In answering questions before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton acknowledged what she called the “tragic humanitarian costs of conflict in the Middle East, and the pain and suffering of Palestinian and Israeli civilians." She continued by saying that "we cannot give up on peace."
On January 5 John Bolton, the former unconfirmed U.S. envoy to the United Nations, advocated in The Washington Post a "three-state solution" to the Palestinian problem. This "solution" involved returning Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan because the Palestinian state has manifestly failed.
There is a deep affinity between the United States and Israel. I’m not talking about the Israel Lobby, which concentrates its influence in Washington. Or the connections between neoconservatives and the Israeli right wing. Or the rhapsodizing of fundamentalist Christians, who embrace Israel as part of their scenario for the Apocalypse.
It was about midnight last Sunday when my phone rang. “I’m not sure I will survive tonight, the Israelis are bombing us everywhere.” It was Mahmoud, a young resident of Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. We first met when I visited the troubled coastal territory after Israel dismantled its settlements there in September 2005. On December 27, just before midday, Israel’s powerful air force, the fourth largest in the world, commenced a deadly air assault on over 40 separate locations in the Gaza Strip. The strikes were as calculated as they were cold – the targets were almost entirely people and facilities vital to the Hamas government. In one of the areas hit, where police officers had gathered for a parade, body parts were strewn along a courtyard.
Barack Obama has alienated key sectors of his progressive base with statements and policy proposals regarding Israel in which he allies himself with right-wing Republicans.
In many respects, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has played right into the hands of cynics who have long doubted his promises to create a new and more progressive role for the United States in the world. The very morning after the last primaries, in which he finally received a sufficient number of pledged delegates to secure the Democratic presidential nomination and no longer needed to win over voters from the progressive base of his own party, Obama – in a Clinton-style effort at triangulation – gave a major policy speech before the national convention of the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Embracing policies which largely backed those of the more hawkish voices concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, he received a standing ovation for his efforts.
As the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) goes around meeting with Members of Congress this week, they will be arguing for stronger sanctions against Iran. Their latest focus will be “sanctions” on refined petroleum products to Iran.
Israel’s spy satellite launched by India in the third week of January considerably enhances Israel’s intelligence-gathering capability. The launch of the Tecsar satellite, also known as Polaris, also marks a new stage in India-Israeli strategic relations and adds a new factor in the complex security scenario in the Middle East.
President George W. Bush has been using somewhat stronger language than he has uttered previously about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and has made some optimistic predictions of a peace agreement within a year. Nevertheless, there is little reason to hope that the president is any more serious about or is any more likely to be successful in bringing about a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
No one knows what’s in George W. Bush’s mind as he heads off for Israel and Palestine. Perhaps he himself doesn’t know exactly why he’s making the trip. But if he is really going to burnish his legacy by moving both sides closer to peace, as the pundits say, he faces enormous problems on both sides.