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We’ve Already Had Plenty Of Peace Plans…What We Need Is Hope!

Mr. Obama also set off some murmurs at his reception by talking about cynicism, which he alternately called the “biggest enemy” and “one of the enemies” of peace in the Middle East. “One of the enemies we have to fight — it’s not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also […]

Mr. Obama also set off some murmurs at his reception by talking about cynicism, which he alternately called the “biggest enemy” and “one of the enemies” of peace in the Middle East.

“One of the enemies we have to fight — it’s not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also cynicism,” Mr. Obama said. ~The New York Times

Whose cynicism?  Hizbullah’s?  Ours?  Olmert’s?  What is he talking about?  Is this the sort of thing he learned as an international relations major?  I didn’t realise that Columbia had a class on vacuous political rhetoric.

Pace Yglesias, Obama didn’t say anything favourable or sympathetic about the Palestinians by themselves in his actual AIPAC speech.  The remarks about Palestinian suffering, without any mention of Israelis, were in Iowa, while his actual AIPAC speech was as much of a party line speech on Israel as you could reasonably have expected him to give.  He does talk about getting out of Iraq, but otherwise he hits all the predictable notes, right down to the old “I took a trip and saw just how small Israel really is,” as if you could not have learned this by consulting a map.  Every politician who goes on that guided tour comes back with this same “revelation,” as if they had never given it any thought until that time. 

So, if taking on AIPAC in their house is what progressives wanted Obama to do, he failed miserably.  Indeed, if one looks at the transcript, the main references to Palestinians he makes are in the context of the general bromides about the two-state solution or explicit criticism of the recent Mecca agreement.  He did say something supportive of Abbas, which I suppose requires a certain amount of political courage at that venue, but it isn’t much.  As I noted before, the great would-be transformer of the nation doesn’t seem to have any interest in challenging the status quo in most areas of foreign policy.

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