By Abukar Arman

Indonesian Muslims take part in an anti U.S.-Israel-Egypt protest in front of the Egyptian embassy in Jakarta on Jan. 17, demonstrating against an underground wall being built to block a network of tunnels crossing Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Bay Ismoyo/ AFP-Getty Images)

The recent Egyptian government’s decision to seal the few “tunnels of life” that allowed people of Gaza to bypass the ongoing inhumane economic strangulation—along with its harassment and cruel treatment of the participants of Gaza Freedom March and the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy—earned it a prominent position in history’s page of shame. A page crowded by wealthy Arab nations who failed the Palestinian people and abandoned them at their most vulnerable time.

However, by no means should that sideline drama veil or in any way divert attention away from the root cause of the problem—the over six decades of oppression imposed upon the Palestinian people.

In that period, the state of Israel has occupied Palestine with an iron fist, denying Palestinians the right to self-determination and coercing part of their “elite” to surrender to what seems like a condition of eternal subjugation. However, the gravest of the Palestinian sufferings is embodied in the suffering of the people of Gaza as they endure a vicious economic strangulation unilaterally imposed by Israel. And despite worldwide condemnation of that egregious draconian policy, Israel continues to operate with impunity, devoid of conscience.

In their 575-page report released last September, the fact-finding mission on Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Commission has confirmed the ugly truth that most of the Western media were inoculated to under-report or outright ignore. The mission was led by Judge Richard Goldstone, former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. While the report also blamed Hamas, it highlighted that “there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza. … Actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.”

According to Article 39 of the report, the Israeli forces intentionally targeted and attacked Al Quds Hospital in the adjacent ambulance depot in Gaza with white phosphorous shells, an internationally banned chemical substance that, among other things, instantaneously burns the human being into skeleton.

Although the key recommendation of Goldstone was for the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a credible investigation into the war-crimes allegations by the International Criminal Court, no such action has been taken.

In reaction to the report, the U.S. Congress—while succumbing to the “Israel Lobby”—has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution was intended to express unequivocal blind loyalty to Israel, and to pressure the Obama administration to use its veto power (as a permanent member of the Security Council) against any resolution that might expose Israel. Apparently, the strategy worked; the report is now piling dust in the oblivion.

For whatever it’s worth, it is this kind of culture of impunity that, according to Goldstone, “emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable.” This concern was immediately dismissed as anti-Semitic by loyalists and supporters of oppressive Zionism. Never mind that Judge Goldstone is Jewish and is a supporter of Israel’s right to exist.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real racist phenomenon; however, the politically motivated excessive use of the term to character-assassinate and silence legitimate critics and peace and justice advocates, such as former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, simply defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, though the Obama administration is showing signs of discomfort with the current Israeli government, the U.S. foreign policy toward Middle East is still driven by unconditional loyalty.

As the Obama administration tries to reduce the post-9/11tension between the United States and the Islamic world and rein in the rapid growth of extremism, the Palestine issue remains an open sore that is festering in America’s foreign policy. While the current administration has attempted to demonstrate its intention of becoming an honest broker by appointing a credible diplomat—former Senator George Mitchell—as the Middle East envoy, Israel continues its belligerent oppression and expansionist policy by defiantly building new settlements.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel is adamant to continue the ever-expanding land grab driven by illegal home demolitions and confiscations, daily dreadful human rights abuses at check points, random imprisonment and assassinations, suppression of independent media, and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This, needless to say, has frustrated the Obama administration, whose out-of-the-ordinary reaction to Netanyahu’s visit to the United States has caused Israel a big embarrassment.

In an article intended to rally the troops against Obama, Jerusalem Post’s hawkish columnist, Caroline Glick, wrote, “It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital U.S. ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit.”

Though this was not a decision to stop or even suspend the roughly $3 billion of unrestricted aid given to Israel every year, it still turned many heads and galvanized the usual suspects to come after Obama with all sorts of accusations.

