Bush … Obama, whats the difference?
Something i mentioned a while back, when Obama was still running for the democratic bid was, judging from his speeches and transcripts of speeches. When it came to the Middle east and wars, his policies were not that much different then Bush. For a campaign that stood for ‘Change’, his policy stances did not differ that much. It’s something i raised on twitter, but took a ton of flack for saying that.
A few days back, Noam Chomsky wrote an interesting article on Obama & Israel in light of the recent atrocities by the Israeli IDF in Gaza.
He states:
On January 22, however, the one president was Barack Obama, so he could speak freely about these matters — avoiding, however, the attack on Gaza, which had, conveniently, been called off just before the inauguration.
Obama’s talk emphasized his commitment to a peaceful settlement. He left its contours vague, apart from one specific proposal: “the Arab peace initiative,” Obama said, “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 is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive.
The Arab League peace proposal does indeed call for normalization of relations with Israel — in the context — repeat, in the context of a two-state settlement in terms of the longstanding international consensus, which the US and Israel have blocked for over 30 years, in international isolation, and still do.
Is there a change? What do you think?
This reminds me of an article: One word missing, which lead to the war crimes in Gaza
But the nit-picking has got to be our old friend United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. This, you’ll recall, was supposed to be the resolution that would guide all future peace efforts in the Middle East; Oslo was supposed to have been founded on it and all sorts of other processes and summits and road maps.
It was passed in November 1967, after Israel had occupied Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Sinai and Golan, and it emphasises “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calls for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”.
Readers who know the problem here will be joined by those who will immediately pick it up. The Israelis say that they are not required to withdraw from all the territories – because the word “all” is missing and since the definite article “the” is missing before the word “territories”, its up to Israel to decide which bits of the occupied territories it gives up and which bits it keeps.
Hence Israel can say it gave up Sinai in accordance with 242 but is going to keep East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank for its settlers. Golan depends on negotiations with Syria. And Gaza? Well, 242 doesn’t say anything about imprisoning one and a half million civilians because they voted for the wrong people.
Further the article states:
McHugo is, so far as I know, the only man to re-examine the actual UN debates on 242 and they make very unhappy reading. The French and Spanish versions of the text actually use the definite article. But the Brits – apparently following a bit of strong-arm tactics from the Americans – did not use “the”.
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Israel’s man on the East River, did his best to persuade Caradon to delete both “the” and the bit about the inadmissability of territory through war. He won the first battle, but not the second.
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It’s intriguing to note that several other nations at the UN were troubled by the absence of “the”. The Indian delegate, for example, pointed out that the resolution referred to “all the territories – I repeat all the territories – occupied by Israel…”
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In other words, the future tragedy was spotted at the time. But we did nothing. The Americans had stitched it up and the Brits went along with it. The Arabs were not happy but foolishly – and typically – relied on Caradon’s assurances that “all” the territories was what 242 meant
Israel still uses this to make it’s illegal stealing of land “Legal” such as the annexation of the Golan heights from Syria or settlements in the westbank, or taking more and more land using the Aparthied wall.
“In 1981 the area was annexed by Israel, a move not recognized and condemned internationally[5] and called “inadmissible” by the UN Security Council.” Source: Wikipedia
Well, who would think the removal of “The” from a resolution will cause so much pain & suffering 40 years down the line? How will Obama’s ‘ommision’ affect future efforts for peace?
Tagged as bush, israel, noam chomsky, Obama, palestine, peace, robert fisk + Categorized as Uncategorized