Obama's Israel - Palestine Policy

How is it possible that none of us have really noticed Obama's policies on the Middle East? I myself only realized two days ago that there is a dark, blurry void--a silence. On one issue and one issue only Obama is vocal: settlements. Headlines in Israel's Haaretz, the BBC's Middle East edition, Al Jazeera English--they all repeat Obama's firm demands that Israel halt settlement construction. They also report Israel's unwillingness, Palestine's frustration, and, now, Obama's likely lenience on the issue. And while we are all so busy watching this re-run, we fail to notice how this is the ONLY thing Obama has even articulated a position on. While we are so busy praising Obama and then qualifying how, well, at least he's better than Bush if not actually praise-worthy in terms of Middle East policy (cough, everything? but you could only really get better after Bush), we have utterly failed to realize that our critique is empty because his policy is absent. I've been researching Obama's position on Israel and Palestine and this is what I've found:

On Settlements: (Taken from "From Obama's Prizes For Israel Are Not 'Pressure'" By Ali Abunimah on 16 July 2009 in The Electronic Intifada)

"For months the focus has been on Obama's demand that Israel agree to a complete cessation of settlement construction, including the subterfuge called "natural growth." It was during a similar "freeze" in the early 1990s that Israel built thousands of settler housing units on occupied land. Arab optimism and Israeli anxiety were amplified as Obama and his Middle East Envoy George Mitchell said repeatedly that this time they wanted a total halt.

"Yet the firmness shows signs of erosion. Israeli press reports spoke of a "compromise" taking shape in which Israel would be allowed to complete thousands of already planned housing units. Although those reports were denied by the United States, several participants in the White House meeting said Obama alluded to an unspecified compromise in the works.

"Anything short of a complete cessation of settlement construction will mark an achievement for Israel; what is important is not the number of units the United States may approve, but the principle that this administration, like its predecessors, will license Israel's illegal colonization. Once that principle is established, Israel may present more faits accomplis and build at will.
And even if Israel does agree to a verifiable cessation, the US has structured the matter as a quid pro quo in which Israel is not required to do anything without receiving a reward. The president has appealed to Arab states to normalize ties with Israel if it freezes settlements, including opening diplomatic missions and allowing overflights by El Al aircraft (recall that when en route to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes reportedly falsely identified themselves as commercial aviation)."


On Jerusalem: "The city is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths."
[According to Obama:] "any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state" and Jerusalem "must remain undividied" (AIPAC speech as democratic candidate). The next day, June 5, 2008, in a CNN interview Obama elaborated: "obviously, it's going to be up to he parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those genotiations...As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute [a division of the city]. And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access tot eh extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city." (Taken from Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2 (Winter 2009))

On the Wall: The wall is not YET an issue Obama has taken up. The focus is first on settlement activity, and also to a far lesser degree on Jerusalem. There is a void on the construction of a violent structure that is devastating people economically and certainly politically--both now and in terms of any possible future.

And finally, on the Right of Return: dozens of Israeli sources report Obama's complete rejection of the Palestinian right of return. Rather he emphatically supports Israel as a Jewish state and believes in a second, neighboring Palestinian state--thus, those millions of Palestinian refugees whom the UN has repeatedly asserted have a legal right to return to their homes and lands from which they were dispossessed are denied by Obama--champion of change--in support of a racist, exclusive state which relies on apartheid and a violent occupation to enforce its settler colonial existence.