There were a lot of upset people recently when the number two man in the radical Islamic and terrorist group Al Qaeda accused President-elect Barack Obama of being a ‘house Negro‘ for supporting the extremely pro-Israel U.S. policy in the Middle East. By borrowing a phrase made popular by 1960s militant Malcolm X, Ayman al-Zawahiri was essentially accusing Obama of being a Black man who carries out the will of the white man.
Al-Zawahiri obviously does not have a clear understanding of U.S. history. Nevertheless, his verbal blast against Obama does bring to light a key point: For roughly 40 years, various Washington administrations have supposedly been trying to bring peace to the Middle East and we are no closer to peace today than we were 40 years ago.
Why?
First of all, U.S. ‘peace‘ efforts have been so one-sidedly pro-Israel that the vast majority of Palestinians and Arabs find them insulting and degrading. The U.S. has never been an honest peace broker in the Middle East. Instead, it has basically pursued policies primarily aimed at ensuring Israeli military dominance in the region.
Secondly, U.S. policy has always attempted to elevate a secondary problem to primary status and thus avoid addressing the fundamental issue causing instability and violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Essentially, Israel and the U.S. (aided by a pro-Israel American media) have successfully but falsely portrayed the fundamental problem in the Middle East as terrorism â?? Palestinian violence against Israel.
But this is not true. The fundamental source of instability in the Middle East is Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian lands. Not only does Israel occupy the lands of Palestinians, it brazenly places Jewish settlements on the land. It is when the Palestinians continually see their homes destroyed and they lands occupied that they turn to acts of violence which we label terrorism.
If Barack Obama truly wants to bring peace to the Middle East, he must not only stop Israel from putting Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, he must actually get them to give up most of the lands they have already taken. This will be a monumental task. Further, while talking about change in other aspects of American policy, Obama has fundamentally endorsed the failed Middle East policy of the last 40 years.
However, if he does not undertake the task of true change, he will indeed be doing little more than carrying out the will of the neo-conservative white men who have dominated U.S. Middle East policy for the last 40 years. It is a policy which is fundamentally unjust, unfair, racist and cannot possibly lead to peace.
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