Obama (or Netanyahu) as modern Moses!

[IndianaGreen]

Obama (or Netanyahu) as modern Moses!

By Marwan Bishara
in Imperium on March 22nd, 2010

For two decades, progress and regress in the peace process was measured by balancing out the two approaches. When the gap is substantial as it has been over the last year, paralysis or a fallout can be expected.

In 1991, the Bush administration refused to back down, and its confrontation with Israel - over the same settlement issue - paved the way for convening the Madrid International peace conference.

The urgency is far higher today. Unlike Bush Sr, who presided over a US victorious in the Cold War and the war against Iraq, President Obama presides over major foreign-policy crises as he tries to finish a war in Iraq and escalate another in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Moreover, the deterioration in the occupied territories is creating a credibility problem for the Obama administration as it tries to rally Arab support against Tehran and radical fundamentalist groups.

However, as long as Likud and Labor are governing together and in coalition with the two most radical Israeli parties, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, US pressure will fail to lead to concrete concessions.

As in 1992, US will save face only when a new less extremist Israeli government comes into being. But would that resolve the Palestinian questions?

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium/2010/03/22/obama-or-netanyahu-modern-moses

[Joey Kidd]

1. Well...

Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years so I'm not holding my breath for a solution over there in my lifetime.

[IndianaGreen]

2. It's been 43 years since the June 1967 war.

Time's up!

BTW, I don't take literally the 40 years of wondering in the desert. Israelites weren't lost! It was a literary device denoting the importance of having no one alive that lived through the exodus stepping forward and challenging the official party line of what really happened.