Not since 1990 when then Secretary of State James Baker sent a blunt public message to then Israeli Prime Minister Ytsakh Shamir, telling him “call us when you are serious about peace … the telephone number is 1-202-546-1414,’ has U.S. leadership sent Israel a stern message that its actions are unacceptable.

At the end of the day, convincing Israel to do the right thing and stop establishing new facts on the ground to further complicate an already complex political issue will require more than symbolism. And nothing substantive is likely to happen until the United States modifies its one-sided Middle East policy. Meanwhile, Israel will continue business as usual. It might invade Gaza again. Some opinion makers in Israel are already boasting about what “Operation Cast Lead 2″ would look like with the use of “advanced Israeli-made Marakava 4 tanks.”

Nothing equates to oppression more than the inaction of an apathetic witness.

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Muffled Screams of Gaza

NEW YORK – U.S. President Barack Obama, seeking to build on his tripartite meeting in New York on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday that nations aligned with either side should join the cause of advancing Middle East peace by speaking honestly to Israelis about Palestinians’ legitimate claims and to Palestinians and Arab nations about Israel’s right to exist.

Speaking to the 64th General Assembly, U.S. Obama yesterday urged the United Nations to “embrace a new era of engagement.” Obama also reiterated the pledge of the United States to “seek a new era of engagement with the world.”
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Netanyahu called Obama’s speech “very important” and noted the president had called attention to Israel’s efforts to improve quality of life for the Palestinians.

Also in New York, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Haaretz: “Obama is always trying to maintain balance. For us the positive aspect is that he said Israel is a Jewish state. He also spoke very clearly about Iran, and we see his speech in a very positive light. The tripartite meeting had a very positive effect, because the main thing is we showed we do not intend to compromise on our positions and that we will need to conduct a dialogue without preconditions.”

“The time has come to relaunch negotiations – without preconditions – that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem,” Obama said.

Senior members of Netanyahu’s entourage said that five weeks was a realistic time frame for the beginning of negotiations, adding that no concrete subjects in a future agreement were discussed at the meeting. The main goal of the meeting The main goal of the meeting was to renew communication between the leaders and their teams, they said.

Lieberman, asked whether he thought Obama’s patience with the parties was running out, answered: “The president of the United States has the hardest job in the world. One can empathize with his position. And he has problems that are far more serious than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Anyone who saw [Libyan leader Muammar] Gadhafi’s appearance at the UN today knows that clear-thinking logic is not the strong suit of Middle Eastern leaders.”

While at the United Nations, Lieberman is holding a series of meetings with his counterparts, mainly from Europe.

Agreement on Iran

Lieberman said the main thing he noticed in his meetings was “agreement on the Iranian threat. Everyone understands completely that Iran is the greatest threat. That is felt by the Europeans and the Arabs. Everyone is also saying something to be on the safe side about the settlements, but Iran is the big issue.”

Obama reiterated the U.S. pledge “to continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world,” and told the General Assembly that “some progress” had been made at the three-way meeting the day before.

Obama’s statement that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” met with enthusiastic cheers in the General Assembly chamber.

Obama also said the goal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is “two states living side by side in peace and security – a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”

Obama added: “I am not naive. I know this will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip service. To break the old patterns – to break the cycle of insecurity and despair – all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. And nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks over a constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security.”

Obama called on the members of the General Assembly to remember that “the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It is paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the night. It is paid by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are God’s children,” the president said.

Obama’s speech emphasized the difference between his administration’s attitude toward the world body and that of this predecessor.

“I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others. This has fed an almost reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for our collective inaction.”

Obama said that we know “the future will be forged by deeds and not simply words… So for those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions that we have taken in just nine months.”

As examples, Obama cited his prohibition, on his first day in office, of the use of torture by the United States, and the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. “America will live its values, and we will lead by example,” the president said.
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Obama tells UN: We do not accept Israeli settlements