OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Will Obama Policies Bring Real Change for the Muslims?

Interestingly, whilst announcing George Mitchell's appointment, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, did not even mention Palestine and stated that Mr. Mitchell would undertake to negotiate between Israel and the Arab States. It was only after Mr. Mitchell clearly mentioned Palestine as being the key to the region, did Hillary refer to the matter.

Appearing with Mitchell, President Obama made his first substantive comments on the Middle East conflict since Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. He first mentioned his commitment to Israel's security, without affirming his commitment to Palestinian security. He condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns, but didn't criticize the US-backed Israeli bombings of densely populated Gaza.

In carefully crafted words, President Obama said: "Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats." The President concluded his remarks with an endorsement of the Arab peace initiative saying: "the Arab peace initiative contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all."

Obama's remarks warrant examination. To borrow Noam Chomsky: "So the thrust of his remarks, is that Israel has a right to defend itself by force, even though it has peaceful means to defend itself, that the Arabs states must move constructively to normalize relations with Israel, very carefully omitting the main part of their proposal was that Israel, which is Israel and the United States, should join the overwhelming international consensus for a two-state settlement. That's missing."

In short, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, to whom Mitchell will report, have made clear their support for the 22-day Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

Mitchell chaired the negotiations in Northern Ireland that led to the landmark 1998 Good Friday agreement, under which the IRA disarmed and Irish Republican politicians have joined the provincial government. He later chaired a commission on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose report, delivered in April 2001, was ignored by the incoming Bush administration because it called for a freeze on Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Noam Chomsky argues that Mitchell did quite a commendable job in Ireland but it was possible because Britain took into account for the first time the grievances of the population and the terror stopped. However, in the case of Israel the situation is quite different, which can be noticed from the statement of Mitchell.
Chomsky says:
He achieved something in Northern Ireland, but of course, in that case there was an objective. The objective was that the British would put an end to the resort to violence in response to IRA terror and would attend to the legitimate grievances that were the source of the terror. He did manage that, Britain did pay attention to the grievances, and the terror stopped so that was successful.

But there is no such outcome sketched in the Middle East, specially the Israel-Palestine problem. I mean, there is a solution, a straightforward solution very similar to the British one. Israel could stop its US-backed crimes in the occupied territories and then presumably the reaction to them would stop. But that's not on the agenda.

In fact, President Obama just had a press conference, which was quite interesting in that respect. He praised the parabolic peace initiative, the Saudi initiative endorsed by the Arab League, and said it had constructive elements. It called for the normalization of relations with Israel, and he called on the Arab states to proceed with those "constructive elements," namely the normalization of relations.

But that is a gross falsification of the Arab League initiative. The Arab League initiative called for accepting a two-state settlement on the international border, which has been a long-standing international consensus and said if that can be achieved, then Arab states can normalize relations with Israel. Well, Obama skipped the first part, the crucial part, the core of the resolution, because that imposes an obligation on the United States. The United States has stood alone for over thirty years in blocking this international consensus--by now it has totally isolated the US and Israel.

Europe and now a lot of other countries have accepted it. Hamas has accepted it for years, the Palestinian Authority of course, the Arab League now for many years [have accepted it]. The US and Israel block it, not just in words, but they are blocking it in actions constantly, (this is) happening every day in the occupied territories and also in the siege of Gaza and other atrocities.

So when he skips that, it is purposeful. That entails that the US is not going to join the world in seeking to implement a diplomatic settlement, and if that is the case, Mitchell's mission is vacuous.

This is some of what Mitchell had to say: The Secretary of State has just talked about our long-term objective, and the President himself has said that his administration-and I quote-"will make a sustained push, working with Israelis and Palestinians to achieve the goal of two states: a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security."

Chomsky told the Democracy Now Radio: "He (Mitchell) says, "Yes, we want to have a Palestinian state." Where? OK? He said not a word about - lots of pleasantries about everyone should live in peace, and so on, but where is the Palestinian state? Nothing said about the US-backed actions continuing every day, which are undermining any possibility for a viable Palestinian state: the takeover of the territory; the annexation wall, which is what it is; the takeover of the Jordan Valley; the salients that cut through the West Bank and effectively trisect it; the hundreds of mostly arbitrary checkpoints designed to make Palestinian life impossible-all going on, not a word about them."

Mitchell had nothing to say about a Palestinian state. "He carefully avoided what he knows for certain is the core problem: the illegal, totally illegal, the criminal US-backed actions, which are systematically taking over the West Bank, just as they did under Clinton, and are undermining the possibility for a viable state," Chomsky went on to say.

Apparently, President Obama is giving very little room for Mr. Mitchell to involve all the representative forces within Palestine. Obama still believes that President Mahmoud Abbas, whose constitutional term expired on 9th January 2009, enjoys the support of his people. To borrow Robert Fisk, as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him. The Palestine Authority is in tatters due to the Israeli intransigence and yet, Obama wants to exclude the democratically elected Hamas government from the dialogue.This is a sure recipe for a guaranteed disaster and will only serve to reduce any space for maneuver for Mr. Mitchell who faces the most daunting and onerous task.

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