Obama's Silence on Gaza is Deafening
By Ben Cohen (from FROM DAILY BANTER)

Barack Obama must be given a lot of credit for his remarkable ascent
to power, particularly in terms of the dignified way in which he did
it. But there is a dark side to his rise to the Presidency, one
progressives and liberals do not like to acknowledge.

Barack Obama had to do two things to persuade the powers that be that
he was a viable candidate for President. The first was to assure the
financial community that he would commit to a centrist economic
platform, and the second was to sell out the Palestinians immediately
and jump in bed with AIPAC.

Obama did both, and the consequences will be felt immediately.
Economically, Obama has not surrounded himself with the type of people
committed to real change. The enormous financial crisis has given him
more room to move, but he won't do anything dramatic (like hold Wall St
to account, or provide a meaningful bailout to the average American).
The results during his Presidency will mean extraordinary pain for the
middle classes and poor, while the burden is shifted from those who
caused it. It would no doubt be worse under a Republican, but it will
not be pleasant.

With the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza strip, Obama's wholesale
sellout of the Palestinian people is being felt even more acutely. His
unique position to speak up for a bitterly oppressed people has been
wasted in the name of political convenience.

Western responses to the massacre has been pathetic to say the least.
The U.S, U.K and European Union have done little to stop the Israelis
pounding Gaza with it's hi tech weaponry, with the Bush Administration
laying the blame squarely on Palestinians. "The United States strongly
condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and
holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal
of violence in Gaza," said Condoleezza Rice. "The cease-fire should be
restored immediately." Gordon Brown merely asked the Israelis to 'Show
restraint'.

And Obama's response? A half hearted critique of Hamas through former
campaign manager David Axelrod on CBS, where Obama's allegiance to
Israel was reiterated and belief that Israel has the right to respond
how it likes to Palestinian attacks.

One of the writers on my site, Hugo Foster has written a brilliant
analysis of the Israeli action in the Gaza strip, explaining why the
incursion is basically counterproductive and unnecessarily violent:

Publicly, Israel has stated it wants to create a new security
environment, to deliver the 'knockout blow' that will definitively
destroy Hamas' rocket-launching capability. To be sure, Hamas' military
infrastructure has been truly battered in the past couple of days. Yet
toppling Hamas' rule in Gaza is just not feasible. Logistically it
would require precisely the sort of costly ground fighting that the
Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have tried to avoid since they withdrew
from the territory in 2005. And given the close proximity of military
and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, it would inflict a level of human
damage (beyond the 56 civilian lives already lost) that would
eventually weaken tacit international support for Israel's 'right to
self-defence', as happened belatedly in Lebanon two years ago.

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(FROM AL JAZEERA)

Obama's Gaza silence condemned

Despite growing pressure on Barack Obama to speak out on the crisis in
Gaza, the US president-elect has remained silent on the issue.

Obama, holidaying in Hawaii, has made no public remarks on Israel's
unrelenting military assault on the Palestinian territory, which has
left more than 380 people there dead.

The former Illinois senator spoke out after last month's attacks in
Mumbai and has made detailed statements on the US economic crisis.

But some fear that the US president-elect's reluctance to speak out on
the Gaza raids could be sending its own message.

"Silence sounds like complicity," Mark Perry, the Washington Director
of the Conflicts Forum group, told Al Jazeera.

"Obama has said that Israel has the right to defend itself from rocket
attacks but my question to him is 'does he believe that Palestinians
also have the right of self-defence?'"

Support for Israel

Israel says the operation is necessary to prevent Palestinian rocket
attacks on the south of the country.

And Obama repeatedly spoke out in support for Israel during his
election campaign, describing the country as one of the US' greatest
allies and has vowed to ensure its security.


Obama was shown Palestinian rockets during his visit to Sderot [AFP]

He caused anger in the Arab world when he told a pro-Israel lobby group
in June that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel.

He also visited Sderot, the Israeli town close to Gaza regularly
targeted by Palestinian rocket fire, in July, to show his support for
residents.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has cited comments Obama made
during that visit in his own justification for launching the assault.

"Obama said that if rockets were being fired at his home while his two
daughters were sleeping, he would do everything he could to prevent
it," Barak was reported as saying on Monday.

Obama's aides have repeatedly said he is monitoring the situation and
continues to receive intelligence briefings but that he is not yet US
president.

But George Bush, the current US leader, has also remained silent on
Israel's attacks although the White House has offered its support to
Israel.

Arabs pessimistic

Many Arabs were cautiously optimistic about Obama's election victory in
November, in the belief that a fresh face in the White House would be
better than Bush, who invaded Iraq and gave strong support to Israel.

But his choice of a foreign policy team, especially Hillary Clinton as
US secretary of state and Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief-of-
staff, have raised doubts that much will change.

But some see his see his silence as symptomatic of caution over his own
position and the power of the Israel lobby.

"He wants to be cautious and I think he will remain cautious because
the Arab-Israeli conflict is not one of his priorities," Hassan Nafaa,
an Egyptian political scientist and secretary-general of the Arab
Thought Forum in Amman, told Reuters.

"Obama's position is very precarious. The Jewish lobby warned against
his election, so he has chosen to remain silent (on Gaza)," added Hilal
Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of
Beirut.

Protests demand change

However many in the US have called on Obama to speak out personally on
events in Gaza.

Protesters gathered at Obama's transition office in Washington DC on
Monday, and outside his holiday residence in Hawaii on Tuesday, to
demand he do more.

