Opinion: The Gaza assault targets Barack Hussein Obama, not pitiful Hamas rocketeers

[Sensitivity]

Whether our President Elect likes it or not, Israel has found a way to sully his inauguration and hobble his widely anticipated diplomatic initiative to the Muslim world. Abu Hussein’s invitation to Damascus has been canceled.

In the early days of the Obama candidacy, with Brzezinski as an adviser, the 'pro-Israel' neo-con crowd argued that an Obama presidency would be a mortal threat to Israeli security. Obama did his best to prove them wrong: last Feb. he criticized the Hamas rockets and he expressed support for the Israeli blockade; he spoke to AIPAC about an “undivided” Jerusalem; and, in the summer trip to Israel he announce an almost Bushian commitment to the security of Israel.

However, he took back his “undivided Jerusalem” statement and his earlier expressions of sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people left his eminent takeover of the U.S. Presidency still regarded as a grave threat to Israel.

In vain, the President-Elect surrounded himself with pro-Israel foreign policy appointments to defend himself attack on the pro-Israel flank. Israel, however, decided to take no chances and "neutralize" the perceived threat of new, more “balanced” Obama policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict with preemptive military action.

With this action Israel has:

1. Diminished and distracted from Obama’s impending inauguration as putative “President of the World.”

2. Made Obama perceived as complicit in their notably ruthless and disproportionate approach to “self-defense” against even the most minimal threats.

3. Delivered to Obama "facts on the ground" of Israeli power, control and immunity to world opinion.

4. Hobbled the planned Obama diplomatic initiative to the Muslim world.

Israel has closed the noose. Obama is trapped and the Israelis are doing to him what Jesse Jackson wanted to. They are not taking chances.

In the entire period following the 6 month truce and prior to the Israel action, 2 Israeli citizens died from Hamas rocket attacks. IMHO Hamas rockets were the pretext not the real reason for the last 9 days of massive Israeli military assault.

It is Obama, the future of U.S. military and political support, and the terms of Israel-Palestine negotiations, not the relatively impotent handful of Hamas militants, that is the real target of the new war.

[mikehiggins]

1. Oh, yeah. Another effort to lash O to the wheel of realpolitick

maneuvers. If the OP is correct then the people behind this invasion may have misjudged the incoming administration as thoroughly as the REPukes are.

I don't think "business as usual" is really O's intention. For me, I think people should be looking to Alinsky's writings and speeches rather than to the history of the last few administrations. Things might not be as they appear.

[madrchsod]

2. both the palestinians and israelis are having elections soon

it is about that not obama. the israeli `s know there will be no change in america`s dealing with israel and palestine. we will always back israels over the palestinians.

[Ken Burch]

5. There's an element of that as well.

I've always thought there should be some sort of an investigation to see if there's a backchannel connection between Hamas and Likud, since the actions of each tend always to benefit the other. Likud owes at least two electoral victories to coordinated Hamas bombing efforts during the election campaigns.

[Ken Burch]

3. IBTL. Good analysis.

Obama has to find a way of breaking free of this, or he's doomed in terms of foreign policy.

[Sensitivity]

4. Shaping U.S. foreign policy is not a big deal to Israel, it is the whole deal.

I am amazed at the naivete of those who are distracted by the "official story"

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. Obama is a pretty smart laddie.

If the anyone, regardless of whom, makes so bold as to think that they can fit him for a noose, then I would say that they have been lulled into indolence and a false sense of themselves and their abilities by the last eight years of moronitude writ very large.

But surely remember: you have no better tactical and strategic advantage than when you are underestimated.

[azurnoir]

7. Not sure they are targeting Obama

I think though that is part of why the Israeli government is in a hurry here, there is slightly more than two weeks before Obama is officially President I wonder how long they will keep up the ground operations, of course another possibility is that Bushes parting gift will to make sure IDF is well supplied before he leaves office