Uri Avnery
19.12.09
Oybama
THIS WEEK I enjoyed an hour of happiness.
I was on my way home, after collecting William Polk's new book about Iran. I
admire the wisdom of this former State Department official.
I was walking on the seaside promenade, when I was seized by a desire to go
down to the seashore. I sat down on a chair on the sand, sipped a coffee and
smoked an Arab water-pipe, the only smoke I allow myself from time to time.
A ray of the mild winter sun painted a golden path on the water, and a lone
surfer rode on the white foam of the waves.
The shore was almost deserted. A stranger waved at me from afar. Some
passing youngsters from abroad asked to try my pipe. From time to time my
gaze wandered to far-away Jaffa jutting out into the sea, a beautiful sight.
FOR A moment I was in a world that was all good, far from the depressing
items that were prominent in the morning paper. And then I remembered that I
had felt the same way many-many years ago.
It was 68 years ago, in exactly the same spot. It was also a pleasant winter
day, facing a stormy sea. I was on sick leave, after a severe attack of
typhoid fever. I was sitting on a deck chair, warming myself under the
gentle winter sun. I felt my strength coming back to me after the
debilitating disease, I forgot the far-away World War. I was 18 years old
and the world was perfect.
I remember the book I was reading: Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West",
a forbidding tome that painted an entirely new picture of world history.
Instead of the then accepted landscape in which a straight line of progress
led from ancient times to the Middle Ages, and from there to the modern era,
Spengler painted a landscape of mountain chains, in which one civilization
follows another, each one being born, growing up, getting old and dying,
much like a human being.
I was sitting and reading, actually feeling my horizons widen. Every so
often I laid down the volume, in order to absorb the new insights. Then,
too, I looked towards Jaffa, at that time still an Arab town.
Spengler asserted that every civilization lives for about a thousand years,
creating in the end a world Empire, and that thereafter a new civilization
takes its place. In his view, Western civilization was about to create a
German world empire (Spengler was German, of course) after which the next
civilization would be Russian. He was right and he was wrong: A world empire
was about to be born, but it was American, and the next civilization will
probably be Chinese.
MEANWHILE AMERICA is ruling the world, and that leads us, naturally, to
Barack Obama.
I listened to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. My first impression was
that it was almost impertinent: to come to a peace ceremony and there to
justify war. But when I read it for the second and then a third time, I
found some undeniable truths. I, too, believe that there are limits to
non-violence. No non-violence would have stopped Hitler. The trouble is that
this insight serves very often as a pretext for aggression. Everyone who
starts a stupid war – a war that is just not going to solve the problem that
caused it – or a war for an ignoble aim, pretends that there is no
alternative.
Obama tries to stick the "no alternative" label onto the Afghan war – a
cruel, superfluous and stupid war if ever there was one, very much like our
own last three military adventures.
Obama's observations deserve reflection. They invite, and indeed demand,
debate. But it was odd to hear them on the occasion of the award of a peace
prize. It would have more proper to voice them at West Point, where he spoke
a week earlier.
(A German humorist mentioned that Alfred Nobel, who instituted the prize,
had invented dynamite. "That's the right order of things'" he said, "first
you blow everything up and then you make peace.")
I WOULD have expected Obama to use his speech to present a real world-wide
vision, instead of sad reflections on human nature and the inevitability of
war. As the President of the United States, on such a festive occasion, with
all of humanity listening, he should have underlined the necessity for the
new world order that must come into being in the course of the 21st century.
The swine flu provides an example of how a fatal phenomenon can spread all
over the globe within days. Icebergs that melt at the North Pole cause
Indian Ocean islands to be submerged. The crash of the housing market in
Chicago causes hundreds of thousands of children in Africa to die of hunger.
The lines I am writing at this moment will reach Honolulu and Japan within
minutes.
The planet has become one entity – from the political, economic, military,
environmental, communication and medical points of view. A leader who is
also a philosopher should outline ways to create a binding world order, an
order that will consign wars as a means of solving problems to the past,
abolish tyrannical regimes in every country and pave the road to a world
without hunger and epidemics. Not tomorrow, for sure, not in our generation,
but as an aim to strive for, directing our endeavors..
