Obama starting on the wrong foot

Barack Obama should not miss this golden opportunity come January 20 when he takes over as the nation's 44th president.

Three other presidents who preceded him have tried their hand, often half-heartedly, but could not seriously strive for a reasonable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, brewing since 1948.

President-elect Obama promised during his election campaign to bring change to American policies, and there is no doubt that he can if he is steadfast about his intentions. We all have learned that if there is a will there is a way.

This has become more attainable since the two sides in the conflict have expressed their willingness to live side by side peacefully.

Even the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, once again reiterated that Israel "must... give up Arab neighbourhoods in eastern Jerusalem and return to the seed of the territory that is the State of Israel up until 1967," the land Israel occupied after its war with neighbouring Arab states that year.

"If, God forbid, we procrastinate, we could lose support for a two-state solution," he said.

Olmert's new position is unprecedented for an Israeli leader. The Palestinians had magnanimously announced in 1988 that they are willing to accept a state on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which totals only 22 per cent of historic Palestine.

But Obama deflated the great expectations people had after his historic election, being the first African-American to reach the highest position in the land.

His selection of Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff, especially being the son of an Israeli couple who settled in Chicago in the fifties, has been disappointing since it signaled a return to the same old clique.

Doubtless, Israelis were joyous over the appointment. This is how Maariv, the leading Israeli paper, saw the first appointment by the president-elect: "Our man in the White House." The headline in the respected Haaretz read: "Obama's first pick: Israeli Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff."

Whether the paper meant he was an Israel citizen or it was his first name, which he never used, was unclear.

Racist comment

The letdown that Arabs and Arab-Americans felt was further aggravated by a racist comment to an Israeli paper by Emanuel's father, Benjamin M. Emanuel, a pediatrician, about his son's selection.

"Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

This racist comment touched a wrong nerve within the influential Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), headed by former Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar, which in turn demanded that Emanuel "disavow and repudiate these remarks publicly."

President Oakar said in the letter to the Congressman, copy of which was sent to Obama, that "this characterisation of an Arab [is] an unacceptable smear," adding that "one can readily imagine the justifiable outcry if someone made a similar remark about African Americans, Jews, or Hispanics, concerning cleaning the floors of the White House."

Representative Emanuel's father was born in occupied Jerusalem and was a member of the notorious Irgun, a Zionist terrorist group during the British mandate in Palestine, which was responsible for many bloody acts including the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the temporary seat of the government.

At the time, the Irgun leader was Menachem Begin, the late Israeli prime minister, who in 1978 signed the first peace treaty Israel had with an Arab state, Egypt.

As Obama's gatekeeper at the White House, Emanuel's role is still undefined. But there is no doubt that this was a wrong start for the Obama team. It can, however, be corrected once a new secretary of state is expeditiously identified and Obama's stance is clearer. He apparently has promised President Carter that the Middle East is on his priority list.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.

I think Obama must ignore all other opinion and take a fair decision. He should change the American policy not only in the Middle East but in all other countries regardless of colour and religion.
M. Marzook
Colombo,Sri Lanka
Posted: November 13, 2008, 10:52