|
||
Obama's Trip and the Parameters for Peace
I met Barack Obama exactly five years ago.
It was the evening of the official nomination of his predecessor, John Kerry, at the Democratic National Convention.
All of the party heavyweights had spoken.
The party loyalists were audience to fiery speeches by both Clintons, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Tom Daschle, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
And at 11 o'clock on the dot, as the large auditorium of the Fleet Center in Boston started to empty, while the remaining delegates expected nothing else special from a drawn out evening -- an evening so long that no one bothered any longer to pace things in synch with the commercial breaks on CNN -- a young unknown, light on his feet, and with an unpronounceable name, bounded on stage and electrified the remaining party loyalists.
I see him again the next day.
I spend the morning in a hotel dining room, interrogating him about his beautiful "Brown American" story, the son of a Kenyan and a white mother from Kansas.
And I am so impressed by this meeting, so struck both by what he says to me and the tone, at once consensual and forthright, soothing and unflinching, which we now know would be from that point on his signature -- I am so profoundly seduced by his message as much as his rhetoric that I write a profile of him called "A Black Kennedy" -- that is, before the editors of the American magazine I am writing for tell me gently but firmly: you can make all the predictions you want; you are free to make a fool of yourself in proclaiming a perfect stranger the future president of the United States; but please, do not sully the icon; hands off the sainted patronymic of Kennedy. And because of this, I indeed change my title from "A Black Kennedy" to "A Black Clinton." I have never completely forgiven myself for it...
Because from that day forth, in my opinion, everything was already settled.
This man had the makings not only of a president, but of a reformer of the highest degree.
This thoroughly brilliant intellectual belonged to a tradition which, in the great debate that has always divided America -- whether it had invented a new, sui generis civilization, or whether it remains fundamentally and spiritually European, pleading the case for Europe, an anchoring in the European tradition, the loyalty of the new world to the old world and its values.
That day, this son of a Muslim father told me how the image of the Israeli people returning to its land after centuries of exile and suffering is what, in his childhood, and particularly under the influence of an exceptionally charismatic camp counselor, had forged his character, his soul, and his ideology as a young emulator of Martin Luther King. He was the only one of all the American leaders that I met who was capable of meeting the unsolvable problem posed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict head on and then of crafting an equitable solution.
And if there was indeed finally someone who, because he belonged to one of the minority groups that as a whole make up the majority of the American people, was capable of addressing a message of fraternity and hope to the planet, it was always Obama -- all the more so because being neither the son nor the descendant of slaves, being the first black or mixed-race leader who was not the living incarnation of the memory of slavery and, thus, of the irremediable guilt of the country, he was able to do that without reigniting even in the United States itself the racial and culture wars.
This was the existential and political equation of the one who became, in the meantime, the 44th president of the United States.
Given that anti-Americanism is the sacramental utterance of the religion of modern times from one end of the earth to the other, I saw only him, Obama, as able to lead the way for the counterattack.
Five years later, we are indeed at that point.
I am not talking about the closing of Guantanamo, a promise kept -- and which, with the disclosure of the CIA's classified files on torture, is one of the forceful messages the world was waiting for.
I am not talking about the colossal error that was the Iraq War, which he and very few others condemned from the very beginning, and which he has without delay started to scale down. Will it take 16 or 19 months to bring home all the troops? And will all of them, without exception, be brought home -- down to the very last one? The symbol is there, in any case; and, for this president-symbol, for this man who speaks in symbols like he speaks in other signs, concepts, and images, that is, of course, the essential.
I am not even talking about the Pakistani question. He questioned me extensively about it that morning five years ago (I had just published my investigation into the death of Daniel Pearl). We agreed that it was the most pressing of the issues that would confront the next American administration (I find in my notes, a joke that this very young Obama made about the "Pakistani" reversal of the famous Leninist saying -- no longer "the Soviets plus electricity" but "the jihad plus nuclear weapons"): he immediately took this question into account -- accurately gathering the unrelenting hate of all constitutive branches of Al Qaeda.
Most impressive was the way that, in a matter of months, and in just a few words, he put an end, that Saturday in front of the 9,387 small white crosses of the American cemetery in Colleville sur Mer, to the misunderstanding that had poisoned America's relations with Europe, and in particular with France, for the past eight years.
