[Reader-list] The Grim Picture Of Obama's Middle East by Noam Chomsky (fwded)

[Venugopalan K M]

The Grim Picture Of Obama's Middle East

By Noam Chomsky

05 June, 2009
CommonDreams.org

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address,
reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps
that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden
in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

Keeping just to Israel-Palestine -- there was nothing substantive
about anything else -- Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to
'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one
side or the other.' There is, however, a third side, that of the
United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the
current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change
or even be considered.

Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that
Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.

Obama once again praised the Arab Peace Initiative, saying only that
Arabs should see it as 'an important beginning, but not the end of
their responsibilities.' How should the Obama administration see it?
Obama and his advisers are surely aware that the Initiative reiterates
the long-standing international consensus calling for a two-state
settlement on the international (pre-June '67) border, perhaps with
'minor and mutual modifications,' to borrow U.S. government usage
before it departed sharply from world opinion in the 1970s, vetoing a
Security Council resolution backed by the Arab 'confrontation states'
(Egypt, Iran, Syria), and tacitly by the PLO, with the same essential
content as the Arab Peace Initiative except that the latter goes
beyond by calling on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel in
the context of this political settlement. Obama has called on the Arab
states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however,
the crucial political settlement that is its precondition. The
Initiative cannot be a 'beginning' if the U.S. continues to refuse to
accept its core principles, even to acknowledge them.

In the background is the Obama administration's goal, enunciated most
clearly by Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, to forge an alliance of Israel and the 'moderate' Arab
states against Iran. The term 'moderate' has nothing to do with the
character of the state, but rather signals its willingness to conform
to U.S. demands.

What is Israel to do in return for Arab steps to normalize relations?
The strongest position so far enunciated by the Obama administration
is that Israel should conform to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, which
states: 'Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural
growth of settlements).' All sides claim to accept the Road Map,
overlooking the fact that Israel instantly added 14 reservations that
render it inoperable.

Overlooked in the debate over settlements is that even if Israel were
to accept Phase I of the Road Map, that would leave in place the
entire settlement project that has already been developed, with
decisive U.S. support, to ensure that Israel will take over the
valuable land within the illegal 'separation wall' (including the
primary water supplies of the region) as well as the Jordan Valley,
thus imprisoning what is left, which is being broken up into cantons
by settlement/infrastructure salients extending far to the East.
Unmentioned as well is that Israel is taking over Greater Jerusalem,
the site of its major current development programs, displacing many
Arabs, so that what remains to Palestinians will be separated from the
center of their cultural, economic, and sociopolitical life. Also
unmentioned is that all of this is in violation of international law,
as conceded by the government of Israel after the 1967 conquest, and
reaffirmed by Security Council resolutions and the International Court
of Justice. Also unmentioned are Israel's successful operations since
1991 to separate the West Bank from Gaza, since turned into a prison
where survival is barely possible, further undermining the hopes for a
viable Palestinian state.

It is worth remembering that there has been one break in U.S.-Israeli
rejectionism. President Clinton recognized that the terms he had
offered at the failed 2000 Camp David meetings were not acceptable to
any Palestinians, and in December, proposed his 'parameters,' vague
but more forthcoming. He then announced that both sides had accepted
the parameters, though both had reservations. Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators met in Taba, Egypt to iron out the differences, and made
considerable progress. A full resolution could have been reached in a
few more days, they announced in their final joint press conference.
But Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, and they have not
been formally resumed. The single exception indicates that if an
American president is willing to tolerate a meaningful diplomatic
settlement, it can very likely be reached.

It is also worth remembering that the Bush I administration went a bit
beyond words in objecting to illegal Israeli settlement projects,
namely, by withholding U.S. economic support for them. In contrast,
Obama administration officials stated that such measures are 'not
under discussion' and that any pressures on Israel to conform to the
Road Map will be 'largely symbolic,' so the New York Times reported
(Helene Cooper, June 1).

There is more to say, but it does not relieve the grim picture that
Obama has been painting, with a few extra touches in his
widely-heralded address to the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT. He is the author
of many books and articles on international affairs and
social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist
movements. His most recent books include: Failed States, What We Say
Goes(with David Barsamian), Hegemony or Survival, and the Essential
Chomsky.




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