Press Conference of the Peas - on Storify

Obama's press conference on the debt ceiling - marked by great metaphors about Band-Aids and eating peas. Will it do the trick?
As we wait to find out, read the Twitter comments of those watching the conference live - on Storify.

Click here to go to the Storify narrative.

Obama's 'Arab Spring' Speech, Storified

I have discovered Storify, the website where you can piece together tweets and other multimedia to tell a "story," in this case, all the liveblogging of Obama's speech. I only captured a small bit of it, but here is my effort so far:
Obama's Mideast Speech on Storify
Here is one by the Washington Post as well. Very professionally done but without much of the color commentary that makes this sort of thing interesting.
Enjoy!

Unfulfilled Promises and Arab Expectations; Or, the Obama Administration's Other Credibility Problem

A recent Huffington Post article by James Zogby makes note that Arabs are a pretty jaded bunch. They are used to the fact that American politicians promise much and deliver little, and are therefore relatively pessimistic about any American-led progress on the Arab-Israeli peace front. Particularly where Israel is concerned, Arabs have little reason to believe that America will change direction any time soon.

When President Obama promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, however, Arabs took him seriously. More than one year later, however, they are still waiting. And their jaded attitude has returned. As Zogby comments, "credit must still be given to the President's good intentions, but it is now clear that it will take more than a year to undo the damage of the last eight."

Closing GITMO may indeed be complicated by issues of jeopardizing classified information or risking the release of dangerous individuals whose conviction cannot be secured on the basis of evidence obtained though torture. However, even if we put aside issues of justice, we would do good to think of an important question: for every individual NOT released from GITMO, how many actual NEW dangerous individuals do we create and encourage to join or assist dangerous organizations? Although this question is ultimately unanswerable, the thought exercise may help us to determine a major cost of violating the principles upon which our country was founded.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Deficit Reduction and National Priorities

Something is very, very wrong here. Why are we getting a spending freeze, now, when unemployment is at 10%? When home foreclosures are still taking place at a record rate?

What about Econ 101: government spending creates jobs in a slow economy, slashing spending eliminates jobs? Hmmm.

A few days ago, Obama endorsed the creation of a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel with "fast-track" authority to create legislation that can only receive a yes/no vote in both houses of Congress, therefore avoiding tricky amendments and reconciliation.  Much like the BRAC panel that recommended unpopular military base closures in 1989-95 and 2005, only such a bipartisan panel can administer the bitter medicine of spending cuts and tax hikes. It's such a good idea that it has been recommended by the Economist magazine, among others, as a way for the US to chart a course out of the deep deficit hole it has dug itself into. (See my earlier post on this issue.)

Indeed we have dug ourselves into a pretty deep hole. This year's budget deficit is projected to be $1.35 trillion, one of the highest since WW II. Even under relatively optimistic assumptions, the CBO projects that
interest payments on the debt will more than triple over the next
decade, rising from $207 billion this year to $723 billion in 2020.

But should we start slashing the budget now?

It seems like what is needed is a careful plan, a road map, so to speak, that charts a course out of the economic abyss of unemployment and low growth, and, once there, sets a course to fiscal responsibility. If we rein in spending too quickly, we risk undermining the economic recovery now in its early stages. But if we go back to business as usual, after the recovery has worked its magic, it is possible that global confidence in the American economy (and the dollar, especially) will quickly erode. With the CBO projecting the national debt to be somewhere between 67 and 100% of the overall economy by 2020, something will need to be done. The world will need to see our plan, and need to see that we are serious, in order to restore confidence in the future of our national economy.

Since spending money gets politicians re-elected, deficit budgets are common in good economic times. But we need to stop this practice (hence the bipartisan panel) and focus on what is important. That is why I recommend - crazy as it sounds, particularly right now - a discussion of national priorities. When we get out of this economic disaster we are in, there will need to be some belt-tightening. But does this mean that the poor need to suffer more? That more people need to go without health insurance? Should we continue to belch greenhouse gasses into the air? Should we let down our guard against terrorism? What do we want: guns or butter?

