Iyad Burnat, a leader of the nonviolent protests against the Wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in, responds to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:
Today, when I came home from our nonviolent demonstration in Bil’in, after the soldiers shot tear gas and after seeing the violence of the Israeli soldiers, I heard that President Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. When I heard this from the media I started to go crazy. I asked myself why. The Americans are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Palestine is still occupied. In the recent news I saw that the Israeli soldiers closed Jerusalem, and I heard that many people were injured. We haven’t seen anything changed. Why didn’t the committee give the prize to Bush? I remember nine years ago Bush had a good speech about the establishment of a Palestinian state in the year of 2005. We saw after the speech that Sharon invaded Al Aqsa mosque, and the American army invaded Iraq. Why didn’t you give the prize to this man at that time, and he got shoes instead? This is injustice!
I am so sorry Mr. Bush. You worked very hard, eight years with killing children, starting wars and supporting the occupation, and they gave the prize to another man.
I ask you our friends in the Nobel Committee, why didn’t you choose quality? I think your prize makes the people more violent. Do you think that Obama can make peace, and why didn’t you wait until he actually made the peace? Maybe he will invade another country. Sorry, but we are still under occupation and it makes us very crazy because we see every day and night the suffering of our children, and it’s killing us. We hear in the speeches that the president talks about peace, but nothing has changed. To deserve a Nobel prize you need to work, not talk. We need the work to be done now, not tomorrow. We need our land now, not tomorrow.
I think if Obama had his inner way, instead of having to deal with special interests lobbies
to personally get anything done around the edges regarding any (former or leftover ) institutionalized unfairness, he would wave a magic wand and give the Palestinians there own state with full soverignty or create one state with full equality for all, including making restitution
to the Palestinians for all past usurpation of their dignity and survival as a group of humans. Similarly, he would wave a magic wand and give African Americans (with even one drop of African blood in them–tit for tat) the same reparations, to add to their hard won
equal rights recognition. While Obama’s inability to reach this goal for Palestinians
stems solely from the power of AIPAC and fellow travelers (including those gentiles who benefit
from the current status quo, e.g., the arms industry), his ability to redress all domestic racial wrongs depends on white Americans not realizing he h0lds them all as genetic perps against the DNA side of him as idealistically represented by his deserter father, spawn of a (presumably) reluctant lackey for the Brit colonials. There’s a deep reason why Obama attended sat in the pew and absorbed the philosophy and world view of
his former pastor of two decades–it wasn’t merely a way to ingratiate himself with the
local Chicago black leadership for career purposes.
Obama is Faust. He has sold his soul to the demons of political power.
Well, I don’t think Mrs Obama is Gretchen. But she may be to Obama. It does seem Obama thinks of her as “stay, thou art so fair.” I think Obama’s moment is the same one called for by his pastor of 20 YEARS. If you look at what he wrote in his two books, and what she wrote in her academic papers, this seems to me the heart of what matters to both of them. The white DNA portion of either of them is viewed as totally
evil; and this is the opera we are witnessing.
Could you please define “white DNA portion”? I’ve never heard that expression in any discussion of genetics or sociology or anthropology or anything, but I don’t get around much.
Gosh, do I have “Jewish DNA”? What’s it like? Which chromosome is it on?
Can you have both Jewish DNA and “White DNA”. Oh silly me, of course you can, if Barack and Michele can have BOTH white AND black DNA! Don’t even know why I asked.
And gosh, are you both ignorant, and a bigot? Why, yes indeedy, you are!
That’s crazy, Citizen. I don’t know about Michelle Obama, but Barack is pretty clearly someone who used his pastor and his church as his base, then when he moved on up and Wright became an embarrassment (in large part for saying the sorts of things that we say here about US foreign policy in general and Israel in particular), Obama dumped him, and dumped him hard. I think Wright still believes Obama is secretly on his side–I don’t think Obama is. He’s a centrist Democrat, very good at understanding other people, using them, and dumping them–sort of like Clinton.
The people at Black Agenda Report (who are radical black activist types) despise Obama. His fan club among lefties in general is among those (I know one or two personally) who seem to have some secret need to think they’ve got a friend and ally in high places. It’s pathetic, but it’s got nothing to do with reality as far as I can tell.
Did you read his academical papers? Or did you read someone who read them?
The comparison between Ms Obama and Gretchen can’t be correct. Did Michelle kill an earlier child? Was in jail? Or do you think she convinced Obama/Faust to go to church, only choose the wrong priest?
I think Jeremiah Wright is quite interesting, by the way. Although should have remained silent during the witch hunt of the righteous. … But then I wouldn’t have realized that he is quite interesting.
Gee, Mooser. Why the feigned ignorance about Obama’s white Irish mother?
LeaNder, you really have to get off your German literalism. I know you are your own special version of Fundi, as you reveal so often, including in your direct statement on this blog on another thread that you’ve avoided reading Finklestein intentionally.
It is the tragic truth that no one in power cares about the Palestinians. For over a century, they have been sacrificed to the interests of the international political establishments, and this only continues. No one with the power to effect real change will exert themselves to exercise it on their behalf.
Perhaps, in a thousand years, they will arise in their Diaspora and return home to reclaim their homeland.
I don’t think it will take that long, potsherd, don’t worry. The only thing sustaining the Zionist enterprise, essentially, is the American military-industrial complex. It’s not the only aspect of Israel’s survival but it is the single most essential aspect — without it, without dwelling in the shelter of its American big brother and pleading for handouts every now and then, Israel cannot survive in the modern world.
And for better or for worse, the American military-industrial complex does not have a lot of life left in it.
That’s about the size of it, isn’t it Chaos? How completely true. Notice, too, that you don’t even include say ‘affluent Zionist individuals in the US’ cause it probably doesn’t. It’s way beyond that now. Israel is mostly a creature of the US military largess it recieves. Were that to stop or even lessen significantly, Israel could not, as you say, survive in its present form (and would have to do some pretty fast and adroit footwork to survive at all)
In the end, the Jews will, from the Balfour letter, to the change in US fortunes in the new century, not have a whole lot to do with it.
But I doubt we will see that.
“People marvel at the idiocy of these Nobel awards, but there’s method in the madness, since in the end they train people to accept without demur or protest absurdity as part and parcel of the human condition, which they should accept as representing the considered opinion of rational men, albeit Norwegian. It’s a twist on the Alger myth, inspiring to youth: you too can get to murder Filipinos, or Palestinians, or Vietnamese or Afghans and still win a Peace Prize. That’s the audacity of hope at full stretch.
It’s dawning even on those predisposed to like the guy that when it comes to burning issues the first black president of the United States truly hates to come down on one side or the other. He dreads making powerful people mad. He won’t stand up for his own people when they’re being savaged by the nutball right, edges them out, then has his press secretary claim that they jumped of their own accord. This may impress the peaceniks of Oslo, but from the American perspective he’s looking like a wimp. ”
[Counterpunch]
You can always count on the truth from Counterpunch.
Any minute now, I’m expecting Haim Saban to buy it to shut them up.
LOL, yep, postsherd, and Witty types will feign ignorance of what Haim himself has said, that is, that he only has one political agenda for his money (beyond making more money) and that is Israel Uber Alles.