Obama Mideast Watch: Still Making Sense

I'm sure when Obama become a president, he will have unlimited access to US intelligence data to know what is really going on in the world, if he chose to act upon them is another matter.
On Gaza, he have choice not to veto Palestine and Israel having their case being heard in UN and international court of justice, is that not why they were created exactly for these purposes.
On Middle-East, will he let corrupt governments fall for failing their people instead of keeping them artificially in power to serve foreign interests.
On Iran, Does noble Iranians being noted from Torah to Bible being humane and just people have the rights to be strong and independent from last 200 years of colonial powers land grab and puppet leaders and theft of her energy resources, isn't better to talk to one of the oldest civilization which invented the codes of behavior for the rest to follow (see Cyrus charter of human rights in UN lobby) instead of relatively new states which trace their codes of behavior to Spartans bloody society!
On difference with Dick, what can I say, name of Dick speaks for it self!
On Guantanamo, will the people who're responsible for it, rightly or wrongly, will see a daylight in international court of justice, to set example for future warring nation to follow the ruling of highest court in world for future behavior conducts!
If my comment seems too idealistic and wishful, you're right-on, but that's Obama's fault for bringing it out of so many people around the world, lets hope he can deliver against all odds!

What Obama said on the Gaza crisis sounds familiar. Didn't Bush Senior and Junior, or for that matter Clinton, voice the same concern before taking office at the White House? Then what happened. Peace plans after peace plans, talks after talks, hand-shakes after handshakes, toasts after toasts… there has been just no end to that.

Can Obama deliver? Or could his team untie the Middle-East Gordon knot? The world needs to wait, and wait shall it be.
(Tan Boon Tee)

It is encouraging to read Obama sees "civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, harmed, under hardship, it's heartbreaking."
and NOT 'collateral damage.'

In order to be an honest third broker for peace Obama will have to
insist that Israel ends its siege of the Gaza Strip.

Change we can ALL believe in will be when Obama's Administration comes out in support of EQUAL human rights for Palestinians such as freedom of movement and an END to the 41 years of military occupation.

Learn More:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/form.php?modin=137

Persistent reports tell of Hamas's leaders hiding in the basement of the Shifa Hospital of Gaza, using the civilians in this medical facility as human shields, a form of war crime.

Also, similar reports, based on photo documentation, accuse Hamas's armed forces of stockpiling weapons and explosives in mosques, in schools and in people's homes and firing them from schoolyards and the yards of medical facilities, which also amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And of course, Hamas's exclusive targets for many years have been population canters in Israel – the blue colour towns of S'derot, Ashqelon, the universities in Beer Sheba and Sapir, and the collective and cooperative farming communities and their residents, of southern Israel - also considered war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel has been seeking an accommodation of peaceful co-existence with its Arab neighbours, in Gaza and elsewhere. But Israel, as any other country, can not permit its citizens to be targeted day in and day out, especially when the declared goal of the attackers is to erase the Jewish state of Israel – a UN member state – off the face of the earth and with it the Jewish civilization in this national homeland of the Jewish people (read Hamas's Charter!!!).

At present, Hamas must loose its will and motivation to fire at Israel and Israelis, and most of the means with which it conducts its war machine against Israel's civilian population must be eliminated. In addition, all illicit weapons and explosives must cease from making their way into Gaza. And of course, without Gilad Shalit coming back home this conflict will not come to an end.

On a longer term, the demand of the UN, EU, US, Russia as well as Arab states and the Palestinian Authority presidency of Hamas must stand if it (Hamas) wishes to be part of any peace process: Cease all acts of terror and violence against Israel and Israelis and the preparations for such acts, adhere to previously signed agreements with Israel, and recognize Israel's right – a UN member state – to exist.

Israelis have never sought anything beyond an accommodation of peaceful co-existence between Arab and Jew, between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Can Israel's neighbors rise to the occasion and seek the same goal??

In his last blog "General MacLeod" gave advise tothe Israeli military. Now he passes judgement on Obama. What I would like to see is Time's correspondant in Cairo write an article about the dictator ruling Egypt !!! Of course, Mr.MacLeod will not do that because he knows if he does he will simply disappear and no one will ever see him again.

I have read interested comments of Mr. NLKatz. Well let me clear one thing that you can't clap with one hand. To blame Arabs, Arab countries and as well as Hamas for everything will not work out as Israel wants. Both parties are equally responsible for the mess. Look at the present killings by Israel with excessive force. What you would say about these "War Crimes" being committed by the Israeli Army. Thousand deaths Vs four deaths. You must keep in mind the brutality of Israelis in the past as well. Do you want to live with Palestinians with this kind of "Barbarianism"? Israel cann't creates blockade around Gaza and West Bank to bring miseries to the Palestinians.
Another fact is that Hamas is an elcted force of Palestinians. You must set a side your double standard and narrow mindness. It does not mean if Israel does not like something then People of Palestine must dislike them. Israel should go back to 1967 position and accept the facts of the ground. How long Israel depends on USA to back him. One day, when no World Power will be on Israel's back, Israel will realize the realities of truth/facts. Today militarily Israel is very powerful and every thing belongs to him, but tomorrow might not be his. Therefore, Israelis and Plestinians must work it out with "give some and have some" rule to bring peace and prosperity in that region.

> Obama is still talking a lot of sense about the Middle East

Scott, you're missing the plot, and I don't fault you.

"The best possible people" Obama put together, on his Middle East team, these are a violent criminal conspiracy of liars who will, therefore, not be assisting Obama to understand the problem they created.

