Ending Bush Doctrine of Might over Morals Daunting Task for Obama

by Philip Fernando in Los Angeles for Lanka Guardian

(January 07, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Palestinian enclave, Gaza is now facing destruction. Some called it the worse days since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. Over 500 were killed and thousands wounded, as the Israeli Air Force made hundreds of strikes. Israel maintains that Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, and therefore, it must expect retaliation. The question not answered is should the justification for retaliation even if conceded, be permitted to be so savage. Rockets that caused no severe loss of life are equated with untold and savaged destruction of life and property by Israel. Reversing the Bush policy of inaction is a daunting task President-Elect Barack Obama faces.

With Likud's hawkish "Bibi" Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor's candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas. This is the very same logic that George W Bush used during his re-election campaign of 2004 against John Kerry who was described a weakling on defense. Might take precedence over Morals, was proclaimed unashamedly.

Many believe that Kadima Party candidate and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has an even greater need than the famously decorated Barak to show toughness. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, departing in scandal, wants to exit in a blaze of glory, to blot out the memory of a botched war against Hezbollah that he launched in the summer of 2006. No one seems to be bothered that while Israel's politicians all seem to have a stake in these devastating strikes, Israel herself will pay the price. International condemnation of Israel is almost universal barring a few states, notably USA. Israel authority seems deafened by the need to retaliate.

The casualty toll is over 300 dead and 1,300 wounded as of this writing. There would be no justification for such a one-sided retribution imparted on a small community like Gaza. Hamas will have to exact its pound of flesh. Attempts at a cease fire falls on deaf years. Hamas would be justified in shouting into silence the wing working with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on a new ceasefire.

Many believe that the moderate Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, who has been talking to Israel, testifying to her good faith, has been made to appear the puppet and fool. Everything points to an escalation of violence. A new intifada spreading to the West Bank, with attacks inside Israel, is now possible.

Moderate Arabs, who have recognized Israel or backed peace, will now be seen as appeasers impotent to stop the public suffering of the Palestinian people. George Bush who failed miserably to bring about a semblance of progress in the Middle East now looks dumb-founded and brazenly inept. His hopes of midwifing a peace that would create a Palestinian state, they are as dead as the Annapolis process he set in train. In advancing peace in the Middle East, Bush's eight-year record is now a total failure.

For four years, Bush refused to talk to Yasir Arafat, though Bill Clinton had negotiated with him, as had four Israeli prime ministers, two of who shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. In his second term, Bush, after insisting Hamas be included in free elections in Palestine, refused to recognize Hamas when it won those elections. Bush boasted that he was bringing democracy to the world but did not want to recognize Hamas after they won the elections. Bush was on a roll thinking that he was the messenger of peace. He de-listed Libya as a state sponsor of terror and sent Condi Rice to chat up Col. Gadhafi, forgiving the plane attack that killed people from the Lockerbie massacre of 1989 that Libya and Gadhafi were accused of.

According to an analyst, for eight years, like the "dummy" in a hand of bridge, Bush has sat mute as his Israeli partner, Sharon or Olmert, played America's cards as well as their own. Bush’s simplistic response to the Gaza carnage, as anticipated, was to blame Hamas for causing it and urge Israelis to be careful about civilian casualties as they go about their reprisals. A call that was ignored no sooner it was made.

And Barack Obama? He is facing a dilemma Forty-eight hours after the Israeli blitz began; he and his national security team remain silent. Two weeks from now he will have to bring with him a new Mideast policy, one based on fairness. He has to recognize that Israel has its private links to Syria through Turkey, to Hamas through Egypt and to Hezbollah, and not be like Bush who ignored all that and acted with incompetence. Obama has to establish independent channels to all three, and adopt a separate U.S. policy toward all three, as Israel does. He has to denounce the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, by Israel's cutting off their electricity in the dead of winter and denying them the food and medicine many need to survive. There is no room to be silent in the face of this atrocity. Israel’s policy of withholding from the weak and innocent of Gaza, women and children, the necessities of life, to punish the guilty who rule at the point of a gun, is a policy that Obama must repudiate. - Sri Lanka Guardian