US media praised Obama's speech for "challenging" Israel, but in reality, it is being rewarded for ignoring his demands.
Richard Falk
Al-Jazeera
"On Sunday May 22, 2011, President Barack Obama spoke at an AIPAC Conference, three days after giving his pro-Israeli speech at the State Department on his broader Middle East foreign policy. It was a shockingly partisan speech to the extremist lobbying group that has the entire US Congress in an unprecedented headlock that has become the envy of even the National Rifle Association.
Of course, it is all about the presidential election in 2012, and the importance of Jewish electoral and funding support, but nevertheless it is such a blatant exercise of bad faith on the president's part as to be worth noting. What is worse, the mainstream media typically misconstrued the event in a manner that compounds the outrage of the speech itself....
Not a word of challenge is uttered by Obama toward the AIPAC audience on the issues of settlements, Jerusalem, or refugees.
Not a word about the Palestinian ordeal, or diminished horizons of possibility, and no plan to talk before a Palestinian audience.
After such a speech the only responsible response is for the Palestinian leadership to conclude, however belatedly, that it is no longer possible to look to Washington for guidance in reaching a peaceful, just, and sustainable resolution of the conflict.
Indeed, to accept such a Washington framing of peace at this point, in light of this Obama-Netanyahu posturing, would cast a dark shadow of incompetence and illegitimacy across the path of Palestinian diplomatic representation."
Richard Falk
Al-Jazeera
"On Sunday May 22, 2011, President Barack Obama spoke at an AIPAC Conference, three days after giving his pro-Israeli speech at the State Department on his broader Middle East foreign policy. It was a shockingly partisan speech to the extremist lobbying group that has the entire US Congress in an unprecedented headlock that has become the envy of even the National Rifle Association.
Of course, it is all about the presidential election in 2012, and the importance of Jewish electoral and funding support, but nevertheless it is such a blatant exercise of bad faith on the president's part as to be worth noting. What is worse, the mainstream media typically misconstrued the event in a manner that compounds the outrage of the speech itself....
Not a word of challenge is uttered by Obama toward the AIPAC audience on the issues of settlements, Jerusalem, or refugees.
Not a word about the Palestinian ordeal, or diminished horizons of possibility, and no plan to talk before a Palestinian audience.
After such a speech the only responsible response is for the Palestinian leadership to conclude, however belatedly, that it is no longer possible to look to Washington for guidance in reaching a peaceful, just, and sustainable resolution of the conflict.
Indeed, to accept such a Washington framing of peace at this point, in light of this Obama-Netanyahu posturing, would cast a dark shadow of incompetence and illegitimacy across the path of Palestinian diplomatic representation."
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