It seems like Americans are more polarized than ever. But we are going to have to communicate to our politicians clearly and effectively from now on what we want them to spend our hard-earned tax dollars on. Talking to each other first and deciding what our priorities are can really help streamline what will be a difficult process.

Obama: Software Flaws Let Christmas Bomber Get Through

We are being told that institutional failure or human failure (i.e. "someone needs to pay") is responsible for the inability to connect the dots between intelligence fragments, and therefore a dangerous person with explosives being allowed to board Northwest Airlines flight 253. But according to Danger Room blog, it is really a simple matter of crappy software:

Obama: Software Flaws Let Christmas Bomber Get Through: "
Crappy government software — and failure to use that software right — almost got 289 people killed in the botched Christmas day bombing.

“Information sharing does not appear to have contributed to this intelligence failure; relevant all-sources analysts as well as watchlisting personnel who needed this information were not preventing from accessing it,” the White House noted in its review of the incident. The problem was in the databases, and in the data-mining software. “Information technology within the CT [counterterrorism] community did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enable analysts to highlight the relevant threat information.”

You bet it didn’t. Government search tools weren’t even flexible enough to handle simple misspellings. As the White House review notes:

A misspelling of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name initially resulted in the State Department believing he did not have a valid U.S. visa. A determination to revoke his visa however would have only occurred if there had been a successful integration of intelligence by the CT [counterterrorism] community, resulting in his being watchlisted.

This is a problem that commercial software firms largely solved years ago. (Try typing “Noa Schactmann” into Google, and see what comes up.) How it could persist in the CT community, I just don’t understand.

In a memo to his agency chiefs, President Obama ordered the Director of National Intelligence to “accelerate information technology enhancement, to include knowledge discovery, database integration, cross-database search, and the ability to correlate biographic information with terrorism-related intelligence.”

All of which will be helpful. But analysts have to actually use the tools. That didn’t happen in the Christmas attack. “NCTC and CIA personnel who are responsible for watchlisting did not search all available databases,” the White House noted.

The Department of Homeland Security did run Northwest Airlines flight 253’s passenger manifest against terrorism databases. But only after the flight took off. Ugh.

[Photo: U.S. Marshalls]"


Is there some reason we can't get this right??? Do we need to point our fingers in the wrong direction in order to score political points? Let's fix this problem and get it right this time.

To the Arab World, Obama's Nobel Leaves something to be desired

To the Arab world, Obama's Nobel leaves something to be desired

The president appears to be following a well-worn and feckless American diplomatic path that discounts the Palestinian point of view.

By Scott MacLeod

4:43 PM PST, December 9, 2009

Writing From Cairo

The Nobel Peace Prize that President Obama receives in Oslo on Thursday seems to many in the Middle East like a cruel hoax.

In June, Egyptians cheered him for pledging an intense personal effort to resolve the region's problems through negotiations rather than force, and his outreach to the Muslim world was surely on the mind of the Nobel committee when it made the award. In the last three months, however, the Obama administration has steadily undone the president's initial positive moves by seriously mishandling one of the Middle East's central issues: the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Simply put, the administration has severely and perhaps fatally undermined Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. By all accounts, the Palestinian Authority -- and its moderate leader, an architect of the 1993 Oslo accord -- is essential to a negotiated outcome of the long conflict. It is true that Abbas works in the shadow of his late predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and he has been unable to reverse the gains made by the rival Palestinian group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. But the administration hasn't helped: Obama's aides dragged Abbas like a stooge to a hollow summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then leaned on him to downplay a U.N. report that cited possible Israeli war crimes during the Gaza war. Worst of all, Obama backed away from supporting a key Palestinian Authority position: an insistence on a total freeze of Jewish settlements. Soon, the humiliated Abbas announced that he would not seek another term in office. Ploy or not, the threat reflects the further decline of Abbas' domestic credibility.