The most spectacular event was the 55-minute speech he gave on June 4, in the highly symbolic confines of the University of Cairo, which put an end to the contempt toward Islam proffered, whatever one says, at least since September 11th, with what he called -- a monumental, stupefying first in the mouth of a Western head of state -- the "Holy Koran."
And then finally there was Buchenwald where, under the watchful eye of Elie Wiesel, he said the words that we had been waiting for the day after this first speech of praise to the Muslim world: for balance? No, of course not; not for balance in the banal and banally political sense of the word; because if there really was a willingness that struck me right away at our first encounter, it is the willingness to break with this idiocy, this nastiness, this leprosy of hearts and souls that is the competition among victims and thus the balancing of memories, and therefore, in the best case scenario, the obligation that we impose on ourselves to give to this one an equal -- exactly equal -- dose of compassion that we gave to that one. Nothing of the sort with Obama; nothing like that in his speech at Buchenwald; nothing that resembles this apothecary concern to measure out, weigh, and equally distribute the quantity of compassion and tears that we are supposed to shed. The truth; only the truth; and, on his way out, the invitation extended to Ahmadinejad, the world's guru of Holocaust deniers, to make the trip to Buchenwald -- it was the closing line and it was perfect.
We can, of course, debate this or that point.
We can -- and it's true for me -- not only discuss but regret what was said in Cairo about women wearing the veil in the western world: Obama, in refusing to allow a democratic government "dictate the clothing" (sic) that a woman "must wear," stands in opposition to the laws and principles of French laïcité. He disappoints women who, beyond France's borders, and at the peril of their lives, fight for equal opportunities and rights; and it is a pity that he is retreating on his position on Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantaoui, imam of the Al Azhar mosque and high if not spiritual, at least moral authority of Sunni Islam.
But there are three reasons we can and must be happy about this diplomatic tour.
The restoration of the transatlantic axis and, ultimately, of the Franco-American bond that had been greatly undermined by both sides during the Bush and Chirac years: he did it in true Obama style -- a cool, truly cool style, simultaneously elegant and relaxed, without smugness but without grandiloquence either -- a cold reconciliation, without lyricism, without sentimentality, avoiding the addition of pathos in the psychology and dramatization of personal relations between leaders. What a relief!
Burying the hatchet on what Samuel Huntington called the clash of civilizations: there is only one clash, Obama substantively said, and it is the clash within Islam that opposes Islam to itself -- the Islam of murderers, dictators and fanatics on one hand; and on the other hand, the Islam of all who fight for human rights, democracy, enlightenment and fight for it within the Islamic world in the same fashion, relatively speaking, as the dissidents of communism. Finally!
And then the fact that this man who never compromised and who, in my opinion, will not compromise the imperatives of Israel's security, but also will not ease his efforts in aiding in the creation of a second State, a Palestinian one, for which we have waited 60 years, and which many of us think is the only true guarantee of long-term security for the Jewish State. Strictly speaking, he is not saying anything new on the subject; if we stick just to the words, they are not fundamentally different from those spoken by his predecessors -- except that the tone is new, and the enthusiasm of his good will, and the feeling that he will not wait, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him, until the last year of his second term to remember his good intentions.
Barack Obama set forth, in four days, the parameters of a peace that has never seemed so close and yet so far.
And for the peoples, all the peoples of the region, there is good news, a source of hope, and perhaps the beginning of a new era.
I weigh my words.
I am, more than anyone, in support of the cause of Israel and, also more than anyone, worried about its solitude, not to say its vulnerability -- so much so that, yes, I weigh my words and do not write them, these very words, without a slight tremble in my hand.
And yet.
I profoundly believe that the two State solution is, for both peoples, the lesser of two evils.
And what I know about Obama, what I know about his personal biography and his track record on the question, what I know or can guess about those who surround him, what I know about David Axelrod who wore an Obama button, written in Hebrew, during the campaign, what I know, finally, of the promises made June 4, 2008, before the representatives of the powerful AIPAC, the great American support organization for Israel--all of that to say I have confidence in the good will and honesty of the president.
Perhaps the day will come when the historical alliance of the United States and Israel will be weakened or questioned.
