Flotilla 3.0: Redeeming Obama's Palestine Speech with Gaza's Ark
There's a half-empty way and a half-full way of looking at President Barack Obama's Jerusalem speech about the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
The half-empty way of looking at it is: This was Obama's white flag of surrender. To everyone around the world who for decades has been assuming that at the end of the day, the president of the United States would lead the way to resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Obama was saying: Don't look at me. Just because the United States is the principal military, diplomatic and economic protector of the Israeli government, doesn't mean that I, as the president of the United States, will do anything about the military occupation of millions of Palestinian human beings. Bibi doesn't want an independent Palestinian state; Bibi's government doesn't want an independent Palestinian state; AIPAC doesn't want an independent Palestinian state; and Congress - which defers to AIPAC - doesn't want an independent Palestinian state. Of course, many of them mouth the words - not Bibi's government, they don't even do that - but those who mouth the words oppose any practical measure that would help bring an independent Palestinian state into existence. They're "two state fakers." Settlement freeze? Impossible. UN membership for Palestine? Can't be done. No, according to the two state fakers, the only option on the menu in the restaurant for the Palestinians is to return to negotiations without a settlement freeze, negotiations that for 20 years have brought more land confiscation, more settlements, more restrictions on Palestinian movement and commerce, more oppression. And so, Obama was saying, my hands are tied. Don't look at me.
The half-full way of looking at it is this: It was a great speech. If you "price in," as the markets say, acceptance that the US government isn't going to lead on this, it was a great motivational speech. President Obama made a very compelling case that someone else should do something.
The interesting thing is that whether you see it as a great motivational speech or a white flag of surrender, the practical consequences for the public are largely the same: The initiative for justice is going to have to come from somewhere else. The best that we can probably expect from Obama is that if the initiative for justice comes from somewhere else, he won't get in the way, or won't get in the way very much. While that is much less than we are entitled to expect, it is much more than the Netanyahu government and its supporters want. They demand that President Obama do everything he can to get in the way of justice. So, if he doesn't get in the way of justice, or only does so halfheartedly, he'll be helping us more than they want.
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http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15307-flotilla-30-redeeming-obamas-palestine-speech-with-gazas-ark
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