The episode also illustrates the pervasive lack of empathy that blinds U.S. policymakers to the history, culture and politics that drive Arab attitudes and decisions. Obama's mishandling of Abbas fits a familiar pattern in which Palestinian leaders and Palestinian rights are reflexively downplayed or disregarded in American calculations.

Looking back, President George H. W. Bush commendably convened the Madrid peace conference in 1991. But he excluded Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization, then a 27-year-old organization and a central party to the conflict. Predictably, the Madrid talks faltered. The irony was that before long, the Clinton administration would embrace Arafat once Israeli leaders determined he was, in fact, a worthy peace partner.

In signing the Oslo accord, Arafat made a significant concession that infuriated many Palestinians. He surrendered Palestinian claims to 78% of the territory that had become the state of Israel in 1948. President Clinton then further undercut Arafat's political standing among his people, as well as his faith in negotiations, by failing to hold Israel accountable for violations of the Oslo accord. Indeed, the Clinton administration failed to adequately hold either side accountable.

Reduced to crisis management, Clinton disastrously misjudged Arafat when he convened the Camp David summit in 2000, hoping to broker a historic end-of-conflict agreement. Arafat told Clinton that that ambition was premature because negotiators had still scarcely begun to grapple with the hardest issues of the dispute. Clinton sided with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who had proposed the summit largely as a dramatic gambit to keep his fraying coalition government together. Finally, Clinton blamed Arafat rather than himself or Barak for the summit's failure. Palestinians responded by launching a bloody intifada.

Palestinians are hardly blameless. Barbarous acts of terrorism have shaped and reinforced America's largely negative understanding of the Palestinian cause. Yet there is scant effort in the United States to examine the traumatic history that makes Palestinian peacemakers wary of Israeli intentions, frustrated by America's blanket support for Israel and vulnerable to Arab cries of treason.

The empathy deficit has contributed to a flawed policy framework in which Palestinian interests and demands are automatically questioned or marginalized. The U.S. failed to publicly support the Palestinian demand for statehood until 2002 -- 54 years after Israel's independence. U.S. officials still resist Palestinian demands for a full end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. U.S. officials have been equally dismissive of Palestinian positions on other profound issues, such as the right of return for refugees to former homes in Israel. Compromises must and can be found on such issues, but U.S. officials have utterly failed to develop or engineer them.

A devastating critique of U.S. Mideast policy by the U.S. Institute of Peace in 2008 cited "an alarming pattern of mismanaged diplomacy." Coauthored by Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel and now a Princeton professor, the report criticized the lack of "cross-cultural expertise"-- a good understanding of the Arabs, in other words. "In truth," recalled former State Department official Aaron David Miller, in his book, "The Much Too Promised Land," "not a single senior-level official involved with the negotiations was willing or able to present, let alone fight for, the Arab or Palestinian perspective."

It ought to be a scandal that 18 years after the Madrid peace conference, the U.S. has nothing to show for its diplomacy. The festering dispute continues to take human life, radicalize the Muslim world, undermine regional development and threaten a wider and potentially apocalyptic conflict. When Arafat died in 2004, the George W. Bush administration hailed his successor, Abbas, as a more peaceful and compliant Palestinian leader. Yet, displaying half-heartedness toward peace negotiations while tolerating Israel's separation "wall" and the spread of its illegal settlements, it didn't get any further with him than it (or the Clinton administration) had with Arafat.

To effectively encourage the parties to reach a fair and just agreement acceptable to a majority of Israelis and Palestinians, Obama needs to show leadership and become an honest broker. That must include an effort to finally understand the world as Palestinians experience it. Dismissing Palestinian rights -- and taking Palestinian peace partners such as Abbas for granted -- is a certain path to further failure. The Middle East is expecting more from the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Scott MacLeod has covered the Mideast for Time magazine since 1995.

Obama's Peace Gamble

Kudos to President Obama for a well-spoken Nobel acceptance speech in Norway today. It was thoughtful, even cerebral, showing his past as a professor, community organizer, and multi-dimensional thinker. It was interesting to see him wrestle out loud with serious issues such as the morality of war and the possibility of peace. He seemed to struggle with the contradiction between war's necessity, in certain situations, and its inevitable tragic outcomes. That war brings out the best, most brave and selfless moments in a person does not mean that it is a tool to be grasped easily. It also destroys sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers. He spoke of his awareness that he accepts a peace prize as he orders 30,000 more troops to kill and be killed. One can only hope this awareness can lead to a speedy order for our troops to return home.

