Palestinians Hope Obama’s Words Mean Action
Daoud Kuttab writes that, for Palestinians, what matters is not just what was said, but more importantly what happens next.
The hashtag that was trending on Thursday afternoon said it all. ObamainIsrael was one of the top hashtags on Twitter most of the afternoon of March 21, especially during and after the speech made by President Barack Obama to a group of young Israelis.
There was no doubt about the goal of the visit: to smooth relations with Israel and to attempt to reconnect with the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the president fondly called by his nickname, Bibi.
This charm offensive could be seen in one of two ways: that Obama has surrendered to the pro-Israel lobby and came to mend relations with Israel its leadership and its people. He made all the right moves, visited the right places, said the right things and smiled every time the cameras captured him and his new friend Bibi together. Obama gave the Israelis a green light to attack Iran when it chooses, repeatedly said to them, "We have your back," and announced all kinds of goodies for years to come. He praised Israeli enterpenuership, high tech, medical research, patents, as well as brought back the biblical stories and reconnected the Christian-Judiac ethos. He adopted Netanyahu’s line that Palestinians must recognize not only Israel and its so-called right to exist, but that Palestinians have to recognize Israel’s Jewishness. Even when he was urging peace with Palestinians, he took Israel’s side at every juncture, blaming Palestinians for missing opportunities for peace, shooting rockets that deny Israeli children their sleep, and that Israel lives in a bad violent neigborhood (not that it forced itself on the region by brutal terror and violence).
The other scenario is that all of this lovefest was aimed at winning over Israel because the president understands that this is where all the heavy lifting will have to take place. Those who agree with this argument believe that he wants to soften the target before going in for the kill. To do that, he wants to remove all security excuses that get in the way of taking the hard decision of ending the occupation and allowing the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
