Obama Fiddling While Gaza Burns
By Robert Dreyfuss
November 16, 2012
The Nation
In 2008-09, during Israel's Operation Cast Lead invasion
of Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and no good accomplished, the George
W. Bush administration famously dithered and sat on the sidelines, all the
while defending Israel's right to "self-defense." In 2012, will
President Obama do the same?
It's by no means certain that Israel will invade Gaza
again.
But so far, I haven't seen any sign that the White House
is calling for restraint on Israel's part, aside from calls on Israel to avoid
civilian casualties.
Here's what Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, had to
say:
We strongly
condemn the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza
into Israel,
and we regret the death and injury of
innocent
Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the
ensuing violence. There is no justification
for the
violence that
Hamas and other terrorist organizations are
employing
against the people of Israel. We call on those
responsible to
stop these cowardly acts immediately in
order to allow
the situation to de- escalate.
In.conversations [with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi], the
president
reiterated the United States' support for
Israel's right
to self- defense. President Obama also
urged Prime
Minister Netanyahu to make every effort to
avoid civilian
casualties.
Hamas claims to
have the best interests of the
Palestinian
people at heart, yet it continues to engage
in violence
that is counterproductive to the Palestinian
cause.
Attacking Israel on a near- daily basis does
nothing to help
the Palestinians in Gaza or to move the
Palestinian
people any closer to achieving self-
determination.
But, as the White House knows, rocket attacks by Hamas
are pinpricks when compared to the near- infinite firepower that Israel has.
Yes, hundreds of rockets have crashed into Israel thin year, but the vast
majority do no damage whatsoever, exploding in empty fields. And most of the
rocket attacks are launched during flare-ups, often in response to a clash with
Israel or an Israeli attack on a position in Gaza. In addition, many of the
attacks from Gaza are launched by radical Islamist factions trying to draw
Hamas into more aggressive actions.
So, is Obama telling Netanyahu not to invade Gaza, just
as the United States-both under Bush and
Obama-has told Israel not to attack
Iran? No evidence, yet.
Many analysts say Israel isn't seeking a war, just trying
to bolster Netanyahu's tough-guy image in advance of the Israeli election in
January. Perhaps. It's true that a war in Gaza could result in another
quagmire, with lots of bad publicity for Israel, creating room for Netanyahu's
critics to attack him from the left. But it's usually a safe bet that wars and
invasions by Israel are ultimately popular among Israel's excitable population.
The crisis poses an ultimate test for Obama in regard to
the recent transformation of the Middle East. The changes in Egypt, the
ascension of a pro- Palestinian, Islamist government in Turkey, and the
volatile situation throughout the region-including massive protests this week
in Jordan, which has so far escaped the Arab Spring-mean that governments in
the region are far more responsive to popular opinion (even if they are, still,
imperfect democracies). The Arab "street" means something more than
it did, say, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In Egypt, the government is in a fix. There are street
protests organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, and leaders in Cairo have
strongly condemned Israel's attacks. Egypt's prime minister visited Gaza, where
blood from a dead child spattered onto his clothing as he toured a hospital.
But Egypt can't afford a conflict with Israel, politically, economically or
militarily. Israel knows that Egypt won't intervene, beyond words, if it
invades Gaza again. But the bad blood and anger that is being raised in the
region is highly dangerous, and unpredictable in its results.
It may be too much-okay, it is too much-to expect an
American administration to condemn a war
started by Israel. But the best bet for
Obama, otherwise, is to work with Egypt and
Turkey to use the crisis to establish a stable cease-fire, one that would allow normal commerce from
Gaza to Egypt and vice versa, some sort
of international monitoring of the
Israel-Gaza conflict, and an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the tit- for-tat attacks. That
might be a basis, then, for a
second-term Obama effort to deal seriously
with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Right now, though, it's not looking good.
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