Obama must surely be thinking about this. But he represents a country that
obstructs so many important aspects of a binding world order. It is natural
for a world empire to object to a world order that would limit its powers
and transfer them to world institutions. That's why the US opposes the world
court and impedes the world-wide effort for saving the planet and the
elimination of all nuclear arms. That's why it objects to real world
governance to replace the UN, which has almost become an instrument of US
policy. That's why he praises NATO, a military arm of the US, and obstructs
the arising of a really effective international force.
The Norwegian decision to award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize bordered on the
ridiculous. In his Oslo speech, Obama made no effort to provide, post
factum, a plausible justification for this decision. After all, it is not a
prize designed for philosophers but for activists, not for words but for
deeds.
WHEN HE was elected as president, we were ready for some disappointment. We
knew that no politician could really be as perfect as Obama the candidate
looked and sounded. But the disappointment is much greater and much more
painful than anticipated.
It covers practically all possible areas. He has not yet left Iraq, but
plunged with both feet deeper into the Afghan quagmire – a war that
threatens to be longer and more stupid than even the Vietnam War. Anyone who
looks for some sense in this war will search in vain. It cannot be won,
indeed it is not clear what would constitute victory in this context. It is
being fought against the wrong enemy – the Afghan people, instead of the
al-Qaeda organization. Rather like burning a house down to rid it of mice.
He promised to close Guantanamo and the other torture camps – yet they are
still in business.
He promised salvation to the masses of the unemployed in his country, but
poured money into the pockets of the Fat Cats who are as predatory and
gluttonous as ever.
His contribution to the solution of the climate crisis is mainly verbal, as
is his commitment to the destruction of weapons of mass destruction.
True, the rhetoric has changed. The sanctimonious arrogance of the Bush days
has been replaced by a more reconciliatory style and the appearance of a
search for fair agreement. This should be duly appreciated. But not unduly.
AS AN Israeli, I am naturally interested in his attitude to our conflict.
When he was elected, he aroused great, even exaggerated hopes. As the
Haaretz columnist Aluf Ben put it this week: "He was considered a cross
between the prophet Isaiah, Mother Theresa and Uri Avnery." I am flattered
to find myself in such exalted company, but I must agree: the disappointment
matched the hopes.
In all the long Oslo speech, Obama devoted 16 whole words to us: "We see it
in Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden."
Well, first of all, it is not a conflict between Arabs and Jews. It is
between Palestinians and Israelis. That is an important difference: when one
wants to solve a problem, one must first have a clear picture of it.
More importantly: This is the remark of a bystander. A viewer sitting in his
armchair and looking at the TV screen. A theater critic reviewing a
performance. Should the President of the United States look at the conflict
like this?
If the conflict is indeed hardening, the US, and Obama personally, must
carry much of the blame. His folding on the settlement issue and his
total surrender to the pro-Israel lobby in the US has encouraged our
government to believe that it can do anything it likes.
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.
***
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/18-9
Voters Reject Health Care Mandate Without Public Option,
Medicare Buy-In
by Rachel Weiner
Huffington Post : December 18, 2009
A new poll suggests that voters are not pleased by the idea of health
insurance mandates without a public option or a Medicare expansion.
Conducted by Research 2000 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee
(PCCC), the survey finds only 33 percent of likely voters favor a health
care bill that does not include a public health insurance option and does
not expand Medicare, but does require all Americans to get health insurance.
Slightly more Democrats -- 37 percent -- favor the idea, while only 30
percent of Republicans and 31 percent of independents do.
Meanwhile, if the public option and Medicare buy-in are added, 58 percent of
people support the idea. The number of Republican supporters drops to 22
percent, but independent support rises to 57 percent and Democratic support
to a whopping 88 percent.
"This poll shows voters in full-blown revolt against the Senate bill," said
PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor. "Only one-third of voters support mandates
without a public option, while nearly two-thirds want the public option and
Medicare expansion. This will be a disaster of epic proportions for
Democrats in 2010 if it's not fixed -- fast."
Another recent poll commissioned by the PCCC found that one third of
Democrats are less likely to vote in 2010 if the health care bill does not
contain a public option.
© 2009 Huffington Post
***
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