He also spoke of his prohibition of torture and America's reaffirmed commitment to "remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war." This, he argues, is what makes us different from those we fight, and we lose our identity as freedom-bearers when we compromise the ideals we say we defend. I completely agree, which is why our detention and justice policies must come completely in line with international justice standards and his own idealistic words. The Red Cross is still barred from meeting with detainees at some detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan where high-value detainees are kept, as I outlined in a previous post. This is not consistent with America's role as a "standard bearer in the conduct of war." Neither is the use of illegal military tribunals to try terrorism detainees. Although Obama should be commended for his decision to transfer Khaled Sheikh Mohammed to the (regular) criminal justice system in New York and for taking a lot of heat for that decision, there remains many more detainees who are slated to be tried through the military system. The morality and legality of this decision has been debated elsewhere (see Andrew Napolitano's thought-provoking op-ed on the issue here), but suffice it to say that it is also hardly in line with an image as a beacon of democracy and freedom.

So while the words were eloquent and engaging, Obama must commit to live up to the words that he spoke.

(image: NYTimes)

More "Bush Lite" Under Obama

According to today's NY Times, the Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terror suspects abroad for interrogation but will monitor to insure they are not tortured, officials said. The article, Rendition of Terror Suspects Will Continue Under Obama, stresses the modifications intended to protect detainees:

"Unlike the Bush administration, they would give the State Department a larger role in assuring that transferred detainees would not be abused.

'The emphasis will be on insuring that individuals will not face torture if they are sent over overseas,' said one administration official, adding that no detainees will be sent to countries that are known to conduct abusive interrogations."

Thus continues Obama's practice of continuing the distasteful and counterproductive security policies from the Bush era, repackaged for a "kinder and gentler" appearance. Other examples: continuing indefinite detention of detainees, military tribunals, and warrantless domestic wiretapping.

We all understood Obama had a pragmatic streak, but I have yet to see the benefit from these policies. There is a definite difference between pragmatism and recklessness. The Obama Letdown has begun in earnest!

Where is our Leader?

Just like I thought... small rumbles of discontent among Obama supporters and progressives in general about what appears to be a glaring lack of leadership. (See for example Paul Krugman's recent article and Clive Crook's Financial Times Op-Ed.) Didn't we have high hopes for this guy, a new sort of politician, wildly popular? Wasn't he going to save the country from economic ruin at our time of peril? Although I was not among the euphoric throngs last November, I did hold up hopes that Obama would be able to really change something for the better, after eight years of disastrous policies. The economic and housing crisis showed us that reform was desperately needed, particularly once huge financial institutions began going bankrupt and disappearing from the scene, taking our 401Ks with them. Although things were (and still are) in a huge mess, I wondered if Obama could take this opportunity presented to him to not only bring us out of the crisis but also making much-needed reforms to the system, to strengthen it against future crises.

At the same time, I was only too aware that he is a savvy politician, like all the others, and a newbie to boot. That's why I didn't rush out and immediately proclaim Obama our Savior. He may be The One, at least to many, but it isn't too hard for a jaded, grizzled, political scientist like me to see the signs of carefully constructed image-making in progress.

The history of the Obama Administration has been admittedly short, but so far, it has been a history of wasted opportunities. Obama seems to have a very ambitious agenda - stimulus, financial regulatory reform, health care reform, climate change - all of which are important, but important to do well. But what we are getting are truly half-assed attempts to do a lot, and not getting any of it right. What good is a stimulus plan that doesn't spend enough to put a dent in unemployment, but spends enough to pile on to the national debt and create international worries about the strength of the dollar and the worth of US treasury bonds? Does it help us to pass a bill "reforming" health care that leaves unsolved most of the problems that currently plague our health care system? (see yesterday's NY Times for an excellent article about widespread bankruptcies among the insured!)