Perhaps the moment will come where the anti-Zionist faction, which, contrary to rumor, is just as strong in the United States as in Europe, will drown out both the Jewish and non-Jewish defenders of the fragile Israeli democracy.
But we aren't at that point yet.
We are far, very far, from that point.
And that day, if it ever comes, will not happen on Obama's watch.
Translated from French by Sara Phenix.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
All Obama has to do is read a well prepared speech and peace will come. Keep drinking the kool aid!
Peace is no closer today then it was 60 years ago, or 1000 yers ago! Your choice.
he makes the same mistake so many other make the palestinians dont want a state the want the destruction of israel.
they could have had a state in 1948 they rejected it. most of the land their state was to be on was occupied by egypt and jordan. not once did any palestian leader ask for a state. they called for the destruction of israel. after 1967 the israelis occupied that land. it was not the palestians that asked for a state there but the west. the palestians have no desire for a state.
all they want is the destruction of israel. if that happens egypt, jordan, lebanon, and syria will divide up the land and their still wont be a palestian state
Israeli apologists dont seem to appreciate is that all Palestinians want is freedom, identity, self-determination and security - All the things Israel provides for itself.
Israel deliberately and maliciously prevents all that. Thats why theyre hated in the region and around the world
That's bull. The Palestinians /wanted/ their own state. Just because they weren't being ethnically cleansed by Jordanians and Egyptians and therefore didn't mean that they had to fight tooth and nail to not lose even more of their homeland, doesn't mean that they weren't vying for statehood. Any Palestinian can tell how long they've been fighting for that.
In 1949 Palestinians rightly rejected losing part of Palestine. All that land is Palestine. Look at the maps back then.
Fortunately enough, I happen to have a link handy.
http://www.friendsofsabeel.org.uk/images/Israel-Palestine_maps.jpg
There has never been an Arab Palestinian state. The previous rulers were the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire before that. Never the Arabs, they made that up. Israel is here to stay, deal with it.
Almost all the people that colonized Palestine are genitically unrelated to the original tribes. The affiliation is religious. Most are Europeans and Russians.
Their suffering is undeniable but it doesn't give them the right impose it on others.
It's quite the confusing argument that intertwines genetics and religious text!
Then maybe Israelis should stop making it.
No one is actually stopping the Palestinians from settling down and making a state.
The people they put in power don't want to attend to things like that. Easier to build rockets to lob into Israel.
Israeli's even left them farms and vineyards when they left the last place they were demanded to leave in order to get peace. Did they farm it? No, let it go to desert again.
Don't forget the greenhouses
Still peddling that lie, are we?
About half the greenhouses in the Israeli settlements in Gaza have already been dismantled by their owners, who have given up waiting to see if the government was going to come up with extra payment as an inducement to leave them behind, say senior officials working on the coordination of this summer's Israeli pullout from Gaza.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/international/middleeast/15mideast.html
The old "a land without people for a people without a land" mythology. The land Israelis have stolen and occupied
Here's your "desert land:"
http://www.imemc.org/article/59411
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m44396&hd=&size=1&l=e
http://www.papp.undp.org/en/focusareas/economicdev/projagr/CAP%20Agriculture%20Project.pdf
One half of your cutesy quote is misleading. Jews historically have had no homeland. They have had no place where they can govern themselves.
MacQ
The Israelis left behind a watertable that had been rendered saline by overuse to irrigate "settler" green houses.
The Israelis, citing "security concerns" closed off the Gaza strip from international trade.
These are only two of a number of [Israeli initiated] circumstances which led to the failure of the Gazan economy.
It is all very well to sneer at the Gazans' economic straits but the fact remains that the ultimate cause of this is the ramifications of Israel's policy of economic strangulation and vindictive paranoia.
Really? So they could form an own state, kick out the Israeli military, and that would make the Israeli settlers what, Palestinians or illegal foreigners?
The I.D.F. has a long history of destroying anything that is built in the territories. During the last exchange they even managed to totally destroy the American school. The settlers have also been doing a fairly fine job over a number of years now in destroying various olive groves that have been there for hundreds of years.
The insanity of the Israeli government calling for the Palestinians to police their own territory while at the exactly same time targeting the barracks and lives of the Palestinian police force just passed you by didn’t it?
