Charles Brown wrote:
CB: How's he supposed to "legitimize" such a mess ? Even O can't put lipstick on this pig.
I do hope you're right, comrade. Looks like a bad start on Gaza, though.
Counterpunch
December 29, 2008
"No Comment" on Gaza's Dead
Obama and the "Special Relationship"
By JOSHUA FRANK
As President-Elect Barack Obama vacationed in Hawaii on December 26,
stopping off to watch a dolphin show with his family at Sea Life Park,
an Israeli air raid besieged the impoverished Gaza Strip, killing at
least 285 people and injuring over 800 more.
It was the single deadliest attack on Gaza in over 20 years and Obama’s
initial reaction on what could be his first real test as president was
“no comment”. Meanwhile, Israel has readied itself for a land invasion,
amassing tanks along the border and calling up 6,500 reserve troops.
On Sunday’s Face the Nation, Obama’s Senior Adviser David Axelrod
explained to guest cost Chip Reid how an Obama administration would
handle the situation, even if it turns for the worst.
“Well, certainly, the president-elect recognizes the special
relationship between United States and Israel. It’s an important bond,
an important relationship. He’s going to honor it ... And obviously,
this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of
days and weeks. As Hamas began its shelling, Israel responded. But it’s
something that he’s committed to.”
Reiterating the rationale that Israel’s bombing of Gaza was an act of
retaliation and not of agression, Axelrod, on behalf of the Obama
administration, continued to spread the same misinformation as President
Bush: that Hamas was the first to break the ceasefire agreement, which
ended over a week ago, and Israel was simply responding judiciously.
Aside from the fact that Israel’s response was anything but judicious,
the idea that it was Hamas who broke the six-month truce is a complete
fabrication.
On the night of the U.S. election, Israel fired missiles on Gaza that
were aimed at closing down a tunnel operation they believed Hamas was
building in order to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The carnage left in the
wake of Israel’s bombing of Gaza over the past six weeks has killed
dozens of Palestinians.
“The escalation towards war could, and should, have been avoided. It was
the State of Israel which broke the truce, in the 'ticking tunnel' raid
... two months ago,” the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom wrote in a
press release. “Since then, the army went on stoking the fires of
escalation with calculated raids and killings, whenever the shooting of
missiles on Israel decreased.”
Over the last seven years only 17 Israeli citizens have been killed by
Palestinian rocket fire, which makes it extremely difficult for Israeli
politicians, which are in the midst of an election, to argue that their
response has been proportionate or defensible in any way.
The asymmetry of the conflict leaves an opening for harsh criticism from
the soon-to-be president Barack Obama. He has every right to oppose
Israel’s belligerence. The international community and the majority of
public opinion are on his side. Certainly he knows Israel’s
disproportionate response has inflicted insurmountable pain on
Palestinians as well as what the blockade has done by keeping vital
medical and other supplies from reaching Gaza, where hundreds have died
as a result of inadequate medical treatment.
While bombs fall on a suffocating Palestinian population and Israeli
forces prepare for a ground invasion, Obama is monitoring the situation
from afar after a talk with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
other Bush administration officials. This isn’t leadership; it’s a
continuation of a policy that has left Palestinians with little
recourse, let alone hope for lasting peace.
“The president-elect was in Sderot last July, in southern Israel, a town
that’s taken the brunt of the Hamas attacks,” David Axelrod told Chip
Reid on Face the Nation. “And he said then that, when bombs are raining
down on your citizens, there is an urge to respond and act and try and
put an end to that. So, you know, that’s what he said then, and I think
that’s what he believes.”
If Axelrod is correct, and Barack Obama does indeed support the
bloodshed inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military,
there should be no celebrating during Inauguration Day 2009, only mass
protest of a Middle East foreign policy that must change in order to
begin a legitimate peace process in the region.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How
Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and
along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the new book Red State
Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK
Press in June 2008. Check out the new Red State Rebels site at
www.RedStateRebels.org
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