Of course, compromises are necessary in politics, and no policy emerges from the policy process perfect. But it seems that a leader as talented and popular as Obama, coming at a time when people look to him for answers, could use the enormous political capital he inherited to stand up for a select few crucial reform packages. He has the bully pulpit, and he has phenomenal communication skills at his disposal. He should use them to explain to the American public, and to Congress, what needs to be done, and why. He can stand up for a few principles, not just the idea of getting a bill passed. Sub-contracting the bill-writing process to Congress may be a great way to get Congress on board, but it's a terrible way to construct a coherent policy. A bad bill doesn't solve problems.

In fact, some of the solutions may not be cheap - or at least they could require an eventual tax increase, depending on the particular path chosen. Obama may need to defend some unpopular solutions - a good idea if they will work - so that he can bang enough heads together to get a bill passed that will actually solve some tough problems we are facing. We need to stop medically-induced bankruptcies, the shrinking of our retirement funds, and the unsustainable and unbalanced consumption of resources leading to dangerous climate change.

So, I am asking Obama to do a tough job, but so far it looks like he is not up to the task.

(image: Financial Times)

Obama's Dilemma

The Iranian election imbroglio has been posing a political and moral dilemma to President Obama since the results were released on Friday. There is mounting pressure on him to support the Iranian opposition, despite the fact that it would be wildly reckless and run contrary to a half century of Iranian political history.

On the issue of the veracity of the elections, it is often overlooked that President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad does have a significant base of support among Iran's poor, the religious, and in rural areas. Just because we don't like him doesn't mean Iranians don't like him. Challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi has strong support in many middle- and upper-class neighborhoods of Tehran, where many foreign press organizations operated, but it is not clear if his support was as strong elsewhere. Nevertheless, a number of now widely-reported irregularities in the elections have given many Iranians the impression that the outcome was predetermined - their votes were never counted. This impression is not to be discounted. While elected bodies in Iran may not be the most powerful, elections are nonetheless meaningful, particularly when candidates from various political stripes are allowed to contest. Many Iranians are therefore insulted at the possibility that their votes were simply cast aside. And this possibility appears to be very real, though not a proven fact.

So far, Obama has been cautious in his approach to the elections, saying only that he was "concerned" and urging Iran to respect the standards of democracy. Iran, for its part, accused the United States of "intolerable meddling" in its internal affairs. Since 1979 and before, Iran has been highly suspicious and hyper-sensitive about American interference in domestic affairs. Not that it isn't justified; in 1953, CIA covert operations were responsible for overthrowing an elected, nationalist government and (re)installing the soon-to-be-detested Shah who would later be known as one of the world's most repressive dictators. He would be overthrown in 1979 and replaced by the current form of government.

The pressure for Obama to support the protesters is understandable. The United States believes itself to be a beacon of democracy, whatever its shortcomings. We like to stand up for the values that we believe in, and it seems wrong - in a way - to allow thousands of others to put their lives on the line for the right to choose their leaders without the (self-proclaimed) global leader of democracy voicing its support, at the very least. But it is also clear that American support for the opposition can be the kiss of death. Literally. The leadership has announced that it will begin executing foreign agents and agitators, and those receiving support from abroad. It would be a very, very bad idea to give them an excuse to bring out the firing squads. Obama himself has argued against giving the Iranian regime the impression that the protests are American-led. Although the United States is concerned about the violence, he has said, it is an internal issue for the Iranians to work out. At the risk of sounding cold-hearted, the Iranians don't want our "support." It will simply be counterproductive. In this case, the best help is no help at all.

Four Problems any Health Care Plan MU...

I'm not sure why, but Obama seems to have the wrong approach to health care reform. This is an important issue but he seems to be allowing others to dictate the course reform will take. He is allowing Congress to write the bill, and taking a back seat in the drafting. He is trying to avoid the problems Hillary Clinton encountered in 1996 when she plopped a complete, complicated bill on the lap of Congress, seemingly with a "take it or leave it" attitude. Of course, Congress doesn't appreciate this, which was one of the many reasons why Clinton's health care reform failed.

