If independent, democratic, governments are formed in the Middle East, they won't follow Washington's orders.
AN EXCELLENT COMMENT
AN EXCELLENT COMMENT
Lamis Andoni
Al-Jazeera
"Barack Obama, the US president, has still not fully grasped the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world. He genuinely seems to believe that the people rallying for democracy in the region are making a pro-Western, if not pro-Israeli, statement.....
But to say that these forces could be natural allies of Israel and the West is to take a huge leap into a highly inaccurate assessment of the situation. The US president is misreading the message of the protesting Arab masses.
Rewriting history
From Tunisia to Egypt to Bahrain, and in many places in between, protesters have been calling for free and accountable governments. Decades of bitter experience have shown them that unrepresentative governments are often willing to accept - or at the very least are unable to resist - subordination to Western, and particularly American, political and economic diktats.....
Defining democracy
This kind of misreading of the situation derives not from facts but from an Orientalist attitude that has long dominated American thinking and large sections of the American media.....
But, it is, in fact, this thinking that is utterly undemocratic. If we assume that democratic values are universal values and move away from a Western ethno-centric interpretation, we will find that the rejection of occupation is totally consistent with ideas of freedom and human dignity – two supposedly integral components of democratic thought.
Just as rejecting racial discrimination asserts a belief in freedom, so does the refusal to simply accept the Israeli and American occupations of Arab lands and subordination of Arab people.
So unless Obama is talking about ending the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, why would he imagine that the Arab revolutionaries who rose against their oppressors would be natural allies of the US?......
Those in Washington and Tel Aviv who have sought to minimise the role of the Palestinian cause in Arab politics, would be well advised to read an article by the famous Egyptian blogger and activist Hossam el-Hamalawy in the Guardian, in which he argues that it was the demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada in 2000 and the 2003 protests against the US war in Iraq that served as the precursors of the Egyptian revolution.
The delusion that movements against the injustice of dictatorship and the injustice of occupation will somehow contradict each other reflects a grave misinterpretation of the sentiments of the Arab masses - unless, of course, Obama is simply hoping to use this flawed reasoning to justify the continuation of equally flawed policies in the region."
Al-Jazeera
"Barack Obama, the US president, has still not fully grasped the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world. He genuinely seems to believe that the people rallying for democracy in the region are making a pro-Western, if not pro-Israeli, statement.....
But to say that these forces could be natural allies of Israel and the West is to take a huge leap into a highly inaccurate assessment of the situation. The US president is misreading the message of the protesting Arab masses.
Rewriting history
From Tunisia to Egypt to Bahrain, and in many places in between, protesters have been calling for free and accountable governments. Decades of bitter experience have shown them that unrepresentative governments are often willing to accept - or at the very least are unable to resist - subordination to Western, and particularly American, political and economic diktats.....
Defining democracy
This kind of misreading of the situation derives not from facts but from an Orientalist attitude that has long dominated American thinking and large sections of the American media.....
But, it is, in fact, this thinking that is utterly undemocratic. If we assume that democratic values are universal values and move away from a Western ethno-centric interpretation, we will find that the rejection of occupation is totally consistent with ideas of freedom and human dignity – two supposedly integral components of democratic thought.
Just as rejecting racial discrimination asserts a belief in freedom, so does the refusal to simply accept the Israeli and American occupations of Arab lands and subordination of Arab people.
So unless Obama is talking about ending the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, why would he imagine that the Arab revolutionaries who rose against their oppressors would be natural allies of the US?......
Those in Washington and Tel Aviv who have sought to minimise the role of the Palestinian cause in Arab politics, would be well advised to read an article by the famous Egyptian blogger and activist Hossam el-Hamalawy in the Guardian, in which he argues that it was the demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada in 2000 and the 2003 protests against the US war in Iraq that served as the precursors of the Egyptian revolution.
The delusion that movements against the injustice of dictatorship and the injustice of occupation will somehow contradict each other reflects a grave misinterpretation of the sentiments of the Arab masses - unless, of course, Obama is simply hoping to use this flawed reasoning to justify the continuation of equally flawed policies in the region."
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