These people are responsible for the false designation of Hamas as a "terrorist organization" (October 8 1997), and redesignation periodically, and all the criminal actions which flow from that lie. Those not present at the beginning joined that criminal conspiracy along the way, or soon will do.

They lie, that Hamas are "terrorists," because they target Israeli civilians, with Qassam rockets and suicide bombers.

But this is not terrorism, it's not murder, it's not crime, it's law enforcement, a lawful measure to enforce the laws of war, to coerce Israel to stop its violations of those laws. That's what the U.S. says, and the EU4 (U.K., France, Germany, Italy) (when they're not lying about Hamas, that is), as the U.S. Navy puts it (2007):

"Reprisals may be taken against ... enemy civilians other than those in occupied territory".

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/israel-us-war-blockade-reprisals.html#usnavy.reprisals

Their lie is to conceal that material fact, the law of belligerent reprisals, the U.S. endorsement of that law, the Israeli provocation for Hamas rockets, and what Hamas has to say about it, their explanations, that's why they launch their rockets. So long as a reasonable informed person (e.g., Richard Falk) can reasonably assess that Israel continually violates the laws of war, the Hamas can lawfully launch belligerent reprisals.

The whole structure of U.S. Middle East policy is constructed on that lie, a criminal lie (18 U.S.C. 1001), designed, with specific intent, to incite Congress (themselves complicit in that criminal lie, many of them) to provide money and arms to Israel, knowing Israel will continue its war crimes, a lie which therefore facilitates, aids and abets, Israel's war crimes.

Those Israeli war crimes are the two big ones, of 40 years duration -- confiscating land in the territory Israel occupied in 1967 (6-day war) and transferring 500,000 Israeli settlers onto that stolen land -- for which Germans were prosecuted and convicted at Nuremberg, for doing the exact same thing, in Poland. And other Israeli occupation war crimes, harsh treatment, hostage taking, unlawful detentions, torture, etc.

And Israel's combat war crimes, an unlawful blockade of Gaza (targeting non-contraband) and preventing humanitarian supplies mandated by international law, targeting civilian objects and civilians.

This besides aggressive war, that same Gaza blockade -- to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government, to divide Palestinians, to divert attention from Israel's ongoing settlement war crimes in the West Bank) -- in short, an aggressive war to defend their two big violent war crimes, the settlements, the armed robbery of Palestinian land.

Israel's remedy, against Qassam rockets targeting civilians, is to terminate Israel's war crimes in Gaza.

That leaves Hamas, and all Palestinians, with the lawful right to wage war on Israeli military targets -- a lawful international war of liberation from a colonial power and from a violent criminal occupation government.

Israel's remedy from that war is to terminate Israel's occupation war crimes, its armed robbery of occupied land, and to drive its 500,000 settlers off that stolen land, back inside Israel's 1967 borders.

I'm certain Obama will hear none of this from the gangsters who surround him.

But Obama has a path, to escape infamy. And this is his path:

To ventilate all the above, thoroughly, in a public hearing.

Obama should ask his new head of the DoJ OLC (Dawn Johnsen) for a formal written legal opinion -- following public consultation, public legal memos, and a public hearing -- whether Hamas can reasonably be regarded as acting lawfully:

1. Targeting Israeli civilians and

2. Waging war to throw off the Israeli occupation/colonizing government, on account of its armed robbery of their land, and colonizing it, with 500,000 foreign settlers, and because of the war Israel wages to enforce these crimes, to have their criminal way.

And whether the U.S. can lawfully falsely-label Hamas a "terrorist organization," confiscate money, prosecute and imprison people who help Hamas, thereby aiding and abetting, facilitating, Israel's war on Hamas.

As for Iran, if Hamas are not "terrorists," then Iran has the lawful right to back Hamas in their lawful struggle against Israel, Iran is doing nothing wrong and deserves the world's thanks, for their steadfast support, which only first started in 2006, after the U.S. and Israel refused to accept the results of the free and fair 2006 Palestine election, seized Palestinian money and blockaded Gaza, to prevent Hamas from assuming its role as the elected majority in the Palestinian parliament.

And this lie, from Obama's mouth:

> they are pursuing a nuclear weapon

There is no evidence of this. The IAEA with thousands of days inspecting Iran has found nothing of the sort, and so Obama must know for a fact, he does not know it for a fact, yet he says it is a fact, what the NIE specifically states is not a fact, a mere assessment (based on no disclosed evidence).

Let the U.S. put on the table, in public, all their allegations (which the IAEA scoffs at). The IAEA has disproved 100% -- every single one -- of the U.S. allegations which led to the referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council in the first place. They were a pack of U.S. lies, doubtless mostly Israeli-sourced.

Nobody paying attention will accept Obama's word about anything to do with Iran or Israel-Palestine.

If Obama doesn't call time-out, and attend, in public, to the lies he has inherited, before he makes them his own, Obama will soon seal his reputation as another liar, a violent, criminal, gangster, liar.

A GWBush groundhog day, for 4 more years.

> drorbenami Says: ... the dictator ruling Egypt
Dictator? What are you talking about?
Mubarak was elected with 99.9% of the vote (something close to that).
You're not suggesting that number is fictitious.
Would the U.S. give him $3-billion per year (something like that), if his elections were not free and fair?
Surely not.

I wonder how long it will take Israel to get Obama as well trained as Bush? Here below is the president of the United States, showing that he knows his place in the US/Israel relationship when he was given his orders from Olmert last week.
..................................................................

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.
"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.
"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

Dance Mr. Bush, dance.

Scott,
I fear that Obama may be surrounding himself with people that do not have his policies, as stated, in mind. CJHardwood, above, did a fantastic job at outlining my thoughts above -- almost to a tee. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one living in this twilight zone !