Obama has moved to the right to please the Zionist lobby

By Mohammed khaku

ccun.org, August 1, 2008

 
 
Sen. Barack Obama has been able to inspire millions of new voters, most of them young, thanks to a message of hope and change. But how much different would his Middle East policy be if he won, especially after his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israeli lobby in the U.S.?
 
Obama has moved to the right to please the Zionist lobby.

Earlier in his career, he took a relatively balanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but during the past two years he has taken positions largely in support of the hard-line Israeli government, making statements virtually indistinguishable from that of the Bush administration, partly to reassure neo-cons and the Jewish lobby of his support of Israel.
 
It has never been easy for a new president to make radical changes concerning Israel, especially with a powerful lobby like AIPAC and conservative media. But Obama's personal and political roots suggest his call for a different relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world based on dialogue and international law is sincere. Obama's America will be less arrogant than Bush's and more peaceful than McCain's.
 
Last week, Barack Obama spoke before an audience of over 200,000 people where the infamous wall once stood in Berlin, Germany last week in the largest rally held by any presidential candidate. It was one of the finest perfomance with terriffic oratory, he should be applauded for it.
 
Musim all over the world listened to that speech. Which was so important and powerful, but it is sad that echoes of it did not play in Israel.  Today, the walls have left the entire population of Gaza and West Bank in an open prisonan, living in fear like caged animals behind Israel's separation wall.  Israeli wall prevents palestinians from getting medical supplies, food and fuel, blocking traffic of vital goods and services, keeping farmers from tending their fields and divides Palestinian families.
 
In his address, Obama discussed the importance of the Berlin Wall being torn. He said, "The greatest danger is to allow new walls to divide us from one another," Obama said. "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jews cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”
 
In this case he has problem to distinguish between the imaginary walls and the real ones, which are at every checkpoint in the occupied territories of Palestine. Was he referring to the Israeli Walls illegal under international law? I do not think so.  Senator Obama has failed to address the issue of real concrete walls depriving people of basic human rights. It is extremely difficult to debate the Israel’s racist policy for not allowing millions of Palestinian who are in refuge camps to return to their homes in Israel. 
 
The critical question for Obama after his trip is how many U.S. military bases in foreign countries is he willing to close? Does he know militarism is at the center of our growing national and global economic crises? Keeping bases overseas and imperial behavior make us less safe in the world.
 
However, what policy can he undertake as a next president of United States to improve the image of America in the world? Will he be able to say that he will end the double standards, negotiate with the Iranian leadership and say we’re sorry?  The negative feeling about the United States has been provoked by the arrogance of unilateralism. Would Sen. Obama have the greatness of moral stature, magnanimity and humility to recognize the faults and shortcoming to say we’re sorry?