Obama, Israel and the Palestinians

This week, President Obama gave an interview to Israeli News with correspondent Yonit Levy. You can listen to the interview in English here.  While talking to an Israeli audience, Obama sounds like every other U.S. President. He took the time to encourage Israelis that peace is possible, and that they should take hope from the very founding of their country in 1948.  He talked about the legitimate fears that Israelis face, due to the hostile Muslims in countries surrounding them.  He defended his special relationship to Israel by pointing out Rahm Emmanuel, and referred to the support of the Jewish-American community as essential in his political success.  Lastly, just as every American President has, he expresses his hope and optimism for the peace process. That if you can get the two sides into direct talks, trust can be built because (direct quote): “people feel like there’s a forum where conflicts can be resolved.”

I wish I could respond to Obama’s interview with anything other than sarcasm.  It’s wonderful that he is encouraging Israelis to trust him, to soothe their fears.  Wonderful that he points to the founding of Israel in 1948 as a great source of hope for peace.  And so optimistic of him to think that bringing Netanyahu and Abu Mazen to the same room for peace talks will build any trust among the people.

Just months ago, Obama delivered a speech in Cairo where he blatantly compared the Palestinian struggle to South Africa’s blacks before apartheid, and to the civil rights movement in the United States.  Now I understand that President Obama is a politician, and he wants to gain the trust of Israelis in order to move forward the peace process. The problem is that he is never speaking only to one audience.  When Palestinians, Arab citizens of Israel, and Arabs in other countries hear this interview with Israeli news, it makes Obama so disingenuous.  How can he on one hand identify the Palestinian struggle with civil rights and apartheid, yet encourage the oppressors in their special relationship with America? How indeed, can he encourage the Palestinians to fight for their freedom while providing more ‘security assistance’ to Israel than any other previous American President? 

If Obama was thinking historically, he would know that in both during civil rights in the United States and apartheid in South Africa, outside supporters played a great role in changing the oppressive systems of the day.  The world slowly turned against South Africa during the apartheid years, increasingly isolating it.  The support of powerful northern white people was key in propelling forward the civil rights movement in the United States, including Attorney General Robert Kennedy. 

The Palestinians need a Martin Luther King, Jr., but they also need a Robert Kennedy. Obama is no different from other U.S. Presidents in his record so far with the Israelis and the Palestinians. On one hand, he is encouraging the Palestinians to seek peace, but at the same time refusing to be the outside support that is necessary for them to succeed.  Instead, he is encouraging Israelis to ‘face their legitimate fears’; refusing in the meantime to condemn their racist and inhumane policies of the Gaza blockade, illegal settlement of Palestinian land and utter control of Palestinian movement in the territories. 

I would like to see President Obama address the Palestinian people in the same way he is addressing the Israeli people.  If anyone has a reason to doubt the peace process, it is the Palestinians.  They have never found a friend in the United States and have no reason to see one now, when all that is offered to them are more empty words.  Obama should address 1948 as a day of great sorrow for the Palestinian people and acknowledge the violence that drove thousands of them from their homes.  He should address their actual concerns.  The actual concerns of the Palestinians are that they cannot travel to see their families, cannot find jobs, suffer waiting at checkpoints and in lines every day, and have no options in life simply because they are Palestinians and no longer have equal rights with other human beings.  Why can’t Obama say this? Why can’t anyone say this?!