Barack and the Middle East: Will We See a Change?

Some would suggest that the US has always been Israeli-biased. This article criticizes Barack Obama for remaining silent regarding Israel's recent bombardment of Gaza that started December 27th. But should we be surprised that the not-even-yet President hasn't been very vocal about his condemnations of Israel? Is it weird to see him hanging out with Ehud?

Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Infitada states: "It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel's murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament."

Sure. Easy for you to say. You're right though. Someone should say something. Preferably someone who has a plan to do something about it. But you try walking into a gang fight and say "Hey, this just doesn't feel right" and see how easily you walk out. Now try to imagine you're soon to be President of the US and you do that. See what I mean? It takes a very careful Politician not to derail the trajectory of their campaign before they even take parliament. As Barack's spokesperson said: "There is only one president at a time." And anyways, when President's have condemned leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (for his Anti-Semetic remarks) in the past, what has that done? Could you really call that a "change"? Last time I checked, Iran still isn't a pro-Israeli nation.

It just doesn't seem to be the best idea for Barack to sever ties with Israel before he even takes office. Or worse, get too entangled internally. Why should he further alienate America from itself or others? The US supplies Israel with it's weapons. What does it think they are going to do with them?? Perhaps this is more of a weapons proliferation issue in general that US foreign policy should examine more in-depth? Barack will get his chance to initiate that starting January 20th, 2009.

Hopefully, we'll see some major changes when Barack Obama actually takes the stage but until then, I don't think we can blame him for being so tight-lipped. I would hope what Obama has to say to all those Palestinian refugees screaming "Let my people go!" would be a responsive "Yes we can!" I would hope Obama would think of his daughters in the place of all the innocent Israeli OR Palestinian children being rocketed to death, even if he doesn't say so. The fact that he's keeping good diplomatic ties with Israel doesn't seem a bad political move* but maybe it is just too early to see him playing hop-scotch with Palestinian orphans. Or, (and here's a novel thought) he might have other priorities.

As this month's Times Person of the Year interview suggests, Obama has a long laundry list of to do's. Although, the top three main things that keep Obama awake at night are:
1/Nuclear Proliferation
2/The Economy
3/The Environment
(not necessarily in that order)

Should the list be amended? Do you think the Middle-Eastern struggle, which has been going on for as long as I can remember, should be this President's particular responsibility to solve?

*What if toppling the Hamas government is the only way to end rocket fire between the two nations? And at what cost?

Politics