Obama, on the other hand, has a very Congress-centered outlook and staff. He knows the importance of Congress in legislative victories and the influences Congress works under. But here, in health care reform, is he taking too much of a hands-off approach?

As of yet, I have not heard Obama articulate the goal(s) he is hoping to achieve with health care reform, other than achieving reform itself. This will leave him dangerously open to buffeting by the political winds as he attempts to get a bill passed. What could emerge may not end up helping solve the many health care problems facing Americans today but instead could be a patchwork of compromises and special interest payoffs that do little to improve the situation.

What he needs to do is to outline the goals he wants to accomplish, specifically, what problems health care reform needs to solve in order to get his final signature. That will keep the process goal oriented and problem-solving, regardless of the specific methods used to solve the problem. Thus, rather than arguing over single-payer or private insurance, mandates or no mandates, a government option or not, just ask if it solves the problems that need to be solved.

Four very important health care problems facing Americans include:


1. Bankruptcies Between 50 - 60 percent of personal bankruptcies in America occur - in part or entirely - as a result of medical emergencies. Many of these bankruptcies occur despite the fact that the patient had health insurance. High deductibles, maximum payout limits, and refusal to cover certain conditions, procedures, or tests leads to catastrophic levels of medical bills accumulating in a short time in many life-threatening situations. Medicaid will not pay until all assets are depleted, including the family home. Many believe they are covered and well-prepared for medical emergencies, only to find that their insurance fails them when they need it the most.

2. Preexisting Conditions Having a pre-existing condition can make it extremely difficult to find medical coverage. Asthma or ADD may be problematic, to say nothing of diabetes or HIV/AIDS. If coverage is not offered through one's work and particularly if there has been a gap in coverage of a few months or more, it can be nearly impossible to find affordable coverage.

3. Portability Related to the above is the problem of portability. Having to relocate means finding new medical insurance, forcing a confrontation over pre-existing conditions or other issues that make medical coverage hard to find.

4. Market Failures Of course, there are many issues related to market failures. The many actors in the field of medicine are trying to make a profit, not heal the world. So medicines are made that are expected to turn a profit for the pharmaceutical company that develops it (Viagra, Claritin) rather than affordable, life-saving AIDS or malaria drugs for developing countries. Private hospitals specialize in expensive, (often elective) procedures, relegating the less profitable procedures to the public hospitals. When private hospitals are held up as a model of efficiency and profitability, we must keep in mind that they are not always serving the needs of everyone.

If private insurance, hospitals and other programs can fix these problems, that's great. But I am not wedded to the so-called "efficiency" of private enterprise, when it comes to medical and health issues. These companies are good at maximizing the bottom line, yes, but not at maximizing the health of their patrons. That is not what they are meant to do. And while government options are notoriously bureaucratic, our private insurance is already overrun with paperwork and hurdles that must be jumped in order to receive benefits. Could public health options be much worse? However, no matter what solution the politicians arrive at - public or private - if it fixes the problems currently plaguing our system and costing lives and income we will be better off.

Obama's Mideast Move

President Obama's speech to the Muslim world given from Cairo last Thursday struck all the right notes. By sympathizing with the Palestinians and calling for a settlement freeze, he suggests a more balanced approach than recent American administrations. But he also denounced anti-Semitism in the Mideast and sympathized with the plight of the Jews after the Holocaust. He underscored America's strong friendship with Israel and its permanence. So Obama plans to keep Israel but with some much needed "tough love" and truth telling.
The extremes on all sides were not satisfied with the speech, of course. And all are waiting to see if the nice words will be translated into action. All sides want peace, but on their own terms. With a right-wing Israeli government in power and the Palestinians severely divided, achieving any progress on the peace front will be extremely difficult.
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Update: Obama's Choice for Intelligence Post Withdraws

Obama's choice for chair of the National Intelligence Council withdrew today, raising questions about the Obama Administration's ability to stand up to what is called the “Israel Lobby.” Chas Freeman, a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former Defense Department official under Reagan, and President of the Middle East Policy Council, was well regarded in intelligence and military circles. But he reputedly was insufficiently friendly to Israel and was guilty of making remarks that were regarded as critical of our ally and supportive of Palestinians and ending the occupation.

