Sometimes,
desperate and difficult circumstances require that we change the
game a little bit, shake things up, if you will. If recent reports
are true, then President Obama plans to mint his own Mideast peace plan in an attempt to loosen up the gridlock
the parties are experiencing in that troubled region of the world.
And
this is precisely the type of leadership for which people voted
in the 2008 election. Tired of being hated when they traveled abroad
- due to the misguided cowboy diplomacy practiced by George W. Bush
for eight long years - Americans wanted a president that would once
again make their country a place that was respected among the community
of nations. And with his historic Mideast speech, Obama clearly
laid out a new vision for Israel,
the Palestinians and the greater Arab world.
�The
truth is, in some of these conflicts, the United
States can't impose solutions unless the participants
in these conflicts are willing to break out of the old patterns
of antagonism,� the President said last week. A U.S.-led plan would address Iran,
a big concern of Israel,
and involve Arab neighbors as well. �We want to get the debate away
from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet
level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the
region,� in addition to the Palestinians and Israelis. The President
knows that incrementalism hasn�t worked.
All
parties involved in a solution to the problem can afford to look
at things in a different way. Israel is led by a right-wing
government that has been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration.
And realpolitik dictates that empires cannot allow their satellite
nations to chump them out. Allowing the construction of additional
housing units in East Jerusalem, the presumptive
capital of a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not
come to the negotiating table as an honest partner. Self-determination
and nationhood are a must for the Palestinians, and actions which
show contempt for this reality certainly will not bring anyone peace
and security, most of all Israel. True leadership comes
when so-called leaders do the unpopular, though it is best for their
people. Cowardice is doing the expedient, that which may yield short-term
votes, yet fails to address the long-term crisis and only exacerbates
it. So, for the purposes of this analysis, Netanyahu is a coward.
For
Palestinians, suicide bombers will not bring peace, and a culture
of violence will not build a nation. Although Israel
has erred in characterizing what is primarily a liberation struggle
as a war on terror, the Palestinians have been mistaken in believing
that killing innocent people will accomplish anything other than
continuing the cycle of violence. The people in the Occupied
Territories are suffering plenty, to be
sure. The blockade of Gaza is a human rights
violation and a humanitarian crisis, part of the greater outrage
that is the Occupation itself, with its apartheid system of checkpoints,
passes and Bantustans. People of all faiths
and backgrounds - including progressive Jews - choose to protest
an unjust Gaza policy by fasting and other peaceful means.
As
if to learn a lesson from the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow
South, many Palestinians are realizing that nonviolent resistance is the path to freedom. They are staging
peaceful protests and boycotting goods made in the settlements.
And the Palestinian prime minister traveled to the West
Bank to plant trees, and declared that land, not presently under
his authority, as part of a future Palestinian state. Gandhi and
King surely would be proud.
And
as far as the U.S. is concerned, a laissez-faire policy of shoulder
shrugging has not worked in the Mideast, and
neither has the appearance of siding with one party over another.
Obama realizes that if there is any hope for stability in the region,
he must deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hotheads and peddlers
of extremism have a vested interest in the status quo, and would
like nothing more than to derail any attempts to transform today�s
sad state of affairs.
As
an aside, somehow, the legendary African-American poet Gil Scott-Heron
is caught in the crosshairs of the Mideast
conflict. He was involved in the anti-apartheid movement in the
1980s. And now he is being criticized for his plans to perform in
Tel Aviv, which, critics
say, would violate the unified call among Palestinian civil
society for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions
(BDS) against Israel,
a call which is �directed particularly towards international activists,
artists, and academics of conscience.�
Whether
Gil Scott-Heron is compromising his ideals by performing in Israel is a question that
goes far beyond the scope of this commentary. However, I am reminded
of the title of one of his songs - �Home Is Where the Hatred Is.�
And for people living in Israel
and the Occupied Territories, home definitely is where the hatred is. It
is what South
African Justice Richard Goldstone called �a situation where
young people grow up in a culture of hatred and violence, with little
hope for change in the future. Finally, the teaching of hate and
dehumanization by each side against the other contributes to the
destabilization of the whole region.�
BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, David A. Love, JD is a journalist
and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor
to The Huffington
Post, theGrio, The
Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These Times
and Philadelphia
Independent Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com,
NewsOne,
Daily Kos,
and Open
Salon. Click here
to contact Mr. Love.
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