A Reading of Obama’s Two Speeches

In dealing with issues of the Zionist-Arab conflict, U.S. President Barack Obama said nothing different from what he said before the Jewish conference that was held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; his speech, which he addressed to the Arab people on May 19, 2011, reviewed his administration’s vision of the Arab revolutions. Although he was talking in the time of the Arab Spring, when the Arab countries imposed their presence on the international stage, Obama did not address the Arab countries in light of factual reality, nor did he consider these facts in light of Arab language and culture, nor did he consider the feeling of Arab affiliation among the majority of these countries. Obama did not address them as Arabs, but as people of the “Middle East and North Africa.” This was a clear indication of his and his administration and advisers’ negligence of the national affiliation and the factual reality of Arab countries. Thus, he was not objective in dealing with the new events in the Arab reality, especially those events related to the Zionist-Arab conflict, as will be demonstrated by reflecting on his most famous declarations which he kept silent in his two speeches.

When he describes the Zionist entity as a “democratic Jewish” state, he intentionally ignores the fact that a state considered Jewish and exclusive to Jews is nothing but a non-democratic and racist state. This is in addition to his intentional disregard for the reality of the Zionist entity, of which Arab citizens make up 18 percent of the population. This implies his adoption of the attitude of Zionist hardliners in their negligence of the rights of more than 2,300,000 Arab citizens, who alone are entitled to a natural and historical presence on the land. Such an attitude blatantly violates the most basic concepts of democracy. Additionally, jeopardizing the presence of Arab citizens in the land of their fathers and grandfathers is an act of racial cleansing and unacceptable racism. This means that Obama’s complicity by adopting the idea of “the Jewish State” places him, whether or not he is aware of it, among the advocates of a globally condemned racism.

There is no doubt that Obama knows for certain that Israel has a nuclear arsenal and that it has the most powerful army in the Arab region, a place where Israel was founded against the will of Arab people. Also, Israel owns the latest and most destructive weapons, and it has an intelligence system with worldwide circulation and a wide network of agents in most, if not all, Arab countries. Furthermore, Israel has a continuous history of aggression in the region. In spite of this, Obama says over and over again that his administration is responsible for the security of “Israel.”

I do not think that President Obama is unaware of the fact that former U.S. administrations were mainly behind Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which advocated the withdrawal of “Israel” to the borders of June 4, 1967. He is also aware of the UN resolutions stating the illegitimacy of conjoining Jerusalem and settlements in any part of the land occupied in 1967. Likewise, he knows that settlement in the occupied territory is in violation of international law and the fourth Geneva agreement of 1949. Nevertheless, he considers the withdrawal of the Zionist occupation the responsibility of Palestinian security forces, thus making the occupation authority responsible for enforcing international resolutions on the occupier of their land.

Obama certainly knows that there is no “demilitarized state” either in past history or in the world of today. When he stipulates that the Palestinian “state” be demilitarized, he deprives it of its primary element of sovereignty and independence of decision making. Also, when he makes no mention of the occupation settlements which have torn the West Bank and left nothing but isolated Arab ghettos, he implicitly agrees that Palestine be a “state” void of the unity of its national territory.

President Obama also rejected the Palestinian reconciliation and deemed it detrimental to what he calls “peace process.” Likewise, he objected to the intention of the Palestinian authority to go to the UN in September to seek recognition as a state within the 1967 borders, considering such a step an attempt to isolate “Israel,” a matter which he does not permit; thus he appoints himself guardian of Palestinian national sovereignty. Meanwhile, he does not take into account the new events spanning the Arab region, in which where Arab people, especially young men and women, have become the primary decision makers. I do not know whether his advisers drew his attention to the percentage of young men and women who participated in the demonstrations that marched to the borders of occupied Palestine on the anniversary of the Nakba. This indicates that the time when the U.S. administration orders and the Arab leaders obey is over.

Obama says that Palestinians would never achieve independence as long as they neglect the right of “Israel” to exist. Thus he ignores that the Zionist presence, for which he demands recognition of legitimacy, was established through a process of racial cleansing of more than two-thirds of the Palestinian Arab people in the wars of 1948 and 1949. This means that the recognition, which he demands, of “Israel’s” right to exist involves denial of the Palestinian presence.

Does Obama deny that the West Bank, including Jerusalem, is occupied, that the Gaza Strip is besieged and that international law permits people whose land is occupied to resist the invaders with all means of resistance, including armed struggle? As long as it resists occupation, Hamas is a national liberation movement, and accusations of terrorism are harmless. I don’t think Obama forgets that the fathers of the American liberation who forced out the British occupation were accused of terrorism also.

In everything he said or was silent about, President Obama was exactly like each former U.S. president expressing the will of the social forces that have the greatest effect on making American decisions. Reading the stances of American administrations since President Wilson announced approval of the Balfour Declaration in August 31, 1918 shows that American administrations have behaved as if they consider the Zionist project a strategic balance serving universal American interests. All of the American administrations adopted the historical claims and racist proposals of the Balfour Declaration. They defied all attempts of weakening it, considering such attempts a threat to American interests. In light of this fact, it would be vain to argue that Obama’s position on the matter did not live up to expectations, because there has not been a formal American position during the past 93 years that was not fully partial to the Zionist project.