The National Intelligence Council is given the task of producing National Intelligence Estimates, the consensus estimates of the 16 US intelligence agencies. It was a hastily-produced NIE in 2002 that convinced Congress and many others that Iraq had WMD, especially nuclear weapons (or was close to producing them). Freeman's straight talking style reassured many, including Dan Froomkin, that an intelligence debacle like the one that occurred in 2002 and 2003 would not occur again. He has been described as a gadfly, speaking truth to power, and a “one man destroyer of groupthink,” exactly the kind of person you would want in this sort of position.

This brings up the question of how close to Israel should the United States be? Isn't a little tough love between friends warranted every now and then? Friends of Israel seem not to think so. It appears that both barrels were unleashed against Freeman, starting with rumors in the blogosphere, and growing into accusations that he was on the payroll of Saudi Arabia and had coddled China. It appears to have been too much for the new Obama Administration, prompting a sharply-worded statement by Freeman that accuses the Lobby of derailing his candidacy in order to obtain "control of the policy process."

Although I didn't have high hopes of a revolution coming from the Obama Administration in the realm of Middle East policy, I had hoped for sparks of change. This development sows the seeds of doubt that those sparks will ever light up.

Obama and Israel: A Match Made in Heaven???

Why not start out my new blog with a controversial topic...


Pundits have spun controversy over the topic of Obama's relationship with the state of Israel. How close could he possibly be to Israel if he has a (gasp) Palestinian friend - Rashid Khalidi? The campain rumors abounded about his potential leanings - in favor of Palestinians, quite unheard of among the heavy-hitters of either party. To win the presidency, they said, he would have to win over friends of Israel. And that he did, quite handily, speaking at last summer's AIPAC conference, the grandest of all granddaddys of pro-Israel gatherings. He put to rest many doubts about his closeness to Israel with his "friend of Israel" pronouncements and pro-Israel campaign staffers.

Now that he is safely in office, his administration is staffed with reliable friends of Israel, such as the notable Hillary Clinton, former senator from New York. The occasional outliers are roundly criticized for their opinions, but are certainly not extremists by any stretch of the imagination. The conventional wisdom around Washington seems to be that Obama's administration will continue to be a close friend of Israel, since no one can undo that, but that there may be a bit more pressure on Israel to be more flexible in its peace relations.

One interesting example came out of Hillary Clinton's recent trip to the Middle East. She was quoted as saying very delicately that demolition of Arab homes in East Jerusalem "do not help the peace process" and violate the spirit of the road map. This came after US officials lodged four official complaints with Israel over its settlement and home demolition activities, especially in East Jeruslalem, which is considered occupied territory in the international community but was annexed by Israel after its capture in 1967.

It seems that not only is the American administration turning up the heat, but so are the Israelis - on the ground. According to a Peace Now Settlement Watch report, the government of Israel is planning to build 73,000 or more new housing units in the West Bank. Some almost nine thousand have already been built. If true, this would double the size of a number of settlements, such as two largest Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumi. Such a move would jeopardize the possibility of creating a Palestinian state on that land, thereby undermining decades of American and international diplomacy.

Of course, complicating matters is the recent election of what will likely turn out to be a right-wing government in February's general elections. Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu will be the likely Prime Minister, who supports continued settlement building in East Jerusalem and West Bank, territories occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He is currently trying to put together a cabinet and coalition that is likely to include ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister. Lieberman campaigned on the issue of requiring a loyalty oath for Israel's 1.5 million Arab citizens and once suggested Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could "go to hell" because he will not visit Israel.


So, my crystal ball says to watch for a few hints of a tougher stance towards Israel. However, don't hold your breath waiting for a revolution.