How much infrastructure building would you take part in or have enthusiasm for if it was consistently destroyed every time you finished it?
Somewhere in this "consensual, soothing, and seducing (sounds like a cheap date) dissertation on Israel is Obama's supposed support for them...But it got lost in your translation of the two Muslim factions...The Islam of human rights and peace is not the Islam that Israel faces on three borders.
The "Islam" that Israel faces on its borders is a Hollywood construct -- nothing more than propaganda. Here, let me prove it -- this has been on the table since 2002(!)
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league/peace02.htm
This came out after 9/11 and before our invasion of Iraq (which, in spite of that, hasn't caused this initiative to be taken off the table). Israel refuses to even address this on its merits. For at least a year now, it has had the backing of /every/ player, to one degree or another, including Hamas, /except/ for Israel. (That's now changed, since strangely the pro-Western coalition that won the Lebanese elections -- as opposed to "terrorist" Hezbollah -- has stated they intend to withdraw from it)
Isn't that non negotiable? The UN and EU said it was negotiable but did anyone else say it? I mean, Erekat, in 2007 said : "There will be no negotiations with Israel over the initiative."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/842504.html
Halleluja. I finally agree on something with Bernard-Henry Levy; the creatifon of a Palestifnian state is a must for peace not only between the Palestinians and Israelis, or Arabs and Muslims and Jews but also to facilitate the solution of other problems in the Middle East and to deny terrorists on all sides the excuse to kill innocent people.
It looks like we are going to be given a weekly doze of pro-Israel propaganda much of which is pure fantasy.
Why is it that Israel with less than 0.2% of the world's population dominates the news on a daily basis?
Frankly the world has more to be concerned about than the religious fervor of a small extremely well-organized minority.
This article was pro-Israel, but it was Pro-Palestinian as well. You cant see past you own biased nose.
"Frankly the world has more to be concerned about than the religious fervor of a small extremely well-organized minority."
-Jews are in control? Somebody's been brushin up on thei protocols of zion, good job.
Somebody's even naming blogs after that. Priceless!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/obamas-trip-and-the-param_b_215093.html?show_comment_id=25629618#comment_25629618
Because a lot of newspaper owners and network execs have dual citizenship
You apparently haven't even read what was written above.
Israel is not a democracy. What about one person one vote. In order to preserve a "Jewish state" the Israels must deny the indiginous people their right to vote.
You don't know what you're talking about. Every citizen of Israle, Arab or Jew, gets a vote. Israel is the only country in the world that has members of parliament who openly call for the state's destruction. Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens and do not get a vote. We can talk about the occupation, but that's another issue. Your point that Israel is not a democracy is patently false.
Really! How many Arabs are able to join the military? Oh what a surprise -- NONE!
If an "Arab" citizen of Israel want to renovate his home, what happens?
He cannot. If he does, it is demolished.
If this citizen want to marry someone from the Occupied Territory,can they live together in his home in Israel?
Absolutely not!
"Arabs" may vote for their own parties who participate in the Knesset.
IS that democracy?
Arabs on the Westbank were mostly born under Israeli occupation, that makes the Israeli citizens by common law
Too bad that only half of the people living under Israeli rule have Israeli citizenship.
Palestinian issue needs to be solved immediately and Obama is best suited for it. He knows the concerns of both parties and can strike a relatively acceptable deal.
http://proamericanmuslims.wordpress.com/
You are sad, K.
Anything short of a solution based on the principles of international law is unacceptable, because it is not a question of what Israel believes it should return to the Palestinians, but what they are obligated to comply with.
The problem is not your arguments, but the facts on the ground. Palestinians have an inalienable right to return to their homes and their 1948 lands been returned to them. Nobody can sign a "hoax" agreement ignoring that right.
I'm not an expert on whether the egg or chicken came first, but I do have a knowledge of history and I have read that the Jews were in the current Israel before the time of Christ. In history (ancient) I never heard the term Palestinians until recently.
Palestine is where Palestinians are from. Youve seen maps of Palestine?
Are you somebody that thinks modern Israeli immigrants from Russia, Europe and America that are unfamiliar with local customs, can barely speak any local languages and have been in the area five minutes have more right to land than a Palestinian family that has lived there for a thousand years?
