Obama and the MidEast – Change to Believe In?

History Is Repeating Itself!

George Mitchell is the peace envoy of President Obama. Mitchell is known to be no stranger to the region and has been assigned today a similar task to that which he had in the era of the former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He became well known when his recommendations turned into a kind of peace initiative before being forgotten when they were ignored by Israel, which refused to stop building settlements.

Mitchell’s new mission proceeds under even more difficult conditions than his previous missions; the Gaza Strip is still bleeding as the Israeli war machine turned it into a pile of rubble and Israel has deepened the bitterness in the hearts of Arab citizens, strengthening the spirit of resistance.

The low ceiling under which Mitchell is crawling into the region has been set by brief statements of President Obama and some of his aides regarding the war in Gaza, and does not stimulate much optimism in the success of his mission. Arabs tend to believe that diplomatic envoys of the past are all the same, being sent to serve the Jewish or foreign interests. Obama has chosen to begin his presidency in the same way, which will not establish a new kind of understanding.

The conflict in the region has been the subject of many studies, pieces of research, initiatives and conferences, which cannot refocus us from the grim history of envoys who have a blank record – many undoing the work of earlier envoys, beginning a long journey of «exploration» and «crystallization» of situations, and ending up with months or perhaps years of calling parties to cease violence and adopting the language of negotiation and calling for the freezing of settlements, etc. Moreover, such negotiations are followed by events that will demand another new envoy, and new recommendations, and so on.

Hence, Obama has no excuse to waste time in exploring known realities, as their details and solution are known to everyone; tens of initiatives have been adopted and many of them have emerged from the United States, themselves. This critical situation in the region calls for Obama’s administration to learn from the mistakes and follies of the previous administration, which ignored the peace process, most of the time, committing itself to the most extremist Israeli positions.

It is clear that what is required today is a policy that is based on at least a minimal notion of balance; recognizing the basic principles of the peace process, which have been summarized in resolutions with international legitimacy and the statements of the Madrid Conference. Otherwise, history will repeat itself; and the efforts of Obama’s administration, including the mission of Mr. Mitchell, will slide into a maze of Israeli maneuvers, as Israel seeks to evade their obligations under the peace process.

President Obama failed to condemn Israel’s crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip before his inauguration, under the pretext that he had not yet taken over and that there is only one president who speaks for America at a time. A similar stance after his inauguration is not a favorable sign of a new American foreign policy that he promised the whole world. Therefore, our concern increases again that Israel will still be an exception, even under Obama.