the "dialogue of the olive groves" in which Israelis and Palestinians who "have to live and die here together" have "no choice but to communicate" if they also work together. "I think this is not only the just and right and Jewish thing to do, but it's the self-interested thing to do. We are going to survive."

    SOURCE- link to independent.co.uk
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