OBAMA: THE GREAT ORATOR DOES THE GREAT GROVEL
‘There should be no shred of doubt by now – when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back’
The lullaby from the mouth of US President Obama was music to the ears of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It rang more like an annual report by a CEO to his shareholders, trumpeting about his return on their investment.
Obama was demonstrating how he ticked all boxes of his key performance indicators so he could secure sponsorship for his next presidential election campaign ‘during this political season’.
But one could tear shreds off his predictable and pathetic grovel.
When Obama reiterated a two state solution with ‘a secure Israel that lives side by side with an independent Palestinian state’, did he forget that security should be ‘sacrosanct’ for both sides, yet only one was the nuclear superpower of the Middle East region? Did he forget that when Palestine applied to the United Nations Security Council for independent statehood within its pre-1967 borders last September, his administration threatened to (ab)use its permanent member status and veto their bid?
When Obama was chest beating that ‘Israel’s place as a Jewish and democratic state must be protected’, did he overlook the oxymoron? The enshrined ‘privileging of one ethno-religious group over another cannot be seen as compatible with democratic values’, as documented by a new book by Ben White ‘Palestinians in Israel’. Moreover, Israel can no longer claim to be the sole ‘democratic state’ in the Middle East given the recent ‘Arab Spring’ elections.
When Obama concedes that ‘the United States and Israel both assess that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon’, why are no alarm bells ringing about his predecessor’s invasion of Iraq on the defunct ‘weapons of mass destruction’ premise? His provocative language of possibilities should be frightfully familiar: ‘There are risks that an Iranian nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of a terrorist organisation’.
While the Obama administration depicts Iran as a real and present danger, the November report by the International Atomic Energy Agency depicts circular arguments: Its intelligence sources are unnamed ‘Member States’, presumably the USA, and its summary is dubious: ‘The agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities’.
When Obama laments that ‘a nuclear-armed Iran would thoroughly undermine the non-proliferation regime that we’ve done so much to build’, does he forget that its opposite number Israel refused to sign the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970, which puts Israel in the same camp as India, Pakistan and ex signatory North Korea? Does he forget that unlike the signatory Iran who is now indicted by the IAEA for failing to honour its ‘safeguards’ agreement, Israel operates a policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’, refusing to confirm or deny having atomic weapons? Does he forget that Israel’s over 200 nuclear warheads and weapons of mass destruction were mostly ‘made in USA’? Does he forget that in 2009, the IAEA passed a resolution which ‘calls upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards’ and that Israel refused with impunity and without sanctions? Does he forget that he asked Israel to sign the Treaty during the 2010 nuclear summit, and they still refused?
When Obama grandstands about ‘nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel’s destruction’, why does he turn a blind eye to the hypocrisy of Israel denying the Palestinian dispossession (al Naqba) of 1948? Israel does not need to threaten to wipe its Arab neighbours off the map, but flex its military muscle as it did when Gaza was reduced to an inhuman abattoir in December 2008. With over 1300 Gazans bombed through collective punishment, an overkill of one hundred times more than the Israelis, there was no question about who could seriously be wiped off the map.
With the five Iranian nuclear scientists killed in Iran since 2007, US secretary of State Hilary Clinton hastened to ‘categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran’. However, proxies and dissidents can be paid like sponsored terrorists. With Israel intent on maintaining its regional nuclear weapons monopoly and Obama pledging that ‘we will do what it takes to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge’, does the truth lie behind another policy of ‘terrorist ambiguity’?
When Obama annunciates an ultimatum for Iran between ‘a path that would allow them to rejoin the community of nations if they meet their international obligations, or a path that leads to an escalating series of consequences if they don’t’, does he forget that it is Israel that has abandoned their international obligations? By his own admission, Obama concedes that ‘the United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations’ even if ‘there was not a lot of applause’ by the UN General Assembly. Obama has ensured that Israel was protected from any consequences, unlike Iran who has endured four sets of US-led sanctions.
Obama’s oration should be shredded as evidence of his desperation to appease his shareholders. In his rhetoric about building ‘a better world…where our people can live free from fear’, it is clear who he fears if they do not butter his bread, which should make us all more fearful.