Last week MJ Rosenberg praised Obama’s visit as a good investment. Now he’s reconsidered, in a post headlined, “Obama takes Palestinians for granted,” wherein he states that Obama exposed the fact that the U.S. can’t be an honest broker on the conflict.
At every stop, he made clear that the United States is 100 percent on Israel’s side. Almost in so many words, he said that the United States and Israel are one…
Particularly striking was Obama’s obsequiousness toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who worked so hard to elect former Governor Romney in 2012. Just read the transcript of the Obama-Netanyahu press conference and note the 10 times the president specifically invoked “Bibi,” as if the two were not leaders of their respective countries but buddies since childhood. (Imagine if Obama stood on a platform here with Speaker John Boehner or Majority Leader Eric Cantor and, to show bygones were bygones, smothered them with that kind of feigned affection). It was embarrassing.
But more than that it did significant damage to America’s ability to play the role of honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians if negotiations ever begin. Obama made clear which side he is on, going so far as to embrace the whole Biblical Jewish claim to Eretz Yisrael. How could Palestinians ever trust him? The umpire is not supposed to wear the uniform of either team.
Obama must know all this but he obviously thinks that Palestinians have no choice but to go along with anything he proposes. After all, they have nothing. He seems not to understand that because of that fact, they have, as the song goes, nothing left to lose. A Third Intifada or massive non-violent resistance could turn Israel upside down and Palestinians know it. Obama apparently doesn’t; he thinks, as Netanyahu clearly does, that the hungry are always grateful for crumbs.
PS. Rosenberg has signed on as the special correspondent for Middle East Affairs at the Washington Spectator, which is published by the Public Concern Foundation, and whose publisher is Hamilton Fish. Rosenberg’s last official hook was Media Matters, which had connections to the Democratic establishment, and then things got a little too hot for him there. I hope this new affiliation will allow him to give full throat to his ideas (half of my stories come from folks who don’t want to be identified, lest their careers are affected). Congratulations to MJ and to Hamilton Fish.
Yeah, hoist your flag, MJ, because you’ve gone nothing to lose either. They can’t ruin your career now.
You know what I would write if I had your new job? I’d go for the jugular with Obama. I’d tell him that now he knows what it’s like to be white and powerful, how those good ‘ole boy southerners felt, the surge, when they could tell who got to live where and when. Hozzit feel, Obama? Feels good, hunh. How soon you forgot your Joshua and Moses generation speech. Mr. Go Along to Get Along.
RE: “Obama made clear which side he is on, going so far as to embrace the whole Biblical Jewish claim to Eretz Yisrael. How could Palestinians ever trust him?” ~ M.J. Rosenberg
MY COMMENT: The Likudnik Revisionist Zionists desperately want everyone to acknowledge “the Jews’ 4,000-year connection” to their homeland* [Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the occupied West Bank)] so that it will legitimate Israel’s continued colonization and ultimate annexation of the West Bank.
Consequently, the Likudniks were very upset by Obama’s having referred to the Holocaust, etc. as justifying Israel’s existence in his June 2009 Cairo speech.
While the Holocaust, etc. might well justify the existence of Israel, the Eretz Israel crowd fears that the international community might see pre-1967 Israel as adequate. The Likudniks, settlers, etc. fear that the international community will not see the Holocaust as necessarily justifying Israel’s absorption of “Judea and Samaria” [a/k/a the “disputed” West Bank (f/k/a the occupied West Bank)]. To remedy this, the Likudniks/settlers want the “Biblical narrative” used to justify Israel’s existence because they see it as being specific to “Judea and Samaria” (i.e. the occupied West Bank) as opposed to the coastal plain and other parts of pre-1967 Israel.
By referring to Israel as the ‘historic homeland’ of ‘the Jewish people’ in his 2010 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama has – for the settlers in the West Bank and their supporters – acknowledged that “Judea and Samaria” (i.e. the occupied West Bank) is/are a legitimate part of Israel. That was probably the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution. Of course, the two-state solution had long been in an advanced state of Rigor mortis, so a proper Christian burial was probably in order.
Obama is a Christian, right? I can never keep that straight.
* Here is a map showing an interpretation of the borders of “The Land of Israel”, based on scriptural verses found in Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Land_of_Israel.jpg
MJR is now correct but obama is sorely mistaken, we have choices……. As I said here before, we must all now push for ONE DEMOCRATIC State of the Holy Land for ALL of its citizens… Christian, Moslem, and Jewish. ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE.
Let’s march steadily towards that ONE DEMOCRATIC State of the Holy Land with peace, justice, and security for all its citizens.
Yes, congratulations MJ and Hamilton Fish.
The idea that the US was ever an “honest broker” is a bit crazy. The US has always favored Israel. Just check the UNSC veto record.