Following your logic. The USA needs to give the land back to the American Indians!!!
You never read Herodotus c. 450 BCE, so the term Palestinian is new to you.
I'll add the historian who wrote nearly 500 years before Christ never mentions Jews or Israel and while enumerating in somewhat tedious detail the deeds of the Persian kings, makes no reference to the events narrated in Esther, Ezra or Nehemiah.
Just because a thing hasn't entered you purview does not mean it does not exist, I'm sure you would agree given Herodotus's failure to note things that you "know" took place.
Both peoples were there--since biblical times, that is the OT. They are cousins to each other. Call it a family feud over inheritance.
I am sure you have heard the term ignorant! Just because you did not hear it does not mean it did not exit before you were born.
Yes! Good for you for actually talking about 1948. This process, of the West drawing boundaries for the rest of the world, has affected the cause of peace ever since. Not just Israel, the whole Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, India/Pakistan - all artificial realignments helped create a world always unstable, always in crisis. Is rael has got to give in on this, and the US has got to stop arming them. And don't hold your breath for this Obama guy.
Doctor Levy I agree with you that we don't have a clash of civilizations but a clash between civilized Muslims and Sixth Century Muslims. We all want the civilized, modern ones to win. But what if they don't win in a country like what's happening to the poor oppressed people in Iran right now. Similarly, the civilized Palestinians have not been able to win out over the 6th Century fanatics whose religious cause is to liberate a Palestine which includes Israel. Now flash forward to the establishment of a Palestinian State. Please look at your map. Sderot was rocketed and the people lived in terror but the casualties were low. But from the West Bank the rockets will hit Tel Aviv and casualties will be great. The Palestinian government will condemn the rockets but admit they can't stop them without causing a civil war. The world will condemn the attacks and ask Israel to show restraint--like in the First Iraq war--and hunker down in bunkers. But Israel will have to do what any government must do--protect its citizens. What will follow will make the Gaza operation look like a pin prick. A two-state solution with security for Israel? An oxymoron at this point. I supported two/state but learned from Gaza.
You claim that Israel is occupying Palestine for defensive purposes, but that doesnt explain why Israeli settlers are building residential settler neighbiorhoods on occupied Palestinian land.
If it were the case that the Israeli army are occupying these areas for defensive reasons, civilian settlers wouldnt be there. They wouldnt be building schools, roads and swimming pools. They wouldnt be seizing the land of Palestinian civilians, demolishing their homes and building houses for Israelis.
Why are there permanent residential Israeli settler neighborhoods on occupied land?
Its an illegal land grab by the settler movement. No more than that. Lets be more honest.
Once again, Mr. Levy, you have provided a cogent analysis of this difficult situation. I only hope that the end result that you predict will come to fruition.
I am less optimistic than you are on the likelihood of an actual two state solution implemented anytime soon, mostly because of the actors at hand over there.
But you are right that if there was anyone who could pull that off or simply get closer to it, that's Barack Obama.
What people here fail to understand is that expecting Obama to make a difference with Israel and Palestine is no different if not worse than the meddling and manipulating the US has been accused in the past. While the US's influence is significant, we hardly control the world. We can at best mediate a deal but hardly influence anything between Palestine and Israel. Like many governments, Israel's politicians are accountable to its voters, and if they even try and stop those illegal and conflict provoking settlements in the West Bank they will be thrown out of office and replaced by someone who will keep the settlements.
While many people here would like to believe that the US can change the world with a snap of its fingers, the reality is that the world is far more complex and intricate than Obama's supporters give it credit for.
Buttonz, where do you get your information?
Ehud Olmert, the previous prime minister, was elected by the Israeli people. What was the Kadima party platform at the time? Settlement dismantling. He was elected with the understanding that he would take down the settlements in the West Bank.
It was the rockets incessantly falling from Gaza that halted the settlement dismantling.
Wow, then I guess Ariel Sharon got /exactly/ what he wanted by handing Gaza over to Hamas. Just ask his Chief of Staff:
"The disengagement plan is the preservative of the sequence principle. It is the bottle of formaldehyde within which you place the president's formula so that it will be preserved for a very lengthy period. The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=485929
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
