George Stephanopoulos, the host of ABC News program “This Week,” interviewed President-elect Barak Obama on his foreign policy plans for the Middle East. Mr. Obama reiterated his intention to engage Iran in a direct dialogue that will emphasize respect and translucency. He explained that his foreign policy vis-à-vis Iran will be clearly demarcated from the superciliousness and deprecation that has characterized the relations between George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The objective of his agenda will be to improve relations; such improvement can only be attained if Tehran halts its nuclear program that the United States and Israel define as hostile.
On the current fighting in Gaza, Mr. Obama promised that immediately after his inauguration, his foreign policy team will commit to advancing the Middle East peace process between Israel and Palestine. Such comment should bring a sigh of relief and stoke the hopes of Arab officials and non-officials who, a week earlier, voiced deep consternation that the President-elect ‘silence was a nod and a wink to a doubtful Israel conveying his unadulterated support for its “right” to exist. During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama promised the Arab and Moslem world to break away from the heavy handed and coercive tactics of the Bush administration and promote a positive approach that will foster a peaceful environment in the Middle East. Mr. Obama’s aides revealed that the president-elect will elaborate on his new positive approach in a speech he will give in a yet to be known Arab country within the first one hundred days of his presidency.
What most Arab observers fail to note is that Mr. Obama has already plotted his foreign policy azimuth, or rather it has been plotted for him; it does not digress from the current administration’s stance. Last July, when he was visiting the Israeli town of Sderot, Obama sanctioned Israel’s military interventions against the Palestinians when he said: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I am going to do everything in my power to stop that.” He, however, lacked the fortitude of 
character to reverse the perspective and say what he would do if somebody, for years, cut off the water and electricity to his house, where his daughters slept at night, walled the doors and windows, clogged the sewers, restricted the flow of food and medicine, while constantly fumigating and blasting earsplitting sirens. On December 29, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, quoted Obama ‘statement in justifying Israel’s grievous assault on the Palestinian civilians. Mr. Obama, much like his predecessors, feels that Israel is vindicated in its genocidal and racist killing campaign against the Palestinians; he feels that if Israel’s highly uncalibrated sense of threat requires the extermination of the Palestinian population with its babies, women, and elderly, so be it. To that end, the United States, a founding sponsor of and a contracting party to the Nuremberg Charter and the Genocide Convention, as well as the United Nations Charter, finances, arms, and politically supports Israel’s murdering of the Palestinians. The United States’ foreign policy has historically spurned the Rule of Law in foreign relations when it comes to endorsing Israel’s ascendancy in the region.
Obama’s message on his campaign trail might have been “Hope,” but it is not hope for the Middle Eastern Arab nations. The peace process his foreign policy team intends to jumpstart is in fact a war process by means of which Israel will expand its supremacy over its Arab neighbors and Iran. It is high time the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Moslems stop believing that he is their redeemer.
A. T. B. Copyright © 2009
[...] Moroccan About the World Around Him analyzes the actions of US President-Elect Barack Obama in regard to Israel's attacks on Gaza. Posted by Jillian [...]
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