The Committee for Justice in Palestine (CJP) at Ohio State University (of which I’m a member) is happy to invite all to hear author and activist Josh Reubner speak about his book on Obama’s failure to make Middle East peace, Shattered Hopes, tomorrow night, October 30, 7:00 P.M., at the law school.
Ruebner’s book vividly answers the question, “How did the Obama administration so spectacularly fail in its high-profile gambit to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord…?”
Ruebner describes Barack Obama’s excruciating collapse from principle to impotence: after taking office as the “Unbelievably Informed President,” Obama sacrificed his own progressive agenda for peace to a “political calculus.” Ruebner recounts how Obama “scuppered” negotiations by refusing to: “insist” that “Israel stop expanding its illegal settlements on Palestinian land”; “ground” any “talks in international law and U.N. resolutions”; allow allies and multilateral institutions to defuse the “biases” of “the US-monopolized ‘peace process”– the very “favoritisms” that had “undermin[ed] successful negotiations in the past.”
Ruebner shows how Obama’s endless “carrots” and no “sticks” for Israel doomed his own goals: “while US diplomatic support for Israel subverted the international community’s attempts to hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses, US military support for Israel…[made the US] directly responsible for…those violations.”
Ruebner’s essential research offers a fascinating analysis of a tragic history.
More on tomorrow night’s talk from the CJP Facebook page:
Join CJP and author/activist Josh Ruebner for a book talk and signing at the Saxbe Auditorium, Drinko Hall, Moritz College of Law on October 30th at 7:00PM.
Josh Ruebner, a former analyst of Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service, is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. He also founded Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, which merged with Jewish Voice for Peace.
Written in a clear and accessible style, his book “Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace” offers an informed history of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and maps out a progressive path forward. This new book is highly acclaimed and has been reviewed by well-known scholars and activists such as Phyllis Bennis, Nadia Hijab, and Bill Fletcher Jr.
Copies of Josh Ruebner’s book will be available for sale at the event, which is open to the public. Snacks and refreshments will be provided!
Information on parking available at the link.
The single most important hope for justice was indeed shattered.
How can it be so hard to actually admit grievous mistakes and set upon a new path forward? Can it be that the US is terminally insane and immoral in every sense of the word? Or do we just have an addiction to the worst part of humankind? Do we really want to preserve, create, and maintain an adversarial and paranoid relationship with most of the rest of the world? Can’t we tell our “friends” not to “drive drunk” and to lead by example?
(Maybe it will happen in my lifetime… maybe not.)
Thanks, just. And thanks for reminding me that I’d meant to end with the hope Ruebner extends:
“Instead of relying on politicians to do the right thing…, US civil society must…build upon [its] successes…. It must educate fellow citizens about the negative repercussions of current US policy and challenge institutional support of Israel through campaigns of boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS). In…the decades-long effort to end US support for apartheid South Africa, policy change,…comprehensive sanctions against the apartheid regime, came about only after the tireless efforts of a largely grassroots movement had…shifted public opinion and the policies of…colleges, labor unions and churches.”
They have been most definitely shattered hopes but it’s looking more and more like Obama is on the road to redemption with Iran. Fixing America’s mistake on Iran should also fix a lot of other mistakes the US stumbled into. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine to a small degree, Hizbullah and so on. It should also cut Israel and a couple of other area shit disturbers down to size. It must be a good book about hope for the future and one of the tools to get there is BDS, as Susie said.
Another good write-up about the book in Counterpunch last May in which it’s said that Obama employs an all-carrots / no-sticks approach with Israel that is doomed to failure.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/28/an-endless-peace-process-for-palestine/