"The Obama administration is working hand in glove with the Bush
administration and...there is no reason that they can't work together
to get something done," Mike Reitz, a federal government worker, told
Al Jazeera at the transition office protest.

At another protest against Israel's actions in Gaza outside the White
House on Tuesday, some were sceptical about Barack Obama's commitment
to Middle East peace-making.

"Is this the change that you were talking about?," said Reza
Aboosaiedi, a computer specialist from Iran.

"If this is the change, you have a very, very deep problem, because if
you add them up with the other economic problems and other problems in
America, having this kind of problem in the Middle East, I don't think
he can manage it."

But others at the protest still saw some hope that the former Illinois
senator could make a difference.

"I would like to think that he would be more active than Bush in trying
to push an agenda to bring Israel and Palestine together to have peace
talks, but I don't know," said Bob Malone, a lawyer.

"But I'm an optimist, so I hope so."

The brash move by Israel was clearly taken due to the economic turmoil
in the West. While we concern ourselves with job cuts, food shortages
and plummeting house prices, Israel has taken brutal measures that even
the most hawkish U.S politicians would have tried to avert.

Obama has massive political capital, and could have injected himself
into the crisis before it happened. He did so during the beginning of
the economic meltdown, and could have lent his credibility to a
situation that has spiralled dangerously out of control. Obama has
stated that 'There is only one President at a time', abdicating
responsibility and essentially passing the buck.

Obama has pointed out the Qassan rockets Hamas has been firing into
Israeli towns over recent months, but has failed to mention the illegal
sanctions Israel has placed on Gazans, turning the already squalid land
into a virtual prison of starvation and targeted assassinations.

The massacre over the past few days will enrage Palestinians further,
strengthen Hamas, and solidify hatred towards Israel and the United
States in the Arab world. If Obama wants meaningful change in the
Middle East, he must start speaking up. For now, his silence is
deafening.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(FROM DAILY MAIL)

Obama risks anger by sitting on sidelines over Gaza attacks
By Paul Thompson


Barack Obama has risked alienating Muslims by choosing to sit on the
sidelines as Israel continued its air attacks on Gaza over the weekend,
Washington analysts warned today.
Many people within the Muslim world were looking to the American
president-elect to offer a fresh view on the Middle East and the cycle
of violence.
But three days after the Israeli assault began, he has remained
silent.
Senior aides said Obama was leaving all comments to President Bush.
His White House adviser, David Axelrod, said there was ?only one
president at a time? and that Obama did not want to send out mixed
signals.
Aides suggested Obama would not get involved until he is sworn in as
president in just over three weeks? time.

Obama had planned to deliver a major speech from an Islamic country
within the first 100 days of his administration.
He had previously said that mediating in the conflict from ?day one? of
his administration was his main target. But with the death toll now
rising above 300, and a ground invasion by Israeli troops increasingly
likely, that aim appears all but lost.
Aaron David Miller, a veteran US peace negotiator, said the fighting
made ?a difficult situation even tougher? and reduced the likelihood
that Obama could create an impact. He said the violence would speak
louder to many Muslims about the United states ?than any words Obama
could utter?.
Mr Miller added that the US government?s condemnation of Hamas for
provoking the air raids would also do little to signal to the Arab
world that Obama offers an alternative to the hard line adopted by the
Bush administration.

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(FROM PRISON PLANET)

"Say Something" About Gaza Humanitarian Crisis
By BAR staff

January "01, 2009 --"BAR" -- Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney has called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to "please, say
something about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced by
the Palestinian people, by the people of Gaza." McKinney spoke to CNN
news from the Lebanese city of Tyre, where she had debarked from the
relief vessel Dignity after it was rammed on the high seas by an
Israeli patrol boat, early Tuesday morning. Passengers also report the
Israelis fired machine guns into the water near their ship.

McKinney was among the passengers on an attempted voyage from the
island of Cyprus to Gaza, where Israeli bombs and missiles have killed
hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians, since Saturday. The
Dignity carried three tons of medical supplies and a number of doctors
prepared to treat the more than 1,000 Gazans wounded in the Israeli
attacks. The 66-foot craft had made two previous humanitarian relief
trips to Gaza since the summer. Israel has blocked food, medicines and
other essentials from entering Gaza in a campaign of collective
punishment against the 1.5 million Palestinians that live there under a
Hamas Party administration.

President-Elect Obama has been silent on the Israeli attacks, while
President George Bush has supported Israel's actions.

"I would like to ask my former colleagues in the United States Congress
to stop sending weapons of mass destruction around the world," said
McKinney, who was the Green Party's presidential candidate in November.
"As we are about to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, let
us remember what he said. He said that the United States is the
greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. And guess what: we
experienced a little bit of that violence, because the weapons that are
being used by Israel are weapons that were supplied by the United
States government."

A CNN reporter who accompanied the passengers and crew of the Dignity
confirmed that the boat "was sailing with full lights" when "one of the
Israeli patrol boats, with no lights on, rammed the Dignity, hard."

Israel blames the collision on the relief vessel.

Said McKinney: "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front,
once on the side.... What the Israelis are saying is outright
disinformation."

McKinney compared the Israeli action against the Dignity to the attack
on a U.S. naval vessel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. "I recall that
there was another boat that was attacked by Israelis, and it was the U.
S.S Liberty." Thirty-four crewmen died and 170 were wounded by fire
from Israeli planes and torpedo boats. The Israelis claim it was a case
of mistaken identity. "People would like to forget about the U.S.S.
Liberty," said McKinney, "but I haven't forgotten about it and the
people who were on that ship have not forgotten what happened to them.

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