Gaza Conflict Challenges Obama To Immediately Put In Place an Effective Middle East Policy
Let's hope that his determination bears long lasting fruit.
Obama stated: "'The loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern to me,' he said in a question and answer session at his transition office, 'and after January 20 I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue.'
" 'Starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East,' he said. 'On January 20, you will be hearing directly from me, and my opinions on the issue. Until then, my job is to monitor the situation' and to assemble a national security and foreign policy team."
A difficult road lies ahead of him.
As Robert Fisk at The Independent writes about the long string of "peacekeeping" attempts and failures in that region:
"For which "frontier" would the UN then patrol? The UN border of the 1940s, the pre-1967 ceasefire lines – in which a pre-annexed East Jerusalem belonged to the Arabs – or the post-1967 border in which Israel claimed "annexed" Jerusalem, or the massive walled "frontier" which now bites deeply into yet more Palestinian territory – illegally in international law? And would the UN also have to "observe" the equally illegal Jewish settlements built on Arab land within the West Bank?
"Gaza sounds an easy option. The UN could place some international troops around Gaza. But it would only be a matter of time before they would be required around the West Bank. That would be a Palestinian dream – and, for those Israelis who wish to continue their expansion into Palestinian land – a nightmare."
And Jonathan Friedland writes in The Guardian: "Hamas is not staging anything like the opposition mounted by Hezbollah in Lebanon, when Israeli fatalities reached triple figures.
"Israeli officials deny that regime change in Gaza is either likely to happen or the goal of their mission. But that may end up being the result: intelligence reports suggest the organisation has been eviscerated, its ability to govern all but destroyed.
"Israeli leaders will crow at that; their poll numbers will surge. But it will surely prove a pyrrhic victory. For what would be the consequences of crippling the Hamas administration in Gaza? Israel would be confronted with a sharp dilemma. Either it would have to stay, resuming the occupation it sought to end in 2005 - a notion with zero popular appeal in Israel. Or it would have to withdraw, leaving behind a huge and dangerous question mark.
"For Gaza could become a vacuum, rapidly descending into Somalia, a lawless badland of warlords and clans. A new force could seek to replace Hamas. Most likely it would be even more radical: al-Qaida has long been pushing at the edges of Gaza, eager to find a way in.
(Shades of the Bushite failure in Iraq, where al-Qaida appeared only after the US invasion and occupation of that country.)
Neither article suggests a rosy scenario, and Obama will be confronted by a gigantic, volatile foreign policy crisis that he must help solve.
Let's hope his administration's approach is more neutral, reasonable, and equitable to both Israel and the Palestinians, although anything will be better than the Bush regime, the worst US administration ever, and its disastrous foreign policies.
Comments