Oybama

By Uri Avnery
Palestine Chronicle

"......At the beginning, Binyamin Netanyahu was worried about the new president. But the fear has dissipated, and now our government is treating Obama and his people with scorn bordering on contempt. The agreements made with the last administration are being broken quite openly. President George W. Bush recognized the “settlement blocs” in return for an undertaking to freeze all the others permanently and to dismantle the outposts set up since March 2001. Not only has not a single outpost been dismantled, but this week the government accorded the status of “preferred area” to dozens of settlements outside the “blocs”, including the worst Kahanist nests. From one of these, the thugs went out this week and set fire to a mosque.

The “freeze” is a joke. In this theater of the absurd, the settlers take part in a performance of violent opposition that is both invited and paid for by the government. The police does not employ against them pepper gas, tear gas, rubber bullets and truncheons – as they do every week against Israeli demonstrators who protest against the occupation. Nor do they conduct nightly incursions in the settlements to arrest activists – as they do now in Bilin and other Palestinian villages.

In Jerusalem, of course, the settlement activity is in full swing. Palestinian families are thrown out of their homes to the jubilant cries of the settlers, and the few Israeli protesters against the injustice are sent to hospitals and prisons. The settler groups engaged in these activities receive donations from the US that are tax-deductible – thus Obama is indirectly paying for the very acts he condemns.

For a happy hour on the seashore, under the gentle winter sun, I succeeded in pushing the depressing situation away. Before reaching home, a walk of 10 minutes, it came back and landed on me with its full weight. This is not a time for easy chairs. There is still a struggle ahead of us, and to win it we need to mobilize all our strength